Bogaarden

I know its a few days late, but after this performance I was down and out for a bit wondering where all the hundreds of hours had actually gotten me for this year and why I am seemingly slower...
This was an incredibly rough race and after surviving most of it, the constant accelerations and dramatically downsized group after the first hour made my day just short of riding out the suffer fest. My teammate Chris made it to see the end and even he, the ever cool and collected Mr Willems admitted it was a challenge just to finish. After the race he left me with some wise words that a bad race does not mean a bad season and that is were I am leaving it and instead of dwelling on this one I am looking ahead to countless opportunities for improvement in the coming weeks.
I rode with Tino today and we had a good chat about tactics and situations unique to circuit racing here. I am going to go into the next race remembering to stay calm at all times and to think more on the end of conservation than races past. On Sunday I was on the very front from the start thinking that I had super good legs. I even got in a strong move early and thought it was my day. Needless to say after closing too many gaps and riding too close to the front I was just short of power when it came down to crunch time. You need power when the race really goes down and here that point is often far to clear cut. If I think of the races I have done so far there are always one or two very precise moments in time when the race was made, whether it be a chance to get in the winning move or stay on the right side of a peleton splitting acceleration. Even being here for the third time I need to be better at laying it down once or twice for real, rather than showing my hand ten times in a race.
Tomorrow another 120km circuit race awaits and after this one I hope to give you a more inspiring report.