GP Elsy Jacobs

Today we raced in Luxembourg at GP Elsy Jacobs UCI race. There were a few less girls racing today, but still 26 teams with six riders, and the roads were a million times better than anything we have raced on so far. We started the day off, of course, with breakfast and then lunch a couple hours later. I was actually able to sleep well last night, even though my bed is hard as a rock!- funny thing though, it’s usually in a hotel where I sleep the worst. We got to the race nice and early, which was good as everything seemed to be moving at a snails pace today. The sign in was funny, the announcer had been explaining about every rider up on the stage in each team, and we were joking around how all they would say for us is “this is..team Canada” lol. We got up on stage, and that was basically it, except the announcer said “ They were 19^th in the TTT yesterday, they’re going to try and do better today”. We all burst out laughing, it was so embarrassing. It was interesting to see as well the different riders and teams there today. The big teams of course were all there, including the big names, but there weren’t many Holland teams today. They were mostly all from Italy, France, Luxembourg, Germany etc. Most teams also sent their “climbing teams”. They have select riders who are about 30 pounds lighter and specialize in climbing stages, like today. So right off the bat, I knew with the faster, fitter teams, it was going to be a crazy hard race. We pre road the beginning and the finish of the course before the race, and my skin started burning. I looked down at my hands and legs, and I had burst out in an allergic reaction. I’m not too sure what from, but my entire left leg and my arms and my left hand and my stomach were covered in hives. Everything was fine except my skin was burning, so quickly went over to our team van and they put some ointment on me and I just had to ignore it. The start line was at the top of a climb, but nice wide open roads. I was able to start near the front, and in the first 5km I was right at the front. I hope someone got a picture at some point, I was in the leading line of the group for a few minutes, I was so proud! Riding beside all the big names and teams at the front. It feels like such a small group when I’m at the front, and not looking over the sea of 150 riders from the back. There was a huge decent where we hit 70km/hr within the first 5km of the race. I had moved back a few places, but overall in the first 50kms, I wouldn’t say that I was any further back than 50^th wheel. The roads were amazing in the first 50km. (It was a 50km loop before the circuits). It was rolling hills, mostly descents with a few steep, short climbs through small towns. The roads were in perfect condition, and very winding. The loop was surrounded in mountains and it was all forest. Luxembourg is the most gorgeous place to ride that I have ever been too (maybe not Hawaii). I remember thinking in the race, wow, no wonder Andy and Frank Schleck are so fast and skinny- they got to ride up mountains in the most amazing country since they were ten! I quickly had to refocus after that! Hah! I am quite disappointed I have not seen them yet at our races- I bring my camera every day just incase J Anyways, back to the race... So the pace picked up a bit through the big loop, but everything seemed to stay together until nearing the end of the 50km loop. There were a few larger steeper climbs, but short ones at around 44km. I was so far up in the group at this point- I was so excited, and I felt like I was climbing awesome. I was able to stay right up there! The pack shed quite a few riders at this point, and there were only three of us Canadians left now in the peleton. The group was really strung out, and was very hard at this point. I had fallen quite a ways back in the peleton, but was hanging in there no problem. There was a big decent before the climb to the finish, and everything bunched up again. We past the finish line, and we started the smaller circuits. They were 10km each, and had two really big climbs each lap. The roads narrowed as we took a sharp left hand turn, and up a very steep short climb. It flattened out for about 200m and then went very steep for just over 1km, and there was a GPM KOM sprint at the top of the climb. It narrowed into a very open, windy, winding descent and we were hitting very fast speeds. There was a 180 degree turn at the bottom and then we started to climb again. It was pretty flat to begin with, but it eventually kicked up, and was about a 3km climb. My legs were starting to cramp up really badly, but only when I stood, so I kept standing as minimal as I could. We passed through the start line again, and the feed zone, and up the steep climbs again. This lap shattered the group, and it split up into about four groups, with one chase off the back. I held on until the steep climb on the third lap, and then fell back with a group of about 15-20 riders. Heading onto the fourth circuit, we were time cut, unfortunately. I had a very strong race, and I know for a fact I’m improving and progressing really fast this season! I’m excited to see what this season brings, but I know with all this hard work i’m putting in, it can only be better than last! Today’s race pretty much fried my legs. I was cramping again, i’m not used to the distance of such a fast and challenging race with so many attacks and stand up sprints/climbs. Tomorrow is the exact same starting circuit, and then 6 circuit of a climbing route again. My back feels like its death, I need a back transplant. Anyone? I can barely sit on my saddle any longer. One more race here though tomorrow, I’ll try and make it a good one- I always give it everything I have! Had a basic dinner, meat, pasta and rice and veggies. Im so sick of pasta and rice. Im glad tomorrow is the last day of that! Im off to sleep though very soon, my legs are aching and im too tired to write any more. Night!

Karlee

TTT- Luxembourg

I finally have proper working internet, so check out at the bottom of my blog I uploaded some photos for those of you I do not have on facebook/do not have facebook!

Our team woke up this morning fairly early to hop on our bikes for a light one hour spin to shake out our legs. We were lucky we escaped the rain and the muddy roads which meant we didn’t have to spend and hour cleaning them before we left Belgium. The drive to Luxembourg was pretty boring, I was able to sleep most of the way, but woken up with an exploding bladder from trying to hydrate for racing this weekend. We were stuck in a terrible Europe traffic jam on one of the highways. It wasn’t moving and we must have spent 45 minutes almost in the same spot, when our mechanic decided to take the shoulder to the nearest exit. Fortunately this lead us to be able to drive the finishing stretch of tomorrows road race course. Luxembourg is one of the most gorgeous countries I have been too! The hills/mountains are a lot bigger than I would have thought, and the land is very densely populated... With sheep. We arrived around 3:30pm, and we were able to relax, find out our plans for the tonight and tomorrow, eat some dinner and have a quick leg rub. We were all dressed up in our kits for dinner, doing it fully Euro style. All the big teams, once again, are at the races this weekend; Netherland Beloit, HTC, Garmin-Cervelo, Lotto, France National team, Austrailian national team, AA drink, Diadora Pasta Zara,etc. We showed up to the race with not too much time which was nice. We road a few laps of the Team Time Trial course. It's a 1.7km loop that we were to complete 3 times for a total of around 5km. The clouds were super dark, and we were praying that the rain would hold off. The course was insane! It was worse then a normal crit course. The roads were all perfectly smooth, but all the corners were sharper than 90 degree normal turns. All the corners were covered in traffic paint, and most turns went from three lanes wide to a small section over a bridge that was a bike lane. There were barriers the entire length of the circuit and there were hundreds of people watching. It was super dark out and there weren't as many street lights as we thought there was going to be. We warmed up for half an hour on the time trial. The shorter the race, the longer the warm up- except we had spun this morning for over an hour and before the trainers, so we didn't need too long on the wind trainer. As we moved our way to the starting gates and sign in, the rain started coming down. I was terrified. I let some pressure out of my tires, and just hoped I would be able to hang on through the rain. We moved up to the start line, and I was starting furthest to the left. 100m ahead there was a left hand turn, and then got very narrow. I knew right from the clock count down it was going to be full out, full throttle as fast as we could go as it was so short. Racing in the rain scared me. It had just started, so it was the most slippery time to be out on the road. We had seen Australia and France go before us, in full tt gear, aero helmets and disk wheels. We had none of that, except bootie covers. We were paired with the German National team. Since the course was so short in length, only two teams, one minute apart, could be on the track at once. They counted us down, and it was a full sprint, in the drops from the get-go. We managed to get lined up before the first corner. The paint on the corners with the rain was super slippery, I felt my tires slide across the pavement a little. I chased hard out of the corner, and we all were pulling through after about 20 pedal strokes. The back stretch was winding and we were flying. The sharp corner on the back stretch I lead through, and one of our riders went down, luckily she was at the back and everyone else stayed up. The road turned into a bike lane over a bridge, and then up a slight incline. You wouldn't be able to see it by looking, but I was defiantly starting to feel it in my legs. We were soon three riders, and I knew that I had to give it all I had and hang on close behind Leah's wheel. We were pulling hard down the front stretch, around a winding section of road, past the start finish line, on to lap number two. I was taking my turns pulling through, but I was fading. I momently put my head down and gave it all I got. I was fighting so hard. I skipped one turn to try and recover, and continued to pull through. The corners were becoming more slippery and I was suffering more than I had ever suffered in this short amount of time before. It was Leah G, Leah K and I, and all three of us were pushing as hard as we could. Lap two was over, and onto lap three. I skipped one more turn, and pulled through after that. We were sprinting to the line, as fast as we could, maxmium force on the pedals. We crossed the line, and my legs felt like they had gained ten inches on each of them. They were rock hard, and full of lactic acid. Our time was 7:31:00, not too bad. I was really proud that I was able to suffer, survive and push that hard to stay up there. It's a great feeling to be on that starting line with four other Canadians matching. Even that we finished with three, all five of us helped everyone go stronger, start fast and post a time that we did, even if it was just the first lap. When a race is this short, every inch of the race is so critical. We were about in the middle of the starting position list, and as we finished and warmed down, the rain began to pour even harder. On the drive back home, I could barely see out of my window, and thought to myself how happy I was that we hadn't been racing at that time. This was the most fun race, but most short and hard thing I have ever done. Way harder than any 6 minute speedskating race of my life, or any 7 minute VO2 effort I had done. I am really happy with how I preformed. Now we are back at our hotel, with our space ship rooms and space ship look alike bathrooms just relaxing. When I walked into my bathroom here, I literally thought that I was in outter space. The shower and sink and toilet are all on the same blue floor, in a small white cubicle. The water from the shower goes all over the floor, and drained out onto the carpet lol. We were able to get home earlier than I thought, so everyone who reads my blogs are probably happy I got to write a blog today. Michelle made us a delicious snack with kiwi, muslix, bananas and yogurt once we got back and settled in. I just have to mention that I saw something for the first time today....Anne-Marie ate a kiwi like an apple, harry skin and all. It was weird. hahah. Its very shortly time for bed. We are leaving for the race around 11:30 tomorrow for a 2:00 or 2:30 start. It is a bit shorter race tomorrow than usual, I think 120km, but it will defiantly be the best test of fitness. There are like 20 climbs up the mountains, and there is one that from the profile looks about 20 km, but not that steep. After about 50 km, we enter into circuits of steep climbs. I'm pretty terrified, but excited. It's always great to know that I have something to work on in a race, and being here in so many races gives me so many opportunities to improve and focus on what I need to do to make it further and further each day. It's nice to be able to focus on hanging on, moving up, being aggressive rather than winning. I'm sad I am missing the River Heights banquet for speed skating tonight, I think the only thing I really miss is the potluck dinner haha. I guess all the chocolate and speculoos that I get to bring home tops a potluck any day though. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day, but what race in Europe isn't- none. Two more races left. I wish I could race here forever, it's so much tougher than home. Ill keep everyone updated on the race tomorrow. Good work girls today with the team time trial!

