Haha. I vote for a change. From now on, Jet Leg'd means rockets for thigh muscles

Okay. Sorry for the late blog post.

My last post was from the Edmonton Airport, and I probably put a bad curse on the trip when I assumed the travel plans would go smoothly... I mean what could happen.

First - Plane from E-town to Chicago got delayed due to bad weather in Chicago. When we finally got on the plane, we stayed on the ground for another hour-twenty to de-ice the wings, and add fuel, drop passengers and luggage... as I watched my wheel box get tossed around from baggage cart to cart to plane back to cart and plane again, with suitcases loaded on top. grrrr. oh well. Budda would still be chill about it... I'll be chill about it.

Then - We got to Chicago, late. We were supposed to have missed our connecting flight by almost two hours, so we were standing in line at customer service to find out our options. But for some reason our plane was displayed on the departures screens as "delayed" so I went to the gate to see if it was still there and it was. Hooooray!! at least I thought. We boarded the plane thinking we were lucky, and Im sure we were. The next flight wouldn't have been till the next day - woulda put a good crunch on travel logistics. But we got on the plane to find out it was delayed due to mechanical (great! this baby is going across the Ocean ) it had a defunct fuel pressure valve gauge thingy. Prob no big. But took bout two hours on an already 2hour late plane. Still not bad - at least our luggage had time to make it on.

The worst part - We got on the plane kinda in a hurry, cause we didn't know what was going on till we got on. Our original plan was to stock up on food and calories at the Chicago airport, but due to late arrival we didn't get a chance to. So, now we are starving and we don't get our in flight meal till we are in the air. Haha, and we got seated in the middle row and I sat beside this dude from Milwaukee. From this point on I will call him "Sigh Guy" haha. He's been to Amsterdam bout 8 times. He says he goes for a good time, and was a clear expert of the area. Probably the best - even though a good 70% of the passengers on the plane were dutch... heading back to dutchland after holidays. But Sigh Guy was better. I named him (without him knowing) Sigh Guy, because in addition to holding all the knowledge of Dutchland, he sighed at every opportunity of inflection. Even when the inflection was up! how do you even do that? and upward inflection is already usually on an exhale. WHERE DO YOU FIND THE REMAINING AIR TO SIGH WITHOUT BREATHING IN? Although his up inflections were few - he had a bit of a negative demeanor about him. But because Sigh Guy is probably a nice guy - I'll attribute this to the delayed plane. Before we got on, he was already on for almost 2hrs. Anyway, he gave me and Mangey tons of advice. My favorite advice being eating. He said the best way to get to Amsterdam and adjust, is not to eat the dinner meal on the plane. It has waaaayyyyy toooo much sodium, and you'll feel like crap. He said the best thing to do is sleep and then eat at the airport.... haha, ummmmm. We both acknowledged him really without saying anything. Cause in our minds it had been 7hrs since we ate a meal (minus pretzels) and the flight was just under another 8hrs. And sleeping on a plane is not easy. If I sleep sitting up, my jaw relaxes and I sleep with my mouth gaped and drooling all over myself. No big right? Anyway, we ate our in flight meal. Pasta. In probably 4 seconds flat. I didn't look at sigh guy while i ate it - haha, didn't want to try and explain myself. mmmm but needs more salt.

In Flight Movie - haha, It was "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants" Mangey cried like four times, and Im already exhausted from the trip, so Dangit! I almost started crying cause she was crying. I think Sigh Guys was crying too. Hey! your supposed to be sleeping.

HOOORAY. AMSTERDAM!!

We got stuck at the airport for another 2hrs waiting for a car rental. Then we got caught in Amsterdam traffic for another hour... Don't worry I'll get the map figured out. When we were finally on our way we felt like zombies. We couldn't stay awake and our Destination was a 2hr drive into the prov of Freisland. We should have been their 8hrs ago. Not too mention the time change. In Alberta everyone was getting up to start the Monday we were already well into, and there was no quality sleep to be had on the Plane. So we got a hotel halfway to our destination cause we couldn't stay awake. We both fell asleep, haha, and then got up wide awake at two in the morning. Yessssss! In a day and half I race.... Yup feeling good.



Our Bungalow is Coool. Nice - cooooozy. My gear all arrived in what seems perfect shape except for one front wheel that needs some truing attention (reflect back to the careful care the airport dudes took of my wheel box). We spent that day getting a layout of the area - getting groceries, and taking a trip up to Suirhesterveen where the race would be the next day. We went to see Tim, Brian and Andrew - and seemed to finally get settled.

