I’m currently living in a constant state of mild fatigue. By the end of this week (Sunday 26th August), I’ll have started 10 races over the course of the past 21 days,. I’ve not finished all of them, but the incentive to get up and get around has been there. It’s always disheartening to not finish a race, but I’ve learnt to look at it as part of the bigger picture. Usually there’s a reason behind it and a lesson to be learnt from it. I’ll do a brief cover of each race, what happened, where I’m up to now and what’s in store. Monday, August 6 - The first of a series of three races. They’re individual races, but if you start all three of them, it goes towards an overall classification that puts out extra money, even more incentive. The three races were all 2 hours away with the train, so I’d be leaving home around 11, getting to the race at 1330, racing from 1500 and home by 2030 at the earliest. Monday’s race was the worst. It was scorching hot, and I managed to handle 25km before my stomach started playing up. I dropped back through the bunch, retching as I felt my lunch creeping back up from my stomach. I made it back to the start/finish before lying down and waiting for my stomach to settle as numerous people came over asking if I was okay and needed water. I’ve recently tended to have bircher muesli prior to training and racing, which has been fantastic and I’ve had no qualms with. I’m still not certain, but I have a feeling that maybe the high amount of dairy combined with the heat caused an upset in my stomach. Lesson learnt from this? Try something different pre-race. Wednesday, August 8 - With the lesson learnt from Monday’s race and the weather still warm, I changed my pre-race meal to spaghetti mixed with tomato paste. I felt significantly better in the race and handled it alright. The course had just over a kilometre of cobbles per lap, making up about 15km total, it was a bit brutal on the hands, but eventually you get used to it and learn the right line. The most important thing is never slowing down. Maintaining speed is hard, but easier in the long run, but as soon as you slow down it’s even more of a struggle to get back up to pace. In terms of my build up, I was doing these races to get speed in the legs prior to the big races I had coming up. This race wasn’t a hard race, but it was for me. After having not done any speed work for a while, the first couple of races can be brutal, playing more a mental game with yourself that you’re capable, pain is only temporary and all that. Amazing how much those positive affirmations actually help.
Friday, August 10 - The last of the series of three races, and the best course of the lot. Some nice flowing corners and good speed sections. I was feeling the best I’d felt since I’d got back into racing, still not top form, but well above where I was at on Wednesday. Not much to write about on this one, I missed the break but gave it a couple of efforts to get a chase going, but nothing stuck. Finishing in the bunch and notching up more km’s in the legs.
Sunday, August 12 - I’d planned to do this race, with a fair idea of where it was and getting there on the train, but hadn’t connected the dots in my head - I’d raced there last year and got an absolute kicking. The course is brutal, with no place of respite I knew it was going to be a tough day. I think the cumulation of racing Wednesday/Friday caught up with me, and I was starting to drift further backwards. When your condition’s not great it’s hard. When your condition’s not great and you’re also fatigued, it’s even harder. I ended up pulling out and spending the next two days recuperating. Wednesday, August 15 - A decent level of race in the French-speaking region of Belgium. I expected it to be upwards of 120km, but it only ended up being 95km. A surprise to be sure, but a pleasant one. With guys racing from the team I am doing the stagiaire with, and the staff watching, I wanted to have a good race and see how the legs were performing after the previous weeks racing. I felt amazing, the course was flowing and I couldn’t get enough of it. The break went without any of my teammates in it, so I helped pull turns at the front trying to bring it back, but to no avail. In the last few laps I gave it a couple of digs but wasn’t able to get anywhere, eventually coming in with the peloton. Similar results to the week previous, but significantly better power and feeling in the races, which is a positive.
