No Earthquakes in Spain

Although the current earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis in Japan is making cycling look pretty frivolous at the moment, everything keeps rolling along. It is nice to see Fumy Beppu, a Japanese rider on Team Radioshack, drumming up lots of support on twitter and also including a minutes silence before the start of the Tirreno- Adriactico stage. The disaster has been the only significant news that has reached me since I have been in semi-isolation here in Bizkaia, and it shook me out of the cycling bubble that I was/am slipping into. Between training, eating, racing, twitter, and talking with cyclists, there isn't much in my life at the moment that isn't related to two wheels.

Today (written Monday 14th), I am making an excursion into Bilbao city centre. In the
morning I visited the Custom4us headquarters in Arrigoriaga (www.custom4.us), and in the
afternoon I am going shopping and sightseeing. Hopefully this will provide a mental and physical
break from the all-consuming pressure cooker that I put myself into during a race weekend.

The week preceding the races went very smoothly with nothing of much interest happening.
My training and recovery is possibly the best it has ever been. I have been doing consistent 17 hour weeks with no knee pain, illness, or over-training. The Lointek Women's UCI team gathered at the team house for a local race on the weekend. A few spoke fluent English so it was quite satisfying to have a conversation that didn't have to use my still very limited Spanish vocabulary.


Saturday's 105 kilometre race departed at 3:30 in a town called Lizartza. I abhor (yes, abhor!)
the morning before these afternoon races, as it means 7 or 8 hours of racked nerves before the start instead of the 3 or 4 hours before a race at 10:00. Much sympathy goes out to any team mates (or parents) who have had to endure my foul mood before races. Perhaps I should have listened to my mother about seeing a sport's psychiatrist. As per usual, I had nothing to worry about and the race was very successful, with my team-mate Diego taking fourth in the sprint finish. I put in a Thomas Voeckler style attack on the final two kilometre climb and soloed my way down the descent, imagining I was Samuel Sanchez. The peleton caught me on the 4 kilometre flat run-in, but I then switched to George Hincapie mode to lead out Cavendish (Diego), to the sprint finish.

Cresting the summit in Lizartza

The following morning's 115 kilometre race was in a town called Almandoz, just off the
French border. My role was to play Cadel Evans (think 2007), and stick to the back wheel of a rider called Igor Merino, who is apparently an excellent climber and likely winner. This plan didn't really work for two reasons. Firstly, a strong break got away without Merino that stayed away to the finish. Secondly, I could not follow Igor Merino's wheel, no matter how much I tried to emulate Cadel's limpet-like style. I exploded about a kilometre from the finish and lost about 8 or 9 places from riders behind who had better pace judgement than I. It truly was a spectacular finish though, and I couldn't help feeling very spoilt to be able to race on such exciting terrain without being professional. During the race I got a chance to have a 'team leader' experience, with the whole team on the front trying to bring back the break for me and another strong rider on the team. I can't say I was entirely comfortable with it, but it gave me some idea about what stress rider's such as Cavendish have to deal with.

So as the title hinted, no ground breaking results, but another enjoyable weekend. I am off to
go sightseeing, and try to forget about anything cycling for the next few hours.

Adios y buena suarte Japon!