The finishing touches in Sint Niklaus, Belgium
The trip back across the ocean to the New World was effortless compared to the last day of racing in Belgium the day before. I have been home for just two and a half days now and I am still battling jet lag. I think it has allot to do with my reliance on a strong cup of coffee when I wake up each morning. Hitting the coffee in Belgium threw me way off. Now I wake up at 2 in the morning wanting my coffee at what would be 8 a.m in Belgium.
We raced our final race of the Euro Camp in Sint Nikclaus, Belgium around a frozen lake in front of another large crowd of fans. They got a great show as the conditions were fast and slippery. With a few off camber sections along the lake, it meant you would be taking a polar bear plunge or a “Tillford Bath” if you went down. The ground was frozen but the top layer was thawing just enough to make it like grease in every corner. I managed to stay up right the first to times by running some fat tires with super low air pressure. Actually the lowest air pressure I have ever ran at 22lbs. Later in the race though as I got tired I stacked it up 3 times on the off camber section losing spots and having to stop to fix my bike. I was to far from the pit to try to run or ride. The legs felt a little better and I was having fun, even after crashing a few times.
I did get to see on rider go out into the ice. He tried to push Danny Summerhill and instead of pushing Danny over he just propelled himself out onto the ice and through it. Somehow the rider stayed upright and rode out of the lake. I thought they were going to punch on right there in the course.
Being back in the states I have been catching up on a little bit of rest. After being completely demolished with 5 of the worlds hardest CX races in 8 days, I am worked! We are still in limbo as to who will be going to Worlds for the Elite men and won’t officially know until the 14th of January and would leave on the 21st or so. It makes it a bit tough on the old wallet booking a flight that late. Anyway, I am training as if I am going. That said it is off to San Diego for a couple of weeks. There is no riding going on here in Salt Lake right now. The snow hasn’t stopped since I got back and no one is out trianing. The best thing to do is go get some road rides in the sunshine in and some hard rides with a fast group on the weekend.
That’s just a quick update. Sorry for the delay.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 8:54 pm and is filed under Just Squawking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Kevin Watson January 6th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
San Diego sounds nice right about now. Hope you had fun and keep your fingers crossed for the Nats team, Matt.
kevin