toasted

well today was harder than i ever imagined it would be. first of all the course was almost the exact same as the german national championship course from 2 years ago, in fact you could still read the names painted on the road. i saw zable, voigt, jan... the hill was hard. really hard. it was only a bit over 2 km, but really steep. then once at the top intead of a nice decent it went slightly down, then up a bit more, before finally going down a decent descent. after two smaller hills and the start finish it went gernerally down with a few short uphills for quite some time, but no rest since there was a strong headwind that whole time. after that it was rolling hills for another 7 or 8 km, then back up the big hill.
there was no rabobank or milram team today, but the german junior national team was there. and i heard a rumor that last years national champion was there racing too, but it could be the junior national champ. then some super fast french guy. someone said mtb world champ, but again i might have misunderstood. regaurdless some fast guys.
during the first 10 min of warm up my legs felt pretty good, but after that they got heavy really qickly.
at 12 we were off. i was able to sit in the 206 man peleton until the bottom of the hill. then the climbing legs i needed were simply not there. i think it was because of riding in the mountains hard. i managed to stay with the pack up the hill the first time. and the rest of the lap and the second lap until the bottom of the hill again. there i and lots of others got dropped and passed by the caravan of team cars present. the third lap was spent chasing the peleton with the smaller group, and we caught it right before the bottom of the hill. then of course i got launched of the back for the final time. the next 2 laps or so i either was alone (during and after hill) or with small groups that caught me on the downhill/rolling sections. on the 5th of 6 laps i was just on the verge of cramping really bad, but somehow i held it off. and a got with a few guys for most of the last lap. and again just barely avoiding catastrophic cramps made it home.
so that was my first experience racing with people who are basically pros, and all i have to say is they are really fast.
in the end it was 120 km raced in 3 hrs 25 or something like that. i think i was 20 minutes back at the end. some crazy amount of time. i ate plenty today. but i went to easy on the drinks. i had 5 bottles, but with the heat was not nearly enough.
and now my excusses for not doing better... ha.
legs tired from going hard in the mountains.
just plain tired from not sleeping well because of the heat.
the heat.
i think something is wrong with my back wheel, on the downhills when with people i would coast in drafts and loose ground. thats not right.

but despite my excusses i also just have to say im not that fast. haha. maybe someday ill be able to keep that pace. but not yet.

this was my last race in germany, for now. but wednesday i am going to try and race in switzerland again. hopefully that works out.

now it is time to sleep.

oh yeah, well done floyd.