World Cup Round 2, Belgium

17/4/12

After 33hrs of travel, we finally arrived to our accommodation in Belgium late Tuesday night.  The journey had been truly epic; however everything had run smoothly and without any unexpected hassles.  We were to stay with our Anytime Fitness/Trek  teammates, Bec Henderson and Dan McConnell, for the week in a small country town approx. 20km out of Houffalize. So, after a weary hello and catch-up, Tuesday night consisted of a quick dinner, shower and then straight to bed!

Wednesday morning greeted us with some spring sunshine and I was keen to get out and spin the legs over.  Bec and Dan headed out to the course for some practice laps, while I did a recovery spin along the surrounding rolling hills, and Ed power-napped on the couch. The small country roads had very little traffic, and showed off some of the beautiful Belgium farmland.  As always, I managed to get a little lost but thanks to the Garmin followed my trail back home.

I was excited to finally get a taste of the race course on Thursday morning.  The weather however wasn’t in our favor and as Dan and I headed out to cut a lap, the rain started up and then some hail followed!  We sheltered under the feed-zone tent until the worst of it passed through and then continued on around the course.  I was very grateful that Dan was able show me the ins and outs of the course and how to tackle some of the tricky descents.  Houffalize is always one for the hill climbers and this year didn’t disappoint!  Along with the nasty, lung-busting climbs, there were a few tricky descents and a bumpy grass section that seemed to twist along the top of the course for quite some time.  Being such a physical course I was careful not to cut too many laps in attempt to save the legs a little for the all-important race on Sunday.

Friday was registration day which is a task you always need to allocate a fair amount of time for!  This World Cup race was no different, with a total of 2.5hrs lining up, filling in the paperwork and then collecting a race number.  You would think that UCI could come up with a better system! Lucky for me, Ed did the lining up, while I was able to sneak out for a recovery ride out the other side of Houffalize.  We then got to test out the Belgium coffee while we caught up with some fellow Australian riders, Row Fry and Lachy Norris, in the centre of Houffalize.  I think I must spoilt in Melbourne with all the good coffee around as this is one thing that never seems to meet expectation when traveling.

Saturday morning I punched out one last practice lap to make sure I had made the right tyre choice and had my lines dialed for race day.  The course had certainly dried out since Thursday and had become quite fast. Also at the top of the first climb, a “B” line had been added in which actually worked out to be similar time to the “A” line without nearly as much effort.  I made sure to consume plenty of Torq Recovery while riding back to our accommodation and then it was “legs up” for the rest of the day.

Anytime team mate, Bec Henderson, raced the U23 event on the Saturday morning and had an absolute blinder, with a 3^rd place.  Bec has been progressing very rapidly on the National circuit over the last few years and was the one to really challenge me throughout the domestic season this year.  It’s fantastic to see her hard work paying off and I’m excited to seeing what she is truly capable of over the coming years.

Saturday night, I made sure to load on plenty of carbs and then went to bed early, in attempt to get a full night’s sleep. I had probably underestimated the effects of jet-lag leading into this race, and had actually been struggling to get a full 8hrs all week.

After my 6^th night of broken sleep, Sunday morning came around soon enough.  I made sure to have my pre-race meal of porridge a good 3hrs prior, to be sure the stomach was clear.  We headed to the course quite early to make sure we got a parking spot. The crowds that build up for these World Cup races are 10 times as big as any Australian race pulls, so plans to get in and out of the race venue have to be though through!  Some-how we managed get poll position in front of UCI, which meant free Wifi….bonus since I had been struggling all week to get a connection! 90min out from race-start, I had my pre-race coffee and then headed out for a warm up.  It took a good 10min just to make my way through the crowds and out the other side of the race village to some clear road.  Luckily I had allowed a good 40min for warm up, before having to wait in the holding-pens.  The temperature so far hadn’t lifted above 3 degrees and with 4 layers of clothes on; I still couldn’t seem to raise a sweat! 15min before start we were required to wait inside the barriers in starting order.  It would definitely have been an advantage here to have a wind-trainer handy to keep the body core temp up and the legs ticking over. Most of us weren’t so lucky though, and resorted to jogging up and down on the spot. After 10min of waiting here, we were finally called up to the start line. I had number 60 number plate for this race, which was well toward the back in a field of 91 riders.  The plan was to consistently make passes throughout and get my way into the top 40, to at least try grabbing some world cup points for better start position.

The race finally started at 11.30 on the dot (they are very precise with start times in Europe!)  I totally missed my pedal in the first few meters and was immediately swamped by riders from behind.  The track went along the road for 100m or so and then headed straight up into a very steep climb.  Of course the chaos of the start meant that from about 15^th place down to 90^th, we were all off our bikes and running the first climb.  Certainly not the way you want to start a MTB race, but unfortunately this is pretty standard for a World Cup when you are starting from near the back.  From the top of the climb, I knew I was in for a tough day as the legs just didn’t seem to want to fire up.  I think actually that the cold weather was affecting me more than I’d expected. My hands were literally too cold to get the drink bottle out of the bottle cage and I resorted to just Torq gels to get me through. I don’t think my position changed much from start to finish as I could only seem to just go through the motions of riding around. I contemplated pulling out when I started cramping, no doubt due to dehydration from not being able to drink, however I pushed on to finish up 64^th.

So, not really the result I was after, however I guess the race proved to be a good training day and another valuable experience.  The next 2 weekends will involve 2 Category 1 races in Germany that will no doubt attract some of the best Euro MTbikers.  Then I will finish off with Round 3 and 4 of the World Cup Series in Czech and France, when I plan to hit some peak form.

Thanks so much to the ongoing support from my sponsors Anytime Fitness / Trek MTB team, Momentum Energy and Adidas.