I didn’t win, but Victoria did! Seems a little unfair to me; I race 3
Chilean races and get to know the competition, the area, the Chile-style courses, and she shows up and wins her first Chilean race. But I was glad. And proud! I can’t tell you much about her race, because I only saw her when she was coming through for her second lap, but she was smiling (she always smiles while she races) and was riding well. And she won!
I was not smiling during my race. It hurt a lot, and I didn’t race nearly as well as I would have liked. The course was fun though, and had more climbing than any of the other courses had had, but I didn’t race smart, and ended up bonking towards the end of the race. I also remember getting frustrated because I wasn’t descending well. I think that spending so much time in San Alfonso and having only dirt roads to train on really hurt my technical skills.
I ended up 9th overall and 6th in the Elite (Pro) field. I would have finished 4th in the Sub-23 (U23) but the UCI official who was there wouldn’t let me race Sub-23 because my license said “Elite” on it and didn’t specify that I was under 23. I admit that I wasn’t all that phased, because my UCI points were determined by my overall placing, I just didn’t like the UCI judge being a jerk.
But enough complaining. Lo Barnechea actually taught me quite a bit. I learned that I need to ride singletrack regularly and always need to practice my descending. I also learned that a 9-month season is a very long season. I was tired during this last race, and think it was simply from having raced 34 races in the last 9 months.
But now I’ve had my 2 week break and am beginning to base train again. And this season may be even longer!
1 comment:
Give Victoria a hug of affection and congratulations for me! Yay for her! I'm sorry to hear about you not doing as well as you would like on these last two, but it's good that you often mention things you learned from the races, and it's always awesome to hear about your adventures and the things you do succeed in, whether it's finding a house or one of your races! (of course, those of us who care about you still care no matter how you do in the races, it's just cool to be proud of you and happy for you when you do as well as you want in them.)
I meant to say this a while ago, but don't think I did - great cycling goals for next year and thank you for including us, your friends and readers, in your plans! The regular-habit ones are certainly important and reasonable, and the race ones would be awesome for you to achieve! We continue to support you from afar, Macky, and will keep doing so next year!
*thoughts of support and friendship and affection and encouragement, all neatly packaged and sent with love through the unpredictable Italian telekinetic mail system. However, these thoughts are so strong that they overpower the chaos of Italian mail, and make it to Chile anyway! Then they just have to survive Chilean mail, eh?*
Yay Macky! Yay Victoria!
PS: Happi Kurisumasu! Buon Natale e capodanno! Have a fantastic last 2 weeks of 2008! ((heart))
Post a Comment