Karlee

The last few day in Tielt-Winge

Thursday, today, is one of our last few days here in Tielt-Winge Belgium. I can't say that I'm really going to miss the milk or the eggs sold on the shelf with the crackers, or the rice you cook in bags, but I will miss the fabulous training here and the all the strength I am gaining from the racing. I still have a few days however left in Europe. Tomorrow we are headed to Luxembourg for three races. We race a 5km team time trial under street lights at 9pm tomorrow night, and a road race Saturday and Sunday. I am excited to go to Luxembourg, it's supposed to be a gorgeous country. They supposedly speak "Luxembourgish" so maybe I can pick up on that hahah! Anyways, this morning it was pouring rain... big news for Belgium. We headed out on a ride, which felt like it took years, but really only two hours. The route was one of my favorite rides so far. There was a mix of climbing and flat, out in the open and through forest and tiny roads. The only problem with it raining in Belgium and riding is that the roads are always covered in cow manure and horse shit that when your riding in a big group, it's all being splashed up into your face. Trust me, it's not the best smelling thing in the world to be breathing in for two hours straight. I was sure to hop directly into the shower when I got back to the house. We spent some time washing our bikes, and I started to pack up my things. We arrive back from Luxembourg on Sunday night, and we are spending the day and evening in Leuven on Monday, so we won't really be here much more. My exams are all messed up for university right now. I don't know whether or not I am writing them in May at UBC, in September or next December lol. I think that it is just one of those things I can't worry about as everything will just fall into place. We went out with the New Zealand national team for dinner, but it was really just our Canadian girls team and some of the U23 guys from Canada and our coaches. We ate at a restaurant and they gave us 50% off all of our meals, it was delicious too. I tasted my first bit of Belgian dark beer too. mmmm. I should get off to sleep now, its 11 and i have to get up bright and early, which won't be a problem seeing as I forget what sleep is, to ride and then head off for the weekend. I know I have internet at the hotel in Luxembourg, but I probably won't get to write a blog tomorrow night. I will post it Saturday morning however. My race tomorrow is at 9pm my time, so by the time the race is finished and I get settle into bed it will be too late to write....Just in case if you wonder why I didn't write, I won't have crashed or got run over by a tractor or anything....

Karlee

A rainy day in Tielt-Winge

Today was a rainy day here in Tielt-Winge Belgium. We were lucky enough to get our ride in before it started pouring however. I, once again, had a terrible sleep, possibly the worst sleep i've ever had, but now I don't think I could ever sleep worse, so it has to get better from here on out. Therefore a poor sleep equaled a very tired Karlee again, which equaled very unhappy legs when riding this morning. I just did a hour and a half ride, high endurance. I couldn't get myself to focus on the road, my eyelids were so heavy. Once I got back, the rain started, I hopped in the shower, lied down in bed, and before I knew it, I woke up an hour an a half later from a nap. I ate some soup and some tea and it helped relax me for this afternoon. I was feeling a bit better, but not enough for the huge dark circles to go away from under my eyes. I watched a movie, made a bit of a list for whistler and sorted some stuff out around in my room here in Belgium. I did some stretching as well, although I'm finding stretching isn't a great friend for SI joint problems, so I just have to be careful of where I stretch and not. We all made a delicious frittata/quiche for dinner. We had so many eggs and vegetables and potatos we just threw that together with a little bit of milk, stuck it in the oven...for way to long for our hungry stomachs, and it turned out amazing! Super easy too! After dinner some of us girls watched the movie Garden state, after a huge fight with two dvd players and hitting of the machines. It was a great movie, odd, but surprisingly good. We didn't have internet for the entire day, and I must say it was actually quite nice. I didn't have anything to really do so I just slept and relaxed. We only really have one more day here in this house tomorrow. Monday too, but we will be packing and then I believe we are going out for a last team dinner that evening. I am lucky I finally got notified about one of my exam changes, just two more to find out, and then I have to find out where I write them all. Everything seems like its such a long process always. As long as it works out though, and I get all my grades accountable, I will be happy. I should get some sleep though, or try I shall say. Hopefully some melatonin will help a little bit tonight, and maybe the rain hitting my window will put me to sleep fast. That's all for today though, back tomorrow, like always....

Also, check out this article of Leah and I that was in todays The Lance in Winnipeg. http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/our-communities/sports/European-racing-an-eye-opener-for-Winnipeg-cyclists-120733474.html

Karlee

Another Boring Day

Today was another boring day. It's not blog-worthy of writing about, but it's become a bit of a habit writing everyday, so apologies for the last few boring blogs. I believe until Friday it will be the same way. I didn't manage to sleep very well last night, even with a sleeping pill. I wake up at magic time 5:38 every day for some reason. I need to get off the cyclic sleeping clock my body has set. I will be home in just less than one week now, and with the time change back, maybe i'll be able to finally follow into a good sleeping pattern. I wasn't feeling sick this morning anymore, thank godness, so I went on a 1.5 hour pretty easy ride with some spin ups to open up my legs. My legs felt awful, probably from not being recovered properly. It was still nice to hop in the saddle on a warm day. I'm not looking forwards to going back to Winnipeg for the weather- however I'm a little excited to see everything flooded-as bad as that it. I went to grab some last groceries that I will need until I leave, and I scoped out the chocolate I'm going to take back home. One of the Canadian girls who has been living in Europe had an unfortunate crash and broke her collar bone and her pelvis in three places- Hope she gets better fast- so our coach and the rest of the girls here went to visit the city she lives and have coffee with her. Since I was so far behind on my sleep, I just stayed back, relaxed, stretched and tried to sleep all afternoon. I did a little bit, but not enough to say I feel great. I'm glad I have a few more days before I start racing again. This weekend will be tough- but it's the last few races! I'm also getting really excited for the move out to Whistler. Everything is coming up fast, and this past month has really flown by. It'll be really nice to be home, although it's amazing here too. Time to try and catch some sleep again,

Karlee

Today.

