Sorry for the long blog... I've had time on my hands!!!
We had a 2day drive in the mini bus from London to the race involving a planned stay at Julies' house in Metz... followed by a last minute dinner at my grandparents and staying over at my Uncles' place in Pont St Espirit. The drive down was so much more relaxed than the trip to Czech, actually sleeping was a luxury!
Day one: The prologue TT was in Vallon Pont d'Arc, a place I've been so many times as a canoeist doing the Ardeche river. We rode from the accommodation to recce the course, paced by the team car to speed up the trip. Rene (following a British satnav) realised at the last minute we were about to go the wrong way up a one-way street and stopped... I didn't! Crashing 3hrs before the prologue wasn't the best race prep... but my ego took the biggest bashing - I did it in front of the busiest bar in the town... and go a loud cheer every time I rode past! Needless to say, I sucked at the TT... I can't really blame my sore arm/bruised back... I think it was my fitness.
Day two: Stage 1 road race was 114kms of fairly flat road... there was a few lumps to get over but the race averaged 44kmh - a real leg stinger! I was positioned very well at the 5k to go, but there were a few girls who seemed to value their lives less than I do so I ended up dropping back and following the line. Sadly a gap had opened in front which I didn't see so I ended up with an 11sec time gap on the leader.
Day three: Stage 2 TT was 3km around Vals les Bains - 1.5km up, 1.5km down - the decent was very fast with some hard corners to navigate... Rene asked me to take it more steady so I wasn't dead for the road race... I still tried but came in the bottom of the results. Looking at the results a bit more carefully I realised this was the hardest race of my life - Emma Pooley, Lucy Martin, Lizzie Armitstead, Julie Krasniak to name just a few amazing women riders where here... so coming in last, but not too far off, made me feel better. Stage 3 road race was in the afternoon and with a few climbs it was tough, I was dropped up the mountain climb and ended up riding with a group that didn't seem interested in riding hard so lost a lot of time on the bunch.
Day four: Stage 4 road race - 129km in 32deg heat and the first 30km was climbing. Brutal. Attacks from the gun, including our team mate Julie Krasniak who managed to get away at 20km all the way til the finish. I got dropped after about 50km, and after 80km found a motorbike pushing me to make me catch a group of girls in front - never gone so fast in my life! The final 30km was "descending" - yeah, as an average gradient but there was still climbing to be done!!!
Day five: Stage 5 road race - 120km in 34deg heat and I was dropped after 25mins, I was really suffering - looking around I was again with the girls who I'd been with the day before, and one by one they were stopping and getting off. I pushed on as long as I could but when you have the broom wagon tail gating you after just 30kms its very hard to keep pushing... I ended up being picked up and felt like crap. When the other girls finished we packed up as fast as possible - the pool would be open for 1hr of swimming if we got back in time! Diving down slides head first in my pants and t-shirt and watching 7ft tall Rene get air on the slides was just what I needed!!!
Day 6: Stage 6 road race for the rest of my team, Penny, Sarah and Julie - I joined in with handing up bottles. Watching the race it was just as hard as the other stages, especially with the miles they'd already covered and in that heat. At the finish we all jumped in the town fountain... Garmin Cervelo girls watched us front crawl around the statue...but decided to jump into the river instead.
So I had my moping around moments... felt really rubbish about my fitness and all. A hug from DS Rene, a talk with our physio Jody and soignee Gaby really brightened my world - I was racing the womens' version of the Tour de France. One of the hardest womens' races in the world. I've got a lot to work on to keep up with them girls, but I'm not a million training miles away from them. Bring on winter training... my motivation is back! :)
So now I've discovered I'm just 33 points shy of my 1st cat race licence... after 6yrs as a 2nd cat I think its time to go trophy hunting and do some local races to get it!!! Watch this space :)
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