Hi there,
Last year I wrote a series of blogs about my trip to Italy for the World Championships. In December I wrote another blog but never published it because the start of this year was so chaotic. Initially I thought of leaving it and not publishing it, but I have decided to put it out there and hopefully it wets our appetites for my trip next month. If you haven't yet, I highly recommend that you read the other blogs of our time in Italy before you read this one. Enjoy!
Waking up the next morning I was still pleased with my race the previous day. Even though I did not make the podium and finished about twelve minutes behind the third place finisher, I could not be upset with my performance because I had set a new personal best with regards to my average speed. Considering I was racing two days in a row, and if I combined the distances of the two races I would be racing more than 40km, I was grateful that we could have another relaxed morning due to the fact that I was only racing in the afternoon. The downside of that was that I would be racing in the heat of the afternoon. During the race I saw that the mercury rose to at least 36 degrees!
When we arrived at the square where everything was happening we just happened to be in time for the medal presentations for the morning races and we were pleased to be able to support Pieter as he received his second silver medal of the Championships and pushed South Africa’s medal tally to two. Staying cool proved to be very difficult and apart from going to the food tent to get lunch, Anet and I just stayed around the tent or wherever was coolest.
Soon it was time to start getting ready to race. In the road race there are two main differences: firstly we are not allowed to have our support riders cycling with us which meant that Anet could not follow me. Secondly, several riders from one or two classes start at the same time. Anet took me to the starting line and stayed with me as we waited for the start. I was extremely nervous and dare I say scared as we waited to start. Never in my five years had I lined up with so many trikes! For someone who trains and competes in South Africa in relative isolation, sitting in a bunch of about twenty to thirty trikes was almost enough to make me turn around right there. But I couldn’t! This is why I had come to Europe, not to win (yet) but to get experience in racing with other trikes!
First to set off were the two men trike classes after which the two female trike classes were told to roll up to the start. Somehow I feel more in control when I am in the last row so I was grateful to be positioned exactly where I wanted to be. Being mindful of my difficulties with my starts and the fact that I am relatively slow compared to my competitors I planned to start carefully and then to race my own race and if possible to find myself racing the Czechoslovakian again.
As the gun went off I was glad that I got going without any problems and set about building my pace as quickly as I could. In previous road races the group pulled away from me in the first few meters and I was left dangling off the back racing alone. So you can imagine my surprise when I noticed that I wasn’t only not by myself with the pack pulling away from me, but I was with two other riders! For the first 200 – 400 meters, maybe more, (hard to judge while racing) I was racing one of the Russians. I think we swopped positions three times before she pulled away from me and I settled into fourth position. I was ecstatic that I had not only had a good start but I had been in a position to challenge the other riders for the third position however short my challenge was! My joy was short lived as just down the road I passed a male rider from Australia that had come off his trike and was getting attention from the paramedics. It was a stark reminder that I had to keep focused because one mistake could result in an accident and injury. There was one other question that I had in the back of my mind – how far behind me was Karolina, the Czechoslovakian?
For the rest of the race I was racing myself in a sense. I didn’t want to allow myself to slow down because I had no idea how far behind me the Czechoslovakian rider was and I didn’t want to allow her to catch up or pass me so I just kept pushing. Then on the second lap I found that I wasn’t alone anymore. I was just past the area where the male rider had had his accident when the ambulance came up behind me. I immediately thought it was trying to pass me to get to another rider, and so I tried to pull off the road as we negotiated our way through the narrow streets. I eventually got a bit irritated at the driver as he/she wouldn’t pass me, after I tried to create room a few times. After a few attempts of broken English and hand signals I discovered that the ambulance was just following me and didn’t want to get through. Once I established that they were just following me I was actually quite relieved to have someone behind me again just for safety. However, it wasn’t long before the ambulance was coming closer and closer and I thought now they had grown tired of me and were going to check on the other riders. I once again pulled to one side (now we were on wider roads) only to find the one paramedic hanging half out the window, spraying me with cold water. By now I was very hot so I moved closer to get my very own mobile shower. They continued to try to keep me cool for most of my second lap. I also found that other people along the route tried to do the same. I remember one specific guy who threw water at me at the bottom of the pass, had ice cold water so cold that for a moment I thought my heart would stop! I have no idea how he had such cold water when he was out on the route and it was so hot. On the other side of the course I saw a familiar figure in her SA cycling t-shirt standing with more water that she dumped on me as I went by.
I finished the race in fourth position, having never encountered the Czechoslovakian rider on the route because she had been pulled off at the end of her first lap. I was a bit disappointed that as I was finishing the next group of riders were starting off, so I was pulled off about 100m before the line and I never got to actually cross the line but I was delighted that I had finished and had such a positive ride. I finished about 25-30min after the third place rider. It was disappointing that there was still such a big gap between myself and the others but I had so many positives to take away from this trip.
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