Today was a crappy day. I didn't get more than 3 hours sleep last night, and I had a hard time trying to sleep throughout the day. I had a great easy spin this morning with the girls, and we had our own fun photo shoot on some cobble roads. Had some delicious crepes with speculoos and nutella and banana and jam for dinner, all my stomach can handle. I'm not feeling good today, sick stomach and a head thats on fire. I know if I get a good sleep tonight Ill wake up just fine in the morning! I'm really not feeling that great, so short blog today, but I have been on a roll writing everyday, so I had to write a tad bit. And the electricity is out in our house or on this floor so my lap top will die in 2 minutes anyways. Hopefully I can catch a few hours of sleep tonight, it's needed, and hopefully my stomach won't feel like garbage tomorrow. That's it! Another easy day tomorrow,

Karlee

Grand Prix Stad Roeselare

Today we raced GP Stad Roeselare in Belgium, and it was a tough race! When I woke up this morning, I felt like I had been in a train wreck. I had never been so tired or cracked feeling in all my life. I almost had to pry my eyelids open to wake up. It was so difficult! I eventually did though, and we left the house pretty early once again. It was another two hour drive to the race, which just makes everything worse. It was been pouring rain all morning on the drive and once we got to Roeselare. I was a little terrified to race in the rain, but I was lucky it eventually cleared up. I wasn't too lucky though because it ended up being almost 30 degrees again, and I have been dying in the heat since yesterday. The race start was in a cobbled parking lot, and i had to jump down many curbs. It started off a lot smoother than other races, probably because we weren't in Holland anymore. The racing there is a lot more sketchier, even with most of the same teams entering the races. The roads were narrow today, like usual, but the pace was okay to start. I was able to move myself up a bit in the beginning and stay around maybe 50th wheel, which I was very happy about. I didn't see one crash today, even though there were still a few. The course went like this; 40km of rolling hills out to a 10-15km mountain circuit with major climbs that we would repeat twice, 40km back to the start and then 2 small 5km finishing circuits. Once we got into the mountain section, it became a lot more spread out. The first climb we did was just short of 2km with many sections reaching 22% grade. There were girls unclipping on the uphill and I saw some running with their bikes. It was pretty insane to see. The roads were narrow and steep and there were girls everywhere. I was yelling for people that were unclipped to get off the road, but clearly no one listened and I had to push my way through while track standing on 22% roads. I made it through, but got caught up behind some slow people on that climb. I chased back on as hard as I could, my heart rate past my max. My heart rate monitor was flashing, so I flipped it over so I wouldn't look at it. The second climb followed right after, and to tell you the truth, I totally had a mind blank with this one. I remember bits and pieces of it. The entire climb was 17-22% and it was very very long. I managed to stay onto the back of the group, suffering soo badly. We had an extremely steep winding decent on the other side, a sharp left half switchback turn, right into a cobble climb. This is where I got dropped for the day, but there had been almost 100 girls dropped before me today. So I was happy how long I hung in. The cobble climb was 22% and they were the roughest cobbles I had ever climbed. It was a km long section and I was grinding my gears so bad. At some point i went onto the dirt on the side of the road, but it got so steep I couldn't ride there any longer. I was pushing with everything I had got, and my legs had never felt like they were going to blow up so much. I got to the top of the climb, barely able to stand, and was happy Michelle was there with a cold water bottle. It was drank within about 2 seconds though. I was breathing so hard, I probably sounded like a asthmatic horse. It was not pretty. I continued to chase to try and catch back onto the peleton ahead, but no such luck. With the climbs and the wind, I was just not strong enough after the steep climbs to pull them back myself. I raced about 10 more km and then I was time cut. I wasn't very far back, maybe 1 minute only. It sucks, and I am sick of being time cut. Its so hard though racing against all of these girls who have been to the olympics, world champions etc. The guys are lucky, out of junior they get to go on to race in a U23 field, but for us women we are thrown right from junior into the Pro Elite ladies. Racing Bronzini, Marianna Vos, Martina Bras, Kristen Wild, Amber Neben, Emma Johannason etc, it's PRETTY tough! I try and hang in as long as I can, and when I know I have gave it all I could, past what I have in my tank, I know there's nothing else I could have done and I have to be happy with it. I road for a while after with some other riders to the feed zone, and Michelle took us back. Joelle was the only one to be able to finish the race today, but Leah K and Leah G were in such a huge group that even though they had got time cut, they got placed. Next year I have a lot of work to do, but for riding the rollers all winter living in crappy Winnipeg with 10 feet of snow, and finding out I was coming here a day before I left, I could only prepare so much, and I feel like I did everything I could for those circumstances. I am so beat right now. I don't think I have been this tired, ever. I think it's mostly because of racing in the sun, 8 hours or more of driving this weekend and some tough racing. We are off to pizza now, hopefully I dont do a face plant in the tomato sauce and fall asleep. I'm starving and haven't ate real food since 10 this morning. Choclate was delicious after the race though! mmmm. The Easter Bunny came to our house in belgian this morning and brought us some chocolates. I'm so beat time to go. Easy day tomorrow and I'm going to try and catch up on sleep!

