July 16, 2010 - I have made it to Belgium in one piece and so did my bikes, the flight was long and boring and I couldn't fall asleep on the plane either. So it made it a very long couple of days, and I'm still trying to get over the jet lag. Belgium is a very neat place to see - very European of course. The people here are friendly and make an effort to help you. The first day we got here we had a major thunder storm and the rain was coming down in sheets. I never saw rain quite like that is such a short time. The house we are staying in is more like a loft; it's pretty nice and homey. The first night jet lag hit me bad I woke up at around 4 am Belgium time and was up for about an hour and half before I got tired again and went back to bed. The riding around here is super nice; though I got shaken to bit from the rough roads today. The roads here are very rough but there are interesting things to look at along the way which makes it better. The change of scenery is refreshing from the prairie plains. It is very flat here like Saskatchewan but with tons of trees with a few popping rollers. The last couple of days here have been very winding, not that different from Sask but combine that with rough roads it can be quite difficult. The first race here is on Sunday at 2 o'clock and it's a 130km, which is the longest race I have will have to do and have done it this year. It's a UCI 1.2 race which I must admit that it's kind of scary because it will be very tough. There are going to be about 170 women in the race which is by far the biggest race that I have ever been in. I'm really enjoying it here and I'm learning lots. I think Sunday's race will be a big eye opener for me to european racing.

 

 

July 20, 2010

          Dwars Doors de Westhoek was the race Team Canada did on Sunday.  This race was combine of 5 pro teams, 2 National Team (yeah Canada) and about 14 club teams for a total for 141 racers. This is the largest group that I have ridden in to date.  I didn’t find that there was much of a problem riding in this group besides the fact that if you aren’t continuously moving up you will get shot out the back.  This was one of the most technical road race that I have done; it had about a million corners in the first lap with was about 50-60km long.  When the girls were taking the corners everyone would be slamming on their breaks creating one big yo-yo motion.  At more the one point in the race I was sliding kind of sideways with the breaks almost locked up to avoid the girls in first.  Remarkably there wasn’t that many crashes in the race and most happened towards the end of it. 

       The roads were very narrow I found, they were like paved dirt roads, there are only about enough room for four girls to ride beside each other and then there would be no room to get by. In other words it was tight. 

      There are five King of the Mountains in the race all which were in the first 35km of the race.  They weren’t very long but some did have a max grade of 13%, I got dropped on the first hill which they all powered up.  Me and a group of girls chased to get back on and caught on by the time we hit the fourth hill.

      Once we finished the one big loop we started on a small 10km loop which we had to do 7 times.  Part of that loop consisted of, not cobbles but these bricks that are damn close to cobble- Pavé with the French word for it.  There are about 1.km of these ‘bricks’ along the start and finish line and feed zone.  I have no idea guys can do a whole race on them; I would just get shake to bits and fall off my bike – one km of them was enough for me.

     This race was one of the hardest things I have done.  I don’t think I have ever hurt that much in a race before. My heart rate at one point in the race hit 199bpm – Now I know a lot of people would say that that’s not that high for my age, but I have never, ever seen numbers that high for my heart rate.  I highest HR that I have seen in the past was 193 and that was in a VO2 max and a time trail.  My first reaction when I saw those numbers was ‘oh my god I’m gonna die’.

    

It was quite hot out and along with the distance and speed I was really starting to suffer after about 80km’.   I ended up finishing with the main pack and placed 76th.  Only 91 people got classified at the end of the race, that means that the 50 people either didn’t finish, got pulled or where 5% behind the winners time.

    I was so glad when the race was finished and couldn't wait to get off the bBricks'.  This race was really an eye opener to the racing in Europe and it shows me that I can handle it. I may not be the fast or the strongest but I can suffer it out and mentally not crack till after the race.  We are off tomorrow morning at 6 am to France for a stage race, Tour Feminin en Limousin.  There will be one time trial and 3 road races.  The courses are very hilly and it is most likely going to be super hot down there. It’s going to be a hard couple of days

Cheers for now.

Julia Garnet