racing over
Hey hey…. Just going to apoligise for the lack of updates lately to those who have been waiting to find out what is going on. Well I do have explanations which I will go into in this update. They aren’t very good excuses but its better then having none. ha ha
The biggest reason for the lack of updates was the prep for the world champs. A lot of the races I was doing leading up to the world champs involved training in the morning before the race therefor making me tired and the result in the races not too good. After the training or racing each day I just wanted to blob out and sending emails about not much wasn’t really high on my “to do” list. I hope you guys will forgive me.
The Build up to worlds went well, I was coming up to them with good form. For me it was a big change comparing to last year and the year before. I will tell you like I have told a lot of people… “the previous two world championships for me were a waste of time”, and for those who were reading my updates back then would probably agree. What happened then was, I had done a wee bit too much racing and I was starting to get tired. I knew it, but being selected for worlds I wasn’t allowing myself to recover. I wasn’t racing good and with worlds coming up I thought I should do more to get better rather then doing less. It just made me worse. It was a serious lesson I had to learn from.
This year however I had learnt my lesson and had got things right, my form was good and I was looking forward to having a enjoyable world championships. The week before I done a race with the professionals with the intention of doing 120km or so and pulling out. Just to keep the speed but not to make myself tired. Well I got to 120km and was feeling good so I thought I would do another lap. Then I thought I will do another lap again because I still wasn’t feeling tired. Well I got to the last lap and realised the race was finished in 15km, so I made my way to the front of the peloton as it was going to be a bunch sprint. The thoughts running through my head were, “Ok Clinton worlds are next week, if it get too dodgy up here get out of there because you cant afford to crash now”. Well with 300m to go I managed to push my way into the Rabobank leadout train. With 200m to go I was 5th wheel thinking “I may actually be able to win this race”. 150m to go the sprint was underway. There was 4 of us spread across the front in real contention of winning when a heard a loud crack from my front wheel, followed by a strange grinding noise. In the split second it took me to realise it wasn’t going to cause me to crash I was swamped buy a dozen or so riders. I just rolled in finishing 16th but man I was pissed. I think I broke my front axle but I’m not sure. This race just proved to me that this could be a good world champs for me.
We arrived at worlds in Switzerland and I had heard all kinds of stories about the course. I had heard it was next level hard and that is why Julian Dean and Greg Henderson didn’t want to race. But on the other hand Tom Boonen thought he could win and they are all sprinters. So really I had no idea what to expect. We rode the course that day and guess what it was hard! I wasn’t going to say it was the hardest world champs I have been to but I knew it wasn’t the easiest either. With my current form I thought I should at least survive. It consisted of a 13.8km lap with 2 climbs per lap. The first climb being 1.5km long with the last 800m at 12% (steep). The second was 2km long with pinches of 10% but no real decent after. The longest time for recovery was from the top of the first climb to the bottom of the second climb but that period was only about 5-10mins long. The rest of the lap was just hanging on.
Well…I was wrong about being able to survive…. It was the hardest race I had ever done in my life. So hard in fact that only 60 or so riders finished the race out of the 170 that started. But it wasn’t that we pulled out willingly, we got pulled out once you were far enough behind. And guess what… the only riders that were left contesting the race were all climbers. Or riders that could climb. I was disappointed being the 3rd out of three U23 world Championships I haven’t finished. But on the other hand I didn’t feel to bad about this one because looking at the other races (the pro men and women) they all turned out the same way.
Anyway just to finish this email off, you wont be hearing much from me for a while as my season has come to a close and I am taking a month or so off the bike. At the moment I am just waiting till the 16th to come home as to change my flights were too expensive. You should begin hearing from me again beginning to mid November when I begin preparing for 2010 season.
Hope you have enjoyed following my season and thank you to those who have supported me this year.
Until my new season begins Peace out.
Clinton
P.s I should learn that if I send a lot of short updates you enjoy reading them more then one that is too long. Opps, Thats my Bad.