Omloop Van Borsele

Today started out a bit rough. I only got about 5 hours sleep last night. Ever since I've been here I only sleep till about 6 am and then for twenty minute periods until I wake up. Maybe it's the nerves, maybe the excitement, maybe the sunlight. I'm sure I will be out cold tonight as I am pretty cracked right now. The drive to the race was 2 hours, just less. I didn't know that we were going to The Netherlands until about fifteen minutes prior to leaving. All i'm told is that we have a race and to hop in the van and we drive. Tomorrow I know though that our race is in Belgium for sure. It was a long drive, but I was able to sleep. We got to the race sight at around 10:30, and we had three and a half hours until our race started. We killed some time in a coffee shop and just sitting around in the lawn chairs pinning our numbers and relaxing. There was a junior girls race on before ours, and there must have been 125 racers. I couldn't believe it. I would have loved to race here as a junior, I would be so much faster. I can't believe how developed this sport is over here, I love it. We got a quick warm up in, and headed over to sign in and line up. The teams line up 40 minutes prior to the race start, which makes it for a even longer day. Everyone wants a good position on the line, as moving up in the pack in the race is extremely difficult. It was around plus 30 degrees at this point, and we had to stand around for just less than an hour. I was not used to this heat, and I could feel myself baking in the sun. I had poured water all over my jersey and my head to try and stay cool. This weather was pretty unexpected! Next winter I'm going to have to get some hot weather training in for a month or so. I need to be better prepared physically and for the heat before the season of racing starts. It was left last minute this year, but I am faring really well! The race got under way, and the pace was really fast quickly. There were multiple crashes on the first lap, all which I was caught behind. The constant chasing back onto the peloton is very difficult and defiantly puts a lot of hurt to my legs. There was 60km/hr plus cross winds today, and narrow roads the size of bicycle paths. It was strung out almost from the gun and I was fighting every second to hold on. I really had to push hard today. My legs were feeling a bit flat going into todays stage, so I knew I was going to have to suffer. In the first lap the peleton blew apart pretty fast, and we lost some riders. The start of the second lap was really slow, and I was trying to move up in position as much as I could. When there are 32 teams with six riders each, over 180 riders, on narrow roads, it's almost impossible to do this. People have their elbows out, and only a few riders in the peleton are my height, so everyone else just pushes me around. I try to be aggressive, but there's a line drawn in my head of how aggressive I can be. I don't want to put my cycling career, my season of the rest of this trip on hold from a bad crash. I try to be as forceful as I can moving up in the pack. I take some chances, but I don't want to put my life and body in a death bed during a race. I saw some girl today in a crash on a switch back fly about 8 feet in the air, yeah..scary. I've been really good with avoiding all the crashes, and hope to be for the rest of the month...knock on wood! The end and middle of the second lap was strung out once again, I was past max heart rate and suffering like I never had before. I was able to get a feed which helped in the heat. I knew I had to drink a lot as I started getting the shivers in 30degree weather. My stomach was feeling sick, but I knew it was just from the heat. I reached into my back pocket to grab a bar and ripped it open with my teeth, to have warm, melted chocolate explode all over my face. Yum.... At least I was able to take in some food. The third lap was where it really got tough. The peleton split up into various groups on the third and fourth lap. There was a lead group- 20 riders, a second group, 10 riders (approx), third group with Joelle and Leah K (maybe 50 riders), and then the fourth group with Leah G and I (40 riders). It was strung out and I tried to hang on as best as I could, but a gap formed in front of me, creating this fourth group. My legs were burning, and my quads were spasming whenever I stood up. I only had one lap to go at this point, but this is when they pulled my group. I had done 4 laps of a 25km circuit and we never got to do the last circuit. Our group got pulled with about 40-45 girls. I had hung on and I did the best i could do today. It was probably my toughest race of my life trying to survive. Only 81 girls out of 200 finished today, which tells me really how crazy today was. The drive home sucked. There was no air conditioning, and everyone was burning hot. The weather defiantly took a huge toll on our team today. I'm pretty cracked and fried today. I have the worst tan lines a girl has ever possessed, and I look pretty ridiculous. I'm proud with how I road today. My legs were hurting, but the best races are the ones where you know you had nothing left at the end and I gave it all I had. I'm getting stronger, and I know I have said this often, but I'm really starting to see it. I'm learning so much racing here, even if it is crazy. A dolmans team girl gave a huge punch and push to a Rabobank girl directly in front of me today. This was the same girl that punched Leah right in the side of the ribs last week. People are pushing everywhere, cutting people off and swearing all the time. I'm getting used to it, but only so much. Every race I learn, and know what I have to do for the next race. I always set the goal to be aggressive and stay up front. As easy as it may sound just to stay up front, I cannot explain how impossible it really is. Just had a massage quickly and now Im off to sleep, and hopefully will feel better in the morning. Pretty fried.

Karlee

Pre-race Day

Tomorrow we race Omloop Borsele, a long flat, windy course; but you'll hear enough of what it's like tomorrow after the race I am sure. Racing tomorrow, therefore makes today a pre-race day. The most slow, boring, chill kind of days. Typically I would sleep in the day before a race, but today I was up with the stupid rooster next door at 6:30 staring at my bunk bed roof. I often wake up thinking I am trapped in a little brown box as I frequently mistake the wire bed on top of me as my ceiling when I am half awake. It's a little claustrophobic. I must have found something to day dream about untill about nine when I decided it would be a good time to go eat breakfast and check some emails. We had an easy spin planned for this morning, which it ended up to be. Leah and I were in search of some cobbles so we could take a picture for The Lance newspaper back home, as they are doing a article on us. Look in The Lance on Monday if you are interested, it will be there! I basically just ate and relaxed the rest of the afternoon. I am almost finished a cycling guide I am working on, and it's starting to look great. Michelle drove here this afternoon and we had our pre-race massage. It was sunny all day, and then all of a sudden we had a thunderstorm for a few hours. Julian worked on our bikes all day after we cleaned them up. I still can't get over having someone fixing up my bike before every race for me. I'm so used to being my own mechanic and doing everything for myself. Its so appreciated! I went and got some groceries this afternoon as well, and I gave in to my chocolate temptation a little. Just a small chocolate for 43 euro cents. Yum! I don't know why, but the chocolate really does taste better here. I can't wait to bring a bunch home! I made some sausage spinach tomato pasta for dinner and some salad, then watched the movie Dear John (bad choice for today). All my gear is packed up ready to go for tomorrow. We are leaving at 8:30..only five and a half hours before the race start. lol. Our race starts at 2:00 and I believe and ends around 5:00pm. I am pretty nervous, but I feel a lot more prepared having done some more training in the last few weeks, compared to previous races. I really can't tell you much more today. It was a slow day of recovering, wearing skins and drinking 2 Liters of cramping preventing mix in water. Now time to finish my tea, finish off some emails and jump into bed. Well, I mean go to sleep, I have been in bed basically since one pm. Oh- I almost forgot- I saw a rooster fly- no joke!

Karlee

Thursday, April- Uh, whats the date?

All I know is that it is Thursday today, I race Saturday, I race Sunday, and I come home on a Tuesday. When all I do is eat, sleep, bike, repeat, I find myself losing track of the date. I guess you could say it is a repetitive habit I am in here, but I quite enjoy it. I mean who doesn't like sleeping and eating- and then adding cycling to my schedule makes it perfect. So, if my blogs seem a bit cyclic of things that I do, it's not because I'm bored and always write about the same things, but because it's my life over here. We woke up this morning, and I finally was able to keep my eye lids glued shut long enough to keep the light out till 8:30. Wow, I slept in! We headed off for a ride late morning, and it was, again, a gorgeous day outside. 24 degrees and sunny, with a cool breeze, what more could I ask for! Our route started out similar to every day, but we ended up taking different roads after about half an hour. We road through a mess and mixture of gravel, sand, cobble, mountain bike trails, mud roads and pavement. A good mixture, and a good recipe to get a flat! Our coach blew a side wall out of her tire, so I stuck my sticky fruit to go wrapper inside the tire and it actually was able to hold up for the entire ride! I was impressed of my inventive skills. haha. And when she was fixing the flat I was able to ride off and visit some miniature cows! We road for an hour longer, had a few GPM sprints (sprints at the top of a climb) with the group before we started hill repeat intervals. We did nine hill repeats today, over a mix of three different climbs that each took about three minutes. It was tough! A lot of the climbs here are super steep. I know I was tired, hot and looking forwards to the easy ride back, but my little voice in the back of my head kept reminding myself how each hill climb will make me that much stronger not only for the season, but the racing this weekend. So I pushed through all my intervals, and I was happy with how I road. The route today was amazing, I love riding here. Our ride was just over three hours, and if it weren't for racing this weekend I would have spent all day in the saddle under the sun. I got back and just did the same old, eat, nap, eat, etc. I watched The Fighter, I thought it might give me a little motivation boost for the weekend racing, and did a solid 45 minutes of stretching. I feel much better now. I cooked a delicious dinner, I should start a recipe book from the concoctions I make, but who am I kidding, thats one more thing to do...too much work. haha! I invented some pesto, chick pea, spinach, brocoli, tomato...thing?...and threw it over some pasta. mmmm. I am writting up something to help the new parents and the new athletes on the cycling provincial team out with all the basics they need to know for cycling and equipment, so I spent a good rest of the evening working on that. Its time to sleep very soon, hoping I might make it to 8:45 tomorrow, wow that might be a record of sleeping in here for me. I'm always the first one up some how. Recovery and prep day tomorrow before Omloop Van Boresele WE Saturday! Anyways, Off to sleep! zzzzz

School of Cycling

Over the past few weeks of being here in Belgium, racing and training, I have learnt so much. It's really like school for cyclists. I have learnt what it's like to race over here, how entirely different it can be. The racing style is so different. Something I can't really explain, something I would have never expected to be so dissimilar. I have learnt to ride cobbles, learnt to ride in a group of 200 women, and I've learnt to slam on my breaks so hard and so frequently that my hands cramp up. I'm just over halfway done this trip, and still have five more races left. Five more chances and over 800 km of max heart rate suffering to do to get me stronger. Its such an experience to get to race at some of these races and the World Cups! Its a challenge the first year everyone keeps saying, so I can't wait till next year, hopefully I'll have the opportunity to come back, to actually have goals to place in a race. I'm really looking forwards to coming back to Canada and racing. There is a Crit the night I'm home in Winnipeg- would be so much fun to do, but I'm not going to take the chances to do the first Cat 3 Crit race in Winnipeg of the year- can anyone say sketchy and crashes! haha! I want to be healthy going out the Vancouver!

