Finished reading the article on the patron saint of cyclist on the cyclingnews site. Great story about the church that has hosted so many a Giro d'Italia and Giro di Lombardia. I then came across the picture of the statue that is outside this hillside chapel. It summed up my season so well I had to include it in my race overview from yeasterday's Championship. This season I started with some highs and ended off with more challenging lows. Call it beginners luck but my season start in the Sport Category had me thinking that this sport was easy. And thats exactly where I made the mistake, this sport is everything but easy. My first season saw me go from winning my category to suffering in the Expert category. Did I jump to quick? Its something that I couldn't and don't want to answer because I had a challenge in the last half of the the season that can only build character. The injuries in the later part of the year probably didn't help but might point to the fact I was pushing a bit too hard too early. So my season like this statue had me practising victory salutes and also grovelling asking why I was putting my body through this medievil torture.Yesterday however ended in a mediocre finish. I started the race too hot. I burned myself in all the hype of the race and trying to get a good position in the start. I blew after the first long climb and the single track swallowed me up to the back markers. I was down and out thinking that this was not the way I wanted to end my season. I kept the pedals turning and the energy levels slowly returned although I had by this stage kissed away podium chances. Then I saw one of my rivals up ahead, he became the mark. I got into a rythm that was strong enough to be catching other riders and not to fast to burn myself. I gave it stick in the hills, my strongest area, and then recovered somewhat on the technical singles track leading back down. By this stage I had made it up to sixth and all I kept in mind was that if a rider came undone I could still land somewhere near the top. No one ended bailing out but by pushing on I had a real race on my hands for fourth place who went into the penultimate lap about two hundred meters ahead of me. I clawed up the wall of a climb and was only about fifty meters behind him at the top, I could smell fourth place. I pushed on and we came down the hill almost together but that final thirty meters wouldn't come down . In the end I sprinted my heart out but missed the first loosers spot by ten meters. I was dissapointed but looking back at my season I think its a fair result and it gives me something to aim for next year.
The next week will see some easy pedalling and then the bike goes into storage for three weeks. You may have to look fowrd to sorry-lame-arse-looking-back-at-the-season posts. It might also give me a chance to get my blog looking like something a bit more personal. I hope everyone had a great season of racing and those in the southern hemisphere keep their blogs up to date to give us some much needed inspiration for the winter months.
