Final stage!

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BY: Dave Henderson

Published: 3rd March, 2012

Final Stage

 

The last 2 days have been hard. Actually the last 5 days have been hard. Not just the racing but the whole routine. Up 0630, breakfast, load the van, drive, get mentally prepared, warm up, line up, roll out, move towards the front, stay focused to maintain position in the "neutralised" section, BOOM, race is on, concentrate, don't waste energy but don't loose position either, find Gareth so we are together if a move goes or to avoid a split. Then its time to settle into a long hard race.

After the race we try and eat and drink something, get cleaned up, drive back to Montoro, unload the van, wash bikes, bottles and kit, have a meal, lie down for an hour, get up and have dinner, pack for next day, do bottles for next day, work out logistics for tomorrow, bed.

However that doesn`t matter anymore; its the final push. Knowing it is the final day gives us a wee lift and we are hungry to achieve our aim of a top 10. We are only 1 minute down on 10^th and 4.5 minutes on 9^th. Only 60km to go, the last 12km being mostly down hill. This is what I tell myself for the whole day as each hill seems to punish me further. The cooler conditions helped today and we were able to make time on the descents. We had hoped to top our best stage result today but in the end we had to settle for 12^th. This secured our 10^th place overall which was the real aim. We later found out we were only 13 seconds down on 9^th! If only we had known...