Today was a great day. Nothing special to make it good, just biking in the sun! We went for a ride this morning, just over 2 and a half hours. It was super warm outside, and I got my cycling tan lines started again! It's funny how so many of the cyclist here roll up their clothes to get rid of tan lines, but that's part of cycling. The white body and tanned arms and legs are a must have...if not, how will I win the greatest tan line competition? I guess I can do without the sock though! Yuck haha! The ride was fabulous! The sun was amazing and the roads were amazing, and all the sheep and moo cows on the side of the road were amazingly cute. They have miniature cows here too, the size of puppies, I wish I could take one home, and then every year I could trade it in for a small one when I come back haha. We did some intervals and some team time trial (ttt) practice on some corners. Our team time trial is next Friday night, at about 9pm. It's going to be super dark, under street lights, three times around a 1.3km circuit. It's going to be wild! It's in Luxembourg as well. This weekend however our racing is in Belgium, which is nice we get to stay here in the Canada house. Anyways, after our ride, we just relaxed a bit in the sun, and our internet stopped working. It was funny because everyone at the same time walked out of their rooms complaining how it didn't work. What would we do without it! The sun was super hot, I didn't want to spend too long outside as it would fry me for training and the racing on the weekend. I really want to finish these races or have good races, so have to prepare myself well! I went on another ride this afternoon because it was just so nice out. I did another 1.5 hours just pretty easy spinning. I came back and we all walked across the street for a capiccino and just to relax and get out of the house. I made an omelette, and well, lets just say omelettes don't turn out well with no non-stick pans and no pam. It was more of scrambled eggs. Either way it was delicious! Now I am just going to work on some stuff on my computer and then go to sleep. It felt like a busy day with two rides, but I loved just getting out on my bike and riding here. We are super lucky with the weather. Usually it's raining and 10 degrees, but we have sunny and 25 for the forecast in the next week or so! I can't wait!

I would also upload pictures on this blog, but according to my internet status- of crap internet service, it would take 175 minutes to upload a picture..maybe ill try later.

Karlee

Brugge

We started off our day today with a 2 hour easy ride. The routes are great here, and all of our rides include new roads, hills, gravel/dirt roads and some trail. Its amazing being able to ride every day and not see the same thing once. The scenery is beautiful to add. Our ride was made quite interesting by a few things. We almost hit a huge goose in the middle of the road. It just stood there as we almost crashed into it. It was cute, so I took it's picture. We visited some castle surrounded by a moat, and tried to take a picture, but a man started swearing at us in Flemish and it was a tad frightening. We went off to Brugge for the rest of the afternoon and evening. It was a 1.5 hour drive there, and everyone I think fell asleep, so it went by fast. We walked probably 10km today, but it was great to get out of Tielt-Winge and actually SEE Belgium. Everything is so old, and all made out of brick. There are amazing fountains and churches, I can't imagine how long they took to build. We saw a lot of Brugge, but I need to come back to be able to see everything. I am sure I'll be back over here soon enough. We stopped for a drink and had some dinner at a italian restaurant to finish off our evening. Brugge was very busy today with a lot of tourists. Every second store was a chocolate store, but by the time we got around to the shops they were closing. (probably a good thing so i dont eat 10kg of chocolate...it all looks soooo good). I did have one easter egg, and was the best chocolate i've ever tasted. Don't worry everyone, I'll bring some back! Leah also got pooped on by a bird, so that added to the bad/funny events of today. It was great to get out and see something different, and I really want to see more of Europe. I want to come back and visit many more countries like Italy, Spain, France. I'm sure I'll get there one day! Belgium is fantastic, and just under two weeks to go now! 5 more races and i'm done here! Not that I want to leave Europe, but i'll be excited to see everyone back home and head out to Whistler! Thats it for today, I'm very tired...not used to the whole walking thing, should have rented bikes haha. I'll upload the Brugge pictures tomorrow to facebook!

Karlee

Today was a boring day. I couldn't sleep in very much even though I was exhausted. I watched Gulliver's Travels the movie, had some breakfast and did a ton of laundry. Living in two pairs of the same Canada clothes for five days and a ton of cycling kits and gear make for a lot to wash. I'm sad one of my Team Canada shorts got turned brown instead of white from all the dust from the cobbles at the World Cup, and some massage oil. I basically stayed in my bed till 4pm doing some scholarship work and making lists for whistler. A short trip to the grocery store as well, and the bakery. mm. I sat outside for a hour and a half in the sun. It was hot out! Like plus 25. It was so nice to be able to relax for one day. Tomorrow we have a long ride in the morning and after lunch we are headed to Brugge. I can't wait! Finally some touring and something either than biking or sitting in the house in Tielt-Winge. Had a small dinner as everyone was so sick of eating so much the past week of racing. It was also funny as everyone sat on their lap tops all day. We all were complaining that the internet was horrible, and we found out that the one month unlimited internet access had been surpassed by whatever its measured in here. We used too much internet..in two weeks worth. It's going to be slow for the rest of the month now, but at least I still have it! Thats basically it haha. My shortest blog post yet I think, but it was a fast day with nothing much to do. Off to sleep soon, and early to try and catch up on some sleep!

Karlee

Ronde Van Gelderland and a extremely long day

Today was Ronde Van Gelderland race in The Netherlands, last race there (yay!). Not that I dont like Holland, but the racing there is pretty crazy, and the roads, well...I hate them. We didn't race until 2:30pm today, so it was very nice and relaxing to be able to wake up, watch a movie, and eat twice before we had to race. The race was very close to our hotel, 5km, so it was a good warm up ride to the start/finish zone. This race started at the Appledoorn track, which is spectacular!! ....

The race had over 30 teams starting, one of our largest races yet. I was nervous for the climbs today, there was six major ones and some winding descents. The race had a 7km neutral start, which was total K-OS. At one point in the race, I saw chunks of rubber fly off peoples wheel into my face, the smell of rubber filled the air.... LOL. Beautiful smell to race with... Anyways, the race got under control very fast and the pace was top notch rocket speed. I was feeling okay but was suffering to hang on. The roads were very narrow and some turned into gravel bike paths for short sections. The field quickly strung out and everyone was battling the horrible cross winds. The first climb came around 20km and it was very tough. Tougher though because I got caught right behind a crash. I had to un clip both feet and broke a piece of my cleat off my right shoe. If I pulled up heard enough my shoe would come out of the pedal, but for that most part it was actually just fine. I had to fight to catch back up and close the gap after I was caught behind the crash as a huge gap opened. I was suffering at this point, and it really reminded me how I hate climbing. I just want to sprint, it just sucks to get to the end to be able to. The second climb was tough and i managed to stay in there. The third climb is where the peleton got shattered and many girls popped off the back and just couldn't hold on. I dropped near the top and was riding by myself for a km or two until the group behind caught me. I worked with them and we tried to catch back up. We were rocketting down the roads and almost got killed by the USA follow car. Their car and another car were taking up the entire road, but some forceful screaming go them to move finally. We didn't have much luck, and we tried to catch the peleton but just couldn't. There was a group of 22 abouts that I was racing with now. Some other caught on from behind and there were more Canadians now. We eventually got time cut on the sixth climb, but still have 60km back to the finish line. We had a large enough group, and we joined up with some others who had been time cut ahead of us and behind us and had a heard ride back to Appledoorn where the finish was. The race sucked, to sum it up. We had one Canadian finish, everyone else time cut :( It was a hard day, and climbing sucks. I at least have hills to practice and ride this summer in Vancouver. We had a 4 hour drive back to Belgium to our team house, and I did a great job at ripping off all my taste buds from an entire bag of sour wine gums. This didn't come in handy when we I ate crazy spicy pizza for dinner. We went to an amazing pizzeria place for dinner in Aarshcot or something. It was delicious, one of my favorite pizzas ever. We ordered like 8 huge pizzas and managed to eat almost all of it with our girls team and coaches. 8 different types of pizza, and I had to try everyone, at least once ahah! so... Im pretty stuffed now. Im exhausted though. We just got back from dinner and it's 12:15am. Its off to bed, for like 24 hours. I'm beat and Im excited all we have planned tomorrow is eating and sleeping. Should be a great day, I'm looking forwards to eating and sleeping and getting some quality movie watching time in and some work done. Thats it, im off to sleep!

