Saturday, March 14, 2009

 

Matts Blog - Jan - March 09 !








Time for racing


I say its time for racing but I’m actually already 1 month into my year! Seven months and counting so I better get stuck in.

So what have I been up too the last few months?
I finished my last race last year and had a break from my bike for 2 weeks. I spent this time doing “Normal” peoples stuff and trying not to get fat! I soon got bored of doing nothing and started thinking about 2009. After a few weeks of negotiations I managed to secure a contract with my new team An-Post – Sean Kelly . The first thing on my mind was getting back in the gym and getting these legs fixed up. I did 2 months of gym sessions with a bit of bike riding too keep the weight down and was well on my way to being fixed.










Rambo

Mid way though December we headed out to Guadamar in the South of Spain for our first team get together. “A bit of a get together with a few spins” is what I was told to expect. This was good for me at this time of the year, however Nico and a few of the boys had other ideas! To cut a long story short we ended up doing an 8 day camp of 4-5hrs every day with no signs of “a few spins”. I came back from the camp pretty tired but pleased to have got a good block of training in. Next was a bit of a rest and then back into a 10 day block of long riding over Xmas.





Snow Joke

January arrived and the weather in “sunny Belgium” turned. We were gifted with a 15 day long spout of minus temperatures. For 15 days the thermometer didn’t rise above -5. This was all well and good for a few days, I found that I could only train for a maximum of 3 hrs without feeling totally worn out. So I would set of training with 28 layers of clothes and 15 pairs of gloves and ride for 2-3 hours before stopping at a nice warm café. I found a nice café in Hoegaarden (where the beer is made) they had a roaring hot fire and did great coffee and pancakes. So that was me for the week, 2.5hrs then coffee, pancakes, warm up a little, a little more coffee and then another 2.5 hours! It wasn’t ideal but I was getting the hours in and eating pancakes so I was happy.
The fun soon ended when the inevitable happened. It snowed, and it snowed hard. I was stuck on the turbo for a week or so and was soon starting to crack.
Lucky for us season was fast approaching and we were off again with the team on our second training camp to Calpe.
We were there for 10 days and we were blessed with the weather. The evening we arrived it was raining and windy and the morning we left was the same, it just so happened that in the middle of this the weather was perfect for bike riding, light winds and between 15-18 degrees!
The 10 days consisted of the usual long rides and base training with 3-4 hill efforts each day. We took a rest day mid camp and had some press duties to get out of the way. Apart from that it was a pretty solid and uneventful camp really.





Race time

After a few days steady at home I was on the TGV and off to Marseille for the season opener GP Marseille. I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s just say it wasn’t a good day for me. The weather was bad, so the whole race was full gas, sprinting up the climbs, sprinting out of hairpins on descents and crosswinds on the flats. No Fun. After 80ks and 2 mountains I was down and out!
2 days later and we were on the start line at the Etoille Besseges, a 5 day race in the south of France.
Again it wasn’t a particularly great race for me. A few tough days in the hills, but I got through it and came out of it satisfied and not dead!





Algarve

Next on the teams agenda was the Vuelta Algarve in the south of Portugal. I had had some problems again with my back, my Psoas muscle (the one that joins from the top of your hip to the bottom of your spine) was still pretty weak after 3 months of doing nothing last year so it needed some work. We decided it was better for me not to race but to train instead, I travelled to Algarve with the boys but got stuck into my own Physio and training programme. Good weather, good training. Faultless.

“Proper racing”

Back to Belgium and time for some proper bike racing! Spain, France, Portugal. They were all nice but we all know where it’s at! 1st of March and the fun Begins! Kuurne Brussels Kuurne. Kuurne is one of the early season openers and apart from the Ronde, it doesn’t get much bigger out here in Belgium. I was nervous to be here but also excited. My preparation had been good, training had gone well, I had eaten well, lived in my compression stuff so I had nothing to be scared off. Team orders for me were to try everything to get into the early break. My race was the first 50km full gas. I started at the front and didn’t drift back for the first hr, I was determined to get up there. However, nothing went. We had covered over 50kms in the first hr and people were starting to think about the hills. The pace hotted up and a few crashes later we were at the first hill. It was in these few ks I made my mistake. In races like these the race doesn’t happen up the hills it happens the 5ks before the hills. I was mid bunch, climbing well but just too far back. I found myself in no mans land in between the break and the 2nd group. I made a last ditch kamikaze effort to get across but soon realised it wasn’t going to happen. My director had other ideas. After a few groups caught us up we were ordered to the front and told to ride full gas. So 80kms later we were at the finish, well and truly spent. So what did I make of my first semi classic? To be totally honest I loved it. Although the end result didn’t look good from the outside, I was really pleased with how I felt today. I really think this is a race I can do well in one day!

Posing & the Soens

Next on the agenda was a trip back to the UK. I had a Photo shoot to do at Max Gear for some of there new advertising. Luckily my family live just down the road so I was able to fit it in quite nice and also I got to ride a bike race for good measure. After a few hours of piss taking and posing in head to toe Lycra and I was thinking about the race. While I was back I was going to ride the Soens in Liverpool. It’s a race that I always wanted to win, since I was a kid. I remember myself and Cav every year when we were kids. We had a master plan to use our handicap advantage early on and lap the field. It never worked. Anyway, I was here with good form, a lot of racing in my legs so I thought I’d give it a bash. The legs were good, I followed a little move mid race and ended up in a good group about 1 min up. The finish was closing in and I realised that I had a good chance of winning. We had only a few laps left, were 1 min up and I hadn’t actually pushed on the pedals yet. I was just planning my master attack when I punctured! 4 laps to go. Race over. I tried a frantic chase but it was to no avail. I was pretty disappointed to say the least so I took my anger out on the bike and did a few hours after the race.

Home time

So I’m sat here in the airport waiting to go “home” and thinking about my next races. My legs feel good, I wouldn’t say I have good form but I have good condition and all I want to do is race!
So hopefully next month ill have some races and results to write about!

Schedule March 09


15-03
Omloop van het Waasland
1.2
18-03
Nokere Koerse
1.1
22-03
Campina Ronde van het Groene Hart
1.1
25-03
Dwars door Vlaanderen
1.1
29-03
Brabantse Pijl - La Fléche Brabanconne
1.1



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# posted by matt8195 @ Saturday, March 14, 2009

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