Yeah, I was a little surprised yesterday. I knew that we had the last cx-race of this season in this weekend, but I had always seen the date on 8th of febr. So, when I opened the website for the first time on Saturday morning, it was quite a shock to see that the date was wrong, I had only 1hr to prepare and go…
Not going? Sure, that’s an option, but for me every race is a party, this is my passion, so, who says ‘no’ to a nice hour of suffering? Not me…. :)
As my scott addict cx is sold, I am back on the fastest bike of the country ;), the RAM xc race and so no troubles with bikeposition etc, only troubles with my head and legs. I have been enjoying the beautiful Hungarian winter a little bit too much, resulting in 6 consecutive days of suffering in the cold. Saturday would be my needed restday to be good on Sunday, but, ok, plans had changed so I would have to live with some headache and damn heavy legs.
At 10 o clock, I arrived in Vac and after registrations, I had time for 2 loops. Well, it seemed a nice track! Nothing difficult, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t going to be hard with 5 running-jumping sections on a 5.5min track. And to make it even worse, 2 double jumps + 1 single in 1 min!!! That would hurt! Also, the soil would slowly defrost and so it would get slippery, interesting :)
After this I went for 1hr of tourist-riding, first to see the nice center of Vac, and after that, I discovered a nice cycling-lane along the Danube. Perfect for relaxing and warming up.
11.55, time to start the action! As –again- none of my biggest opponents showed up (I guess they are in sunnier places by now enjoying their perfect life)
I decided to push myself, but, somehow that always hurts worse. When you are pushed by other racers, you don’t feel the pain, you are too concentrated on the race, but, when you have to race against yourself, the pain is there and it’s damned hard! After only 20min, I started to look at my computer and that’s never a good sign…. And so, after this another 40min of suffering followed. To slow down? Well, to me, that’s just not an option. I can go slow everyday riding around in the buda hills, but this is a race, so I will push! And so I did! Luckily, the track was great and the atmosphere too! Lots of people cheering and it was like a small party, I liked it a lot. Organizers did a great job, providing hot wine, tea, sandwiches, a heated tent to change clothes (I discovered after changing next to the car in 2degrees…), good podium with lots of nice prices etc etc.
After the 1hr, I did another scenic 40min of cooling down and so I had once again a perfect day with 3hrs of quality training!
So, cx season is over… It was short, but I have a lot of good memories! I will for sure go again in these race at the end of this year + this time also more Slovakian races and the plan is to make it with “a real cx bike”J, you will see… End? Sad? Nope, can’t be, because the end of cx means automatically the beginning of the mtb season, so, let’s keep on rollin’ :)
(Photo: MoPeGraphy/Facebook)