Ronde Van Drenthe World Cup!

Ronde Van Drenthe, my first World Cup was today!! It was the most EPIC day of my life. I knew going into the race it was going to be a huge challenge, the top 30 professional and national teams in the world coming together to race a epic 135km race with cobbles, dirt roads and three very steep climbs. We started the craziness off before the race even started. There were ten million marching bands playing their stupid polka and the Ants Go Marching In music every corner I turned. There was probably 150 motorcycles for the course parked in an area and there was a lot of buildings between where the start line was and where we were parked. We found the start line, but we, amoungst other teams as well, were super lost in terms of finding the team presentation and sign in. We finally found it, and covered about 6km trying to do so. Sing in was in some mall, and was jammed packed with riders. We waiting in a crowded room for 25 minutes probably and had to rush over to sign in which was by the start line following that. They had these little kids all dressed up in cycling kits that held our bikes, they were so cute. We were one of the last teams to line up, and started in about 150th position. The neutral start was insane, so many crashed, including me almost flipping over my bars, my back wheel came 2 feet off the ground and i smoked some car with my front wheel which kept me from going down. The race started pretty fast, and there was a hill about 9km into the race. It was a 24% climb for about 500m, and my front derailleur didnt work, so I was stuck in the big chain ring! Oh my gosh, my legs were going to blow up. It strung out on the hill and had a 24% decent on the other side. Trust me, all you could smell was burning rubber, but even on the flat sections here thats all you smell anyways. The hill dropped a few people and soon after I beleive our first canadian was done here. The race continued on, and it was pretty fast, averaged about 48 km/hr and speeds picked up to a lot faster in some points. There were many concrete blocks in the middle of the roads and many round-abouts that made people crash today. 30km into the race were our first section of cobbles. They werent expected as they werent' written into the course description. They were only 500 m long, but long enough to shake me up, hurt my body and crash a bunch of girls. The next section of cobbles came around 53 km, and these were bad. I did very well on them though. The group split up behind me and I was in the front group. I was shaking like crazy, and it was over 3km section of cobbles, the worst thing of my life. I lost both of my bottles here and almost all my food. My gears were bouncing everywhere and my right break jammed and stopped working from this point on. The next set of cobbles appear directly after the last. This section was a few kilometers as well. These cobbles cracked almost 40 riders I would guess. Another Canadian got popped off here. The main peleton split up into about four groups here, and I was lucky to hold onto one of the groups. These were the roughest cobbles of the bunch I found. The third set of cobbles was again 2km or so, wayyy to long for cobble riding. All the cobble sections were full blast, cranking the speeds up so the entire group was strung out. I was suffering on these cobbles. We legs and hands weren't used to this and I was starting to crack. I had ridden 20km with no food and not a drop of water and at maximum heart rate. On the cobbles i couldnt even hold my bars, I couldnt break, my hands and arms were shaking everywhere. I can't even start to explain the feeling of this, it was just awful and terrible. I was hanging on for dear life, then I threw up all over my jersey. At least I knew I was working hard. The follow cars and soe of the caravan tried to make their way up to the front group (stupidest thing ever). There is SO much dust and sand flying up I couldnt even see the ground. I must have inhaled a litre of dust and sand and my teeth were covered. I had my glasses pressed right up against my face as the was so much dust in my eyes I couldn't even see at this point. I struggled to hand on, and there were cars whipping by. There was a sand trail off to the side of the cobbles and i road it for about a km, swerving in the sand, but I didnt feel like bumping on the cobbles anymore. I was struggling to hold onto the group and finally a smal 10m gap had been created with 25meters of cobbles to go. I was out of the saddle chasing with all my might. Turned my head to the side and heaved again. I did have much left, and the caravan started to pass. I was chasing so hard and could see them about 30 seconds up the road, but I never caught them. This was close to entering the small finishing circuits and was time cut. I road for a while and Michelle got me in the feed zone. I was just time cut, but you know what, i wasnt that angry. I was so proud of how I road. Almsot every other girl that was up the road, I bet everyone, has ridden cobbles many times before, and this was my first time. I m getting so much stronger already, I can tell. I ws the third fastest Canadian again today, and I'm proud to have even recieved the opportunity to race at a World Cup. It was a thrilling experience, and there was a million people out cheering and watching around the course. There were helicopters flying taking video for tv coverage, and there was scentences and words in the grass field made out of wood, just like the Tour DE France. It was amazing. We have another race tomorrow, Gelderland, I know nothing about it yet. I hope to finish in a group tomorrow, there are no cobbles..YAY! I can't wait to come back next year and better all my results. This was the best experience today racing this World Cup. I can't wait for more. Time to stretch, prepare myself for tomorrow, get a massage and eat some pizza!!!

Thank goodness For a recovery day!

I was so happy when I woke up this morning that it was a recovery day. Although at 6:30am I was already awake and sitting out in the hallway, it was okay because I felt really rested. Rested, but sore however. I could barely go to the washroom when I got up as my back wouldn't let me bend down haha! It was very stiff and swollen. We got up and had another fabulous breakfast and headed out for a recovery spin. We road part of the course, although we couldn't ride it all as one loop is over 100km and then there are multiple finishing circuits. Our ride totaled about 1.5 hours, just less and about 30km, super easy. I tired to understand what Michelle was talking to me about my cramping in french, all i got was today, no force. So, I just spun easy, heart rate mostly around 100 or under and put "no force" on my pedals. We road a partial section of cobbles, but they probably shouldn't be called cobbles, more like "rock garden of boulders". They are super rough, and worst part about it, they are the smoothest section of cobbles in the World Cup tomorrow. The cobbles tomorrow are split up into three sections, covering over 10km total i believe. The cobbles will be what will split the peleton up, so if I can hold on then, I'll be okay. Cobbles are usually for the super powerful massive riders, but little ones can just float over them, so hopefully I can "float" over them. I'm sure once my race is done I will never use the roads float, it will be more like *******suffered. Oh well, i'm excited and ready to face the challenge, a new experience is something to look forwards to and get myself motivated for. I don't know what to expect, so hopefully I can take some of the pressure off and just race my bike full hearted and strong. Enough with the course though, a post-race blog will be written about that i'm sure! After we pre-road some of the course and finished up on our ride, we had some lunch out on the patio in the sun. it was cool outside, but the fresh air was nice. Leah G and I watched The Blind Side and had our massages. Our bikes are getting all fixed up and ready to race hard. We didnt really do anything else all afternoon but watch the movie and sit on our laptops and nap. Dinner was delicious. It was fish though, so I asked for something else, which ended up to be amazing stuffed pork with perpercorns and bacon. We had really good spinach and some potatos and really good meat wrapped garden beans mmmm. I have drank about 100000mg of salt today and five glasses of milk, hopefully that will help my cramping tomorrow. I also have cramping packets (thanks dad!) that might come in handy in tomorrows race. As long as I can block out my back pain I should be A-OK. Almost time to hit the sack and go to sleep, get rested up for my first WOrld Cup tomrorow! (Drenthe World Cup). All the big teams and big names will be there, but I'm used to them now. It will be fast, and with cobbles and 3 climbs, all I can wish for is to survive! We also got little world cup goodie bags with waffles hahahah! and crazy flashy light up pens whooot! I'll update on how tomorrows race goes (if I have internet, we are moving to a new hotel tomorrow), we're off bright and early in the morning. Thank godness for a racovery day today.

I'm starting to get very excited as well to move to Whistler!!! only a few weeks left!