Sunday, August 19 - I wasn’t supposed to race. I didn’t want to race. The team wanted me to race. I raced. It was a bigger domestic race, a lot of hills and something I didn’t want to do with my first big race planned for Tuesday. I begrudgingly obliged and lined up for 140km with a supposed 1700m climbing. The plan was to go in and ride in the bunch, stay comfortable and conserve myself for Tuesday. I made it 75km before the pace up one of the hills was too hot, and I let myself drift backwards. By the time I’d got back to the start I’d done 100km and 1700m climbing, the guys still racing had another 40km to do, and I think it came to around 2400m climbing. I was happy with what I’d done, thinking I’d be fresh and firing for Tuesday, but Monday morning I got an email from the team. They thought that Tuesday would not be a good race for me because of the hills (significantly less than Sunday) and that they’d put me in two big races Saturday and Sunday instead. I was a bit gutted, but I had done some digging about the course, checking Google maps and Strava showed me that the roads were all quite small, and the climb being quite a pinch on the lap, I was almost grateful not to race. Instead, I would be riding two smaller circuit races Tuesday & Thursday before a weekend of two big 185km races. Tuesday and Thursday would be the exact same 15 laps both days, a real mental challenge spending five and a half hours (234km) on the same 8km loop. Tuesday, August 21 & Thursday, August 23 - They were both ridden fairly similarly, with a break going then me suffering round in the bunch until the finish. No outstanding results, but the power had definitely come a long way from two weeks prior. I finished Tuesday and I was shattered, Thursday was very similar in terms of effort but I felt significantly better, which is a positive. In terms of numbers and how I’d progressed in two weeks, the Wednesday, August 8 race was 2 hours 30, with an average power of 275, normalised power of 314 and I was shattered. Compared to Thursday 23rd, which was 2 hours 52, average of 287, normalised of 337 and a lower average heart rate. Obviously an improvement, and more so because I felt better after finishing too. With all these smaller races behind me, it was time to get into the big races, two back-to-back UCI 1.1 races. The 1.1 is a classification of the level of race. It can be comprised of 50% world tour teams (Team Sky, Etixx-Quickstep, BMC etc.), with the rest of the field made up by pro-continental and continental teams. Both of the races didn’t have any world tour teams starting, but there were a handful of pro-continental teams there to assert their dominance. Saturday, August 25 - The race was Omloop Mandel-Leie-Schelde Meulebeke, and it seemed to go by in about the same time as it takes to say the title. My first race of this calibre and it was eye-opening. It was controlled, everyone racing seemed to belong there, everyone is capable and there’s a fair degree of politeness within the bunch. It was fast, with a 45km/h average, yet in the bunch it wasn’t too challenging. The race was made up of three 30km laps, with a further eight 12km laps. It’s amazing how fast time flies, it seemed like the big laps were over in a flash, and then the small ones also seemed to fly by. In comparison to other small races I’ve done where you’re counting the km’s until you finish, it makes a pleasant change to have a race go by so fast. A small break eventually got away with four guys, but only stuck for about 35km before being pulled back in so that it could line up for a sprint. I was just sat in the middle of the bunch and rolled in there for the finish. In terms of difficulty compared to the smaller races earlier in the week, this race was 4 hours 10, with an average of 243 W and a 285 W normalised, so not as hard, but enough to leave you buggered for the next day... Sunday, August 26th - Schaal Sels. A revisited course after the gravel and dirt epic of the past three years. The gravel and dirt race has been moved to Sunday 2nd September (possibly one of the races on my programme). So with the new parlours in place, we were lining up for 14 laps of 13.3km around one of the suburbs of Antwerp. It was another 1.1 with not many teams lining up, however the majority were professional, with 6/11 teams being pro-continental. I was one of the last to line up, sitting right at the back, which a lot of people would view as troublesome, yet I somehow ended up in a break after 2km? Not sure how that happened. We stayed away for a lap, which let me realise how tired my legs were, how crazy the course was and that it was going to be a struggle. I hung in for another 60km before being dropped. For saying it was only 13km laps, there were 26 corners and a cobbled section. I believe the organisers had sat down to plan the course and set themselves the challenge of using the maximum amount of corners. It was ambitious lining up for another 185km day, and I don’t think my body has accustomed to that yet, but it’s something I will/would have to get used to. So what’s on from now? I am racing Wednesday, another 1.1 race, Druivenkoers Overijse, 195km (hopefully) of suffering (hopefully not). After that, I’m not quite sure. I can see myself being selected for Antwerp Port Epic on Sunday, an absolutely epic race over gravel, through mud and cornfields. I’ll hopefully give another update in a couple of weeks. Until then I’ll just be racing hard and training easy. T.W.C