Ball Bags!!!!!!

Ball Bags is an apt title for this blog entry as it fully describes how my race went today. If I thought Wednesday was a school lesson today was like sitting an A Level (or if you're old, an O Level) having never studied the subject.....I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed the whole experience today, having said that however I didn't not enjoy it, it was just a brutal shock to reality as to where I have to get to if I want to make it.

The race was in a windy part of Belge and I knew that I had to be near the front of the peloton if I standed a chance of just surviving the race and achieving my target of finishing the race.....neither of the above happened however. The race started swiftly and I felt like I was going full-gas immediately and having a brain like a space cadet my mind ahd nicely wandered and before I knew it I was killing myself just to hang onto the peloton within the first 5k! Needless to say myself and a fair few others got popped out the back....as the race went on a fair amount of the peloton got popped so I'm not going to be losing any sleep over getting dropped as the race was nails just looking at it on paper. I won't lose sleep over any of the race infact but I will be giving myself a telling off for being such an air head and not getting myself sheltered in the peloton as I know when I'm in there that I have the ability to hold my own and do alright....I just have to accept that today was a brutal lesson in bicycle racing and I was racing against some of the best women pro's around, having said that I would have liked to have done slightly better.

So the race and the convoy of cars had flown me by and I was left on my own trying to catch others in front of me, I'd be lying if I said that at this point I hadn't thought about throwing the towel in, getting off my bicycle and sitting on the curb whilst crying some salty tears and thinking this was all a bit much for me....the thought certainly went through my mind but then so did all the kind and positive words I have heard from others in my life when times had got hard and what helped make me into the kind of athlete I am today. Whilst on this subject of quitting today's race I'll tell you a little story about me and the one time I have only ever quit and gave up all fight in my life....it was in my badminton days and I was training with my coach (who was a bloody good badminton player!) and he was of course demolishing me on court but making it brutally hard for me at the same time.....half-way through the game I gave up and just started hitting shuttles in the net or out the court or not even going for the next shot. Of course I was getting pissed off and so was my coach and he walked off the court and called it a day for that lesson.....and how did I feel after it all.....like Shit is how, and it was from that moment I vowed that I will never ever quit anything again in my life and I will continue to fight to the end or, like today until we were told to take our numbers off as the race was too far ahead.

I suppose the moral of that story is that I'm proud of myself today for fighting through quite possibly my lowest moment on a bike since I started and not quitting when things weren't going my way, for sure I'm dissapointed in the result but I can take pride in how I reacted and continued to ride as hard as I could until I caught up with some riders and then rode with them - one of them was a USA Pro riding for Team Tibco and long listed for the Olympics and it was good to chat with her and get an insight into the life of a pro....she wasn't out the back for the same reasons as me however, unfortunately she had a nasty crash and that was her race over.

Today has also taught me that since I've been here I've possibly not making the best use of my team and frankly I've been a bit lazy so as of tomorrow it's time to get a bit more professional in my approach and making all those little things count so that every time I go into a race I know that I have done everything possible and I can be pleased with myself whatever the outcome.

So yeah today hasn't been a great day in my cycling life however I know for a fact enduring the shit days and growing from them makes the good days and victory that much sweeter....afterall what enjoyment do you get from winning things easily, not a lot is the answer! And when I think about it, I'm new to a sport and riding against some of the best in the world!

Apologies if this blog entry seems a bit dismal, far from it, as yes I am a bit down right now, but it's nothing a bit of nutella can't fix and if anything today's hammering has fuelled the fire even more and made me really want this dream.....