Drentse 8 Van Dwingeloo classic

Today we raced Drentse 8 Van Dwingeloo. I'll arrive at that topic in a moment, first I have to mention how amazing breakfast was haha! It was a massive buffet, with thirty different types of bread and cheeses and a counter full of a million choices of pasteries. Oh how I wished for a second how nice it would be not to be competing so I could eat that stuff. Everything was very delicious though that we had, yogurt, bread, some eggs and jam and peanut butter mmm, and some coffee from this crazy expresso machine, yum! we ate at about 8:00, and had pasta for lunch at around 10. I was still stuffed from breakfast, but I new today was going to be a long hard day so had to basically force feed myself some spaghetti. The race was far away and we left early. Our race started at one, so we had time to pre ride some cobbles and the start/finish. Our course we were racing today was the most confusing thing i had ever riden. We did 3 laps of a 45-47km loop and I still had no idea I had ridden the same course that many times. I never recognized very much either than the finish zone and the cobbles with a bridge that lead up to it. So, started off the race pretty much at the front. I SAW THE FRONT OF THE PELETON TODAY!!! It was my goal, I had been so far back the other day, I wanted to be right up there. Of course it only lasted for about 2km and then everything got crazy, but I still sat in about 50th position for most of the first half of the race. The course ran in a figure eight direction (i didnt really notice though ahah, it was just a mess of turns and looking at peoples butts and heads) I can't ever see anything. The 6 foot tall Netherland and German girls block my view. i have no idea when a turn is coming and when you are baraling into a turn at 50km/hr its pretty terrifying when you dont know if your turning left or right untill your entering the corner. The roads were a little bit wider today, but when I say wider i mean like instead of a side walk its a sidewalk and a half of road space. There were also so many tractors and semis and trucks parked on the side of the road and when 180 racers are taking up the entire road, it makes for a big mess and slamming on of the breaks every time passing a parked vehicle. Anywyas, so, the first part of the figure 8 was 15km and the 2nd half was 30 some odd km. The race quickly picked up around km 12 when there was sprint points on the cobbles section. Such a dumb thing, put sprints on cobbles, righ tafter the most narrow bridge that you've ever seen. I did some cyclocross today, cut a cross a grass field and the sand to try and move up before the cobbles. It worked, but I was so scared I held on for dear life. Directly after the sprint and cobbles you came flying through the feed zone, everyone strung out at 55km/hr. Making a few turns left and right( linx and rex i think i learnt!..) and a long narrow stretch on brick roads after 15km split the group up pretty fast. We lost one Canadian rider on this stretch, as it was very fast. Most of the roads were very bumpy and all brick, it was a little scary, as there were a lot of manhole covers and speed bumps (6 in a row!). The race was long, 140km and I often found my self quickly losing focus. Our team quickly went to three riders, and we were all pretty close together. I did probably the best mental job in a race I have done before however. I was able to positive self-talk myself back into focus. The racing was very tight today and before I new it, I was near the back of the pack. The peleton was strung out almost all day today becuase of so many turns and cross wind sections. I knew I had to fight really hard to stay on, and that I did. About 70km into the race I began to have really bad lower quad spasms. Everytime i pushed really hard or stood up to sprint (every minute basically!) I tried punching my legs and massaging my legs, but the oil from my legs from the pre race massage made it hard to squeeze my breaks. About 90km in, I coulndt even stand up anymore, I was punching my quads so hard and I had snot all over my face as I was in too much pain to wipe my nose hahah. I felt the strongest in a race that I have ever though, and It felt crazy to average a speed of almost 48km/hr. It was fast, but I was very proud of how far I had gotten. By now i could barely pedal, my leg cramps were horendous. I had gotten a feed twice and took in as much salt as my body could handle. I had ate in the race, and there wasnt much else I could do. I slowly fell of and then shot through the caravan backwards. That was the end of my race, at 115km. I was very dissapointed that it wasnt pure strength, it wasnt mental game and it wasnt the pace of the race that kicked me to the back and got me finished. Cramping. What I dread, what used to be a major problem in my racing has come back to haunt me. My back also felt terrible, I was killing with pain, I thought my spin was going to snap and purtrude out of my sacrum. I have never felt that amount of pain before, but I was able to block it out minammally until I was finsihed. Eventhoguh I wasnt able to finish the race, I made it 115km and made it 3rd farthest out of all the Canadians. I was proud with what i had achieved, and i know that I felt very strong today. I am not used to this intestiy, and racing with the best racers in the world who have been racing every weekend since Janurary made it easier for me to grasp a hold of what an effort I had put out. I made it further than last, and I can only set a goal to go further in the next race. Next race however is a world cup with 216 starters, miles and miles of cobbles and hills, but I forsure will set goals, or how else could i reflecton how I road. We had dinner, pork tenderloin and some wierd foods again, which i choked back with like 8 gallons of water, and about 8 pounds of salt to make my cramping better. Then I had a quick massage on my legs where they cramped, and this is when I realized my legs were SUPER bruised. Every where, both legs, the inside was all blue and green and black, from punching my legs so hard when I wanted my cramps to go away. Pretty intense haha. Tomorrow is a recovery day, which means, sleep, ride, eat more, eating, eating more, a massage and eating like 17 other meals hahaha. Time to go watch a quick movie and fall asleep. I could write for hours about the race, but I think it's best to take my mind of racing for a little while and just relax. Ciao!

Back to Holland

Back to Holland we went today. Another four hour drive, but luckily i slept for most of the drive. We arrived at our hotel, and saw some belgian chocolate in a dish, so before checking in we made sure that had a few, or more..or even more than more hahaha. mmm. We have four rooms upstairs in our hotel, it feels like we are in the old maitrons quarters. The rooms are no larger than six feet by six feet, one bed just fits in. You have to use your key card to have electricity, its pretty crazy, i keep forgetting i need the key in the slot to be able to see! We had a pre race massage from Michelle and Julian cleaned our bikes making sure they're ready to go. It was funny, I got in trouble for walking towards my bike with allen keys and changing my own tires...suposivly thats not my job, my job is to relax and let the mechanic do everything. Im used to doing everything on my own, it was always made sure I was able to do everything before I went out biking. Its nice though, all we really have to focus on is racing. Thats a big enough task however. Im fretting tomorrow, another big race, Drenste 8 Van Dwingeloo, over a 140km race with six sections of rough cobbles. It will be the longest race i've ever done, and frankly, probably will contain the most amount of suffering and pain i've ever experienced. Thats why im here though, whatever doesnt kill me only makes me stronger, and I'm here to get stronger. I'm also excited to race strategically tomorrow, my best strength. I can't wait to try and move up, even if its terrifying with 180 other girls around. Im here to learn though, to gain expereince so next year I can look at placings instead of just having hopes to finish a stage. Its all a learning adventure that will help everything else in the future. I will update tomorrow how the race went! For dinner, it was pretty classy. They severed us veal, with a small thing of mashed potatos, and when i say small, i mean no larger than a toonie, not exaggerating!! Then some funny tomoato and some other little sides. We must of had to ask for more five times, and for them to make us some rice. Everything was delicious however, especially desert. The plates were decorative in cholcate and a ice cream design, and they tasted even better than it looked! After that, Denise took to her creative side and decided that we were in need of a phote shoot. Now it's time to head off to sleep, and prepare my mind for the race tomorrow. Goodnight everyone!