RACE DAY!
A race on a Wednesday is a great idea. Its was a superprestige, which is a pretty high caliber race series. Large crowds, huge sponsors, street bands. There is no entry fee - which was cool. I was feeling good. I didn't sleep at all the night before. Jetleg. I was wide awake - But whatevs.... I don't let that really get to me, there's not alot you can do, and taking sleeping aids is not something i want to get into.

The Course
Hmmm - Honestly I wasn't super thrilled with the course. I guess I had high expectations because apparently there is no racing like euro cross racing. But the Course wasn't super full of OMG. Flat Flat Flat. REALLY MUDDY, which was cool, but most of the course relied on straight grinding power. Tim says you have to have speed. I think Tim's concept of Speed is different from mine. It wasn't fast at all. It's was all about who could push the biggest gear the best through the slowest muddiest sections. There was a Sandpit on one of the streets through the town. Im pretty sure they just unloaded a dumptruck full of it right on the side street. That was cool, but it was all ride able. IN FACT - the sand pit was one of the fastest riding sections of the course if that puts it into perspective for ya. Riding down mainstreet was pretty cool too, with all the spectators and banners and new school cobblestone. Overall the course wasn't technical at all. Just muddy and Slow. But the atmosphere was wicked. Like going to a hockey game in Alberta.

My Race
I got a front Row start which is probably the best thing anyone could ask for in CX racing. So my start was great. I was surprised at how easy it was. I was expecting some Big Sprinters for the lead, but it didn't happen. I had a perfect line into the left hand corner off the cobblestone into the mud, and a super front row sprint that sat me in the lead top 5. Still not hard. I was picking perfect lines, riding smooth, sticking with the group. It was an awesome position.

Shortly after the first lap some of the girls behind us kicked it in, and that created some attacks, and hard efforts. It was in the second lap that I recognised a particular strength in these riders from the Nederlands. They didn't seem to sprint very strongly, and their technical was a little below expectations particularly in corners. But. They could power through the deep slow mud sections like Clydesdale's on espresso. Big gears, and huge grinding pedal strokes. I could keep up at first. Bridge up before the corners, catch on. Interval the hard pack. But it wasn't enough. I didn't have the legs for that course and I felt good but my legs felt empty or sleepy. The slow power sections made up too much of the course, and i didn't have enough sections of the course to pick up speed. By the finish I dropped from 5th to 15th. I needed a couple bike changes, but I had gotten new cleats to go with my New Louis Garneau Shoes, and they worked in my XTR pedals but not my other SPD's. My old cleats worked perfect in both, so I neglected to test my cleats out on both sets of pedals until 15 minutes before the start... only to find out I only had one set of usable pedals for the race... thus only one bike. And with a course like that I really could have used the bike Change. I did lose at least 3 spots cause the pit was faster and hard packed, so girls would get a bike change just to get by the mud section faster. SMART.

Im still really happy with my result from a performance perspective. I don't feel at all out of my league, and I still finished Mid pack. Plus - I've been off racing for over a month. So it was a perfect first event to kick my jetleg'd butt into gear.

What I learned: haha, better before race gear check needed. Bike change in muddy conditions is absolutely necessary.

Other hard lesson: They have bike washes at the pit. Tim called them Jet washes, and I just thought that was a dutch to English translation mix up. But it's not. Jet is a serious description of how these generator pressure washers worked. Consider it almost blew me back onto my butt in the mud when i pulled the nozzle trigger. I started washing my bike with it, but couldn't take the thought of it pushing all that mud and water into my seals. And too paint a better pressure washer picture, I went to spray off my shoes... which were still on my feet, and I missed at first from the pressure recoil and got the skin at the bottom of my shin. I had a small scratch (3cm long cat scratch) from a bush I brushed by in the race, and the pressure stream tore it open from a small scratch to a wound. It peeled back that portion of the skin like a cheese slicer. EWWW. Fortunately I put the flap of skin back down, and it's healing surprisingly well.

So... bucket and water is still the safest for you and your bike. The laps took 10min each anyway, that's enough time to be nice to the bike. pfffft! pressure washer..... OVERRATED

BTW - Mangey did a great job as Pit Dudette. She's learning lots

My Next Race was supposed to be this weekend. But it got cancelled, so looking at options. Now that Im a little more settled, I should be able to keep yall posted better.

EUROPE IS SWEET

Peps