GP Threeland Luxembourg

Happy New Year!

Luxembourg was an epic day! The course went straight up a hill starting on pavement on a residential street, then turning into mud after a set of stairs. The course twisted up a muddy hillside, then twisty down! Due to the slippery, muddy conditions, the downhill was more technical that some Ontario mountain bike races. There were even trees padded with haybails! There was nothing flat on the course, you literally went up, then went down. Kyle was excited because the course suited him perfectly with his awesome techical ability plus being a skinny guy he can really fly up the hills. I, on the otherhand, was excited by the downhill part because I really wanted to work on my pure downhilling skills. The climb was good for me too and as it turns out I lost at least 30secs on each downhill and made up 30sec on each uphill! I was like a Yo-yo! My biggest challenge of the day was hypothermia though. It started raining with some hail right before my race and it cut into my trainer time. Despite my best efforts, I just couldn't get warm again. It was the most difficult conditions I have raced in so far. By the time I reached the end of the first lap, my body had started shutting down because of the cold. My goal quickly changed to finishing the race, I really wanted the technical training so I fought for every position but in the end I just couldn't hold off girls in the decent and finished outside the top 10. I was really happy with my fitness during the race, I was just tempoing the climb and still was making up for my sketchy decending so that is a really good sign. I have a couple of days of recovery now before the next block of really hard training begins leading up to Nommay, Hoogerheide and of course Worlds.We have 9 days off until a UCI race on the 10th. So we can relax, train, and absorb the experience of the last 2 weeks.

Neil, Kyle, and I went shopping today and guess what I bought? A craft thermal undershirt with a windstopper front, and waterproof, thermal mountain bike gloves. The Danish National Cyclocross Champion, Joachim Parbo is staying next door to us and after the race he suggested that Kyle and I should rub 'fat' all over our bodies. We think he meant 'protective oil' so I bought some of that too. Since it is 5 degrees and pouring rain here again today, I think it will come in handy. Kyle decided that he could just eat a croissant every day for the next month and do the same thing, but it wouldn't help on the climbs so much!