Just one of those days

Today wasn't my favoirte day. I mean it's only 5:00pm here, lots of day left, but nothing really happens then except everyone sitting on their lap tops. First off, it wasn't the nicest thing to wake up to pouring rain this morning knowing that I have a ride in a few hours and the black clouds go on forever in the sky. I was up early, no surprise since i've been here. I started to watch Black Swan the movie, it was pretty crazy, not what i expected but I liked it. Ate some breakfast, mm had some fresh bread from the euro store down the street. We started out on the ride, dressed in rain gear, rain jacket, winter booties, mits, earband and multiple layers. It was chilly, but once we started riding it was okay. The route was pretty boring, in the open and bumpy roads. We did some team time trial intervals down a long section of road once we got far enough into our ride. I was suffering pretty hard, and my heart rate was almost maxed, couldn't say i felt amazing at all today. It was pretty good, either than the insane cross winds that made my bike fly out on crazy angles. I didnt like suffering today, it was not my friend. We were doing a hard effort on the way back, and I got popped off from the back right at the end and had my head down into the wind and smoked a huge pole that was in the middle of the road. Flipped into a somersault and crashed. I was actaulyl lucky i hit a pole if i had to crash as it stopped all my momentum in .1 of a second so i didnt slide and rip my shorts. My front wheel got untrue and my handle bars were moved so far down. I could barely reach my brakes and shifters, and of course no one had an allen key, even Denise in the follow car. I just got a little bit of road rash on my elbow, lucky i had so many layers on, and my left hand is chewed up pretty good. Even with long-fingered gloves i still managed to take ome chain rings some how into the top of my hand and a nice cut between my middle and index finger. The top of my hand is swollen and purple now, but nothing I can't handle, and nothing thats bad. Im sure i'll have a gorgeous brusie on my hip when i wake up tomorrow. At least I sai it happened in training and not in a race. I have gotten my crash out of the way for Europe, and I'll be all safe in my racing now. So that sucked, and it didnt put me in a good mood. We had to ride back in the rain and my bike was making a ton of noises i didnt like. I washed my bike up when i arrived back at the house and the mechanic is working on everyones bikes this morning. I was lucky everything is good on my bike, nothing that cant be fixed with some allen keys and spoke tool! I have just been doing some work in my room all day and trying to get some rest. Now that i look back on it all, it doesnt seem that bad, and I got worked up with myself for nothing. I guess that's usually how it is, always seems worse in the moment than looking back into the past. We leave for The Netherlands tomorrow, another long drive. We will be there until Sunday, I hope I have internet. I think we are staying at hotels. No one really knows much, we are just told to pack and just hop in the van and head off. We will be in Dwingeloo Netherlands Wednesday and Thursday, we have a team presentation for the world cup in Drenthe on Friday, and the race the on Saturday, and then a race in Gelderland Netherlands on Sunday. Our races are 140km everyday, including a lot of cobbles. Great, i'm a little scared. Oh well, everything that I do here will just make me that much stronger when I return. I might have to buy some speculoos for a snack, I'm afraid ill eat the entire jar in a day though. haha it's so delicious! Thats all for now, nothing else to do untill tomorrow.

Coffee Shop Rides

Coffee Shop rides are the best type of rides here. This morning we headed out on an easy ride. We went off roads, on some gravel paths, gravel roads, and I finally did my first cobbles "climb". It will definatly be very interesting racing them, it was difficult to keep my hands on the bars going slow, let alone at race pace! It was a gorgeous morning out, the sun was finally out and I was able to wear shorts and a jersey and catch a tan. We rode to a town, I believe, is called Aarschot. It was a neat town, with tall brick buildings and many little clothing stores and coffee shops. Our group stopped and had some coffee, which I'm afraid I am starting to really like. Their coffee is so fancy here, and comes with little chocolate that are delicious, and something else small like a cookie bar or liqueur in a tiny little cap you eat with a spoon. The sun was really warm and we sat there for a long time enjoying it. The owner of the coffee shop came up to Leah telling her she was wearing "his" jersey. his name was Rudy and Leahs jersey and glasses said Rudy on it, it was quite funny. He told us to come back and we asked for free coffee for the next month, but he just laughed and said okay, obviously joking (i wish though!) . The continuation of the ride home was just as great as it was there. Its a fabulous day outside, and I've got nothing to do now except sit in the sun and do some work for school and forms I have to fill out. We have a pretty easy day, but in the nexxt few days we will be preparing for the World Cup on Saturday, and our race on Thursday first. Thats it for now!

Also- now back in Belgium I can understand how to put pictures up on the blog!

-karlee

Travel Day back to Belgium

Today we all packed up and were all ready to go to the race to watch Leah, and then they told us we were driving back to Belgium instead. We never got to see Leah but she finished about 28th I believe! Congrats Leah! We had a four and a half hour drive back to Belgium and made a few stops along the way. It was funny, we walked into Subway to grab lunch, and smelt just like home! At the house back in Tielt-Winge Belgium we had to do a ton of laundry and cook dinner..but we realized we had no food, and nothing after 12 noon in Belgium and Holland is open on a Sunday untill noon on Monday. A few of us and some of the U23 guys team went to Luven for dinner. It was SO gorgeous in Luven, I hope we get to go back as I forgot my camera! There were soo many streets, all cobbles, all huge brick buildings right next to the roads, gorgeuous stone buildings, fountains, castle like buildings, really tall churches etc. I would get lost in those streets super easily, as you canèt see your way out ever! We walked up this one skinny stip with 50 restaurants all with canopeas and chairs and tables outsdie. There were so many people walking around and eating everywhere. We sat down and had delicious pizza at a italian place, the crust was no thicker than a piece of paper. We kept seeing all these people with gelato and ice cream walk by, so we were on a hunt to find the gelato place, which we did after dinner. It was delicious! Speculoos ice cream mmmmmmmmm. Its like nutella but 100 times better, and more gingerbread cookie flavour. They have it in peanut butter style, which Europe is famous for. It also came with a fresh crisp tiny belgian waffle on the top (mm, glad we dont race for four days haha!) . Then we walked into the square of cobbles and cafes that turn into bars at night. Its pretty neat to see, especially all the people, and had some coffee and then headed back to the house. Now its time to go to sleep, another recovery ride tomorrow i beleive! Karlee

I got Guttered in a training ride..

So today was a very interesting day. The race was a bit further drive than the previous races, just over an hour. I had planned to ride with the Rabobank team and a few other girls, so I met up with them first thing when we arrived at the race site. Plan was to race the race course (two different loops ) for 80km about and then a bit more. Again, the winds here are worse than anything in Winnipeg, it sucks! I think i would take a mountian over this. No matter how hard you try, you look down on the speed sensor and it reads embarassingly low. One of the Rabobank girls went to the front after a few km and i guess decided it was too slow. She started to hammer so fast and got out of her saddle and started to sprint really fast, and didnt slow down! We chased her down and i suffered on her wheel...for 80km. My heart rate monitor read super high so i decided i want going to look at the numbers and i flipped it over to help my suffering. There were major cross winds the entire time and it was terribly hard. I think it's what i needed though, some strong intensity training to get me better prepared for racing on thursday. We were dropping people all over the place. When I got finished from the ride, i checked out my heart rate data....for three hours, max heart rate 200 and average was 187! ahahahah. It was harder than the race the other day! Im happy i got this hard training in it wil help, and riding with new riders and making friends from other teams might help in the long run somewhere! Anywyas, about the race for the other Team Canada Girls...Joanie, Leah, Leah and Julia. The race didnt go over so well for our team today. Leah k did great, she was 26th today. Joanie had an unfortunate crash with a USA girl and a girl from Holland who tried to bike sideways across the pack, in the middle. Joanie broke her collare bone and has to go home to get surgery, the USA girl is missing half her teeth and you can barely make out her face. We sat and had coffee in a little shop after with her and Leah G, and they time cut a large group of riders who were dropped so the other girls were out. So for tomorrow we have 1 starter and a bunch of cheerleaders. At least ill have others to ride with now for one more day. We had some clothing stolen and everyone hates the Holland racing, its totally insane and so many crashes. Everyone is SO happy to back to Belgium tomorrow after the race, either than were back in The Netherlands wednesday. Another crazy thing, theres a Pro Team here called Diadora Pasta Zara...One girl went on a solo break yesterday and stayed away for almost 50km and got cuaght 4km from the finish. She won the blue jersey, most agressive rider. The coach/director was so angry (eventhough she did amazing and not even dropped after) and the director said "If your so happy about your jersey, take it home and show your family" and sent her on the next flight home! Thats sooo crazy!! There's a lot of driving here and I better get used to it because there is a lot more to do! That much closer to racing each day!! Hopefully everyones bad luck is gone now. and im getting pretty sick of peanut butter and jam sandwhiches HA!