Wow, 6 tough days culminating in concrete legs.
5 races in 6 days. 3 x Club Crits, 1 x Big Crit & 1 x Classic.
Coming to the end of my stint I am attempting to get in as much racing as possible before I leave. The past 6 days I may have bitten off more than I could chew. The week started off well and feeling strong but ended worn out, nothing halving the km's this week wont fix.
The season points score series is staring to heat up and therefore the numbers are picking up. For example we had 44 in A grade. (btw, B Grades record is 72
)
Dinsdag Crit #1. 60kmRaining cats and dogs, this helped because after a tough race with some sketchy cornering and multiple attacks I put the hammer down with 1.2km to go to get the bloke I was meant to be leading out a gap. He let me go, bunch hesitated and I ended up with a 12sec win!!!
Donderdag Crit #2. 60km Numbers really starting to roll in. Fine weather added to the appeal. I was 'helping' a team mate get some much needed points for the Donderdag series. I found myself in a move of 6 that stuck. Team mate missed so I 'took it easy'
till the final. Sprinted against the 5 others getting 2nd.
Zaterdag Crit #3. 60km Weird Crit because it was at 13.00 and I was also racing Big Crit at 19.30 that night so needed to do as little as possible.
This is my points score, team mate I have been helping helped me in this race for what may have been a jump from 3rd to first? Team mate set cracking pace and allowed me to sit in. Lazy, i know. Towards the end, close to the 60min mark the peloton was starting to feel tied so it didn't take many strong attacks (3) for the peloton to be blown into 3 groups. I made the first group of 5 (Warning name dropping coming up) along with Remco Broers from Rabobank Dev. Squad. He is a climber so cant really boast but I will
. Add him to Pete Wickham and you might end up with a person of average weight.
- A Solo attack went with 2km to go, team mate dragged me and Broers close enough to pounce. I did and with 200mts to go launched with Broers on my wheel but his skinny climbing legs could not get around. Caught the solo guy so got the win.
Went home to eat, eat, eat and stretch all within 1 hour before heading to Big Crit.
Zaterdag Crit #4. 80km DS rung me 40mins before i needed to leave for this Crit and told me that I had a late call up to a 150km Classic the next day. I was in a dilemma, I really wanted to do both, so i employed my life saying "regret the things you do do!"
Called on Murphs to decide and he said "Do it but dont do too much work" With out saying Murphs knows nothing but Murphs knows nothing about Dutch Crits.
It is 110% or nothing, attacking out of every corner just to hold your spot.
- plan was to TRY and get to front to get some Euro from the early primes but was relegated to last starting position due to "Trying to change classification" ? ( I lined up on the line ready to race but did not know that this Crit we were starting in number order, I was #77 so therefore was in the wrong spot)
- anyway, picked my way through bunch and 40km later I was in a respectable position so held that with the idea to improve position toward the end. I didn't really, just finished in the bunch. Not sure what position but happy with finishing.
Zondag 150km Hilly Classic. - Felt very flat today, 5 races had caught up with me. Legs felt like concrete.
- Just did not have the ability or strength to go with anything today, attacks kept going and I kept watching.
- Ended up in 4th group therefore day was over. Never mind, got to have bad days sometimes.
No Training this week, just races. (which will still give close to 550km) 5 races scheduled but might re-access come Wednesday, 160km Midweek Classic might be a bit much if i want to finish 203km classic on Sunday. We'll see.
