Anzegam UCI 1.12 April, 30, 06 - 30 de Abril 06

Yesterday was another cold and windy day in Belgium. I've been sick with a pretty tough head cold for the last week but with me only having a couple more weeks here Bernard (our director) and I figured I at least should give it a go. My legs felt lousy all week and I just felt exhausted but with the adrenaline from the race the legs were actually feeling like they were coming around. The race was just like any other here I guess. It was a loop of about 17km with 11 laps. About 14 corners and nothing I would consider a climb back home but quite a few good length rollers that at the speed we were taking them at sure felt like climbs. I did alright staying up towards the front during the early part of the race whitch was good because being sick I just wasn't feeling like I could recover from the hard efforts. Ther were alot of retarded crashes going on all the time it seemed like. I guess thats just how it goes when you'r all going that hard with that kind of wind. People would be echeloned out across the road and strung out and in the gutter and sure enough up ahead of you, you would see someone take it into the gutter just a little to far and take a nose dive into the ditch. We had one pretty good descent on the course and one guy went off into the ditch so hard I thought for sure he was going to be hurt bad. He got right back up though. I guess the fresh manure in the farmers feild padded his fall pretty well but he sure didn't look to pretty afterwords. Luckily I never got close enough to see if he smelled as crappy as he looked. There were a good handfull of other crashes too besides the gutter spills. One good sized pile up in the middle of the pack and then I don't know what happened but the guy right in front of me bumped someone hard and came unclipped and I ran right over his foot. He stayed right side up though and luckily so did I. I hope I didn't hurt his foot. Lap after lap I could feel that my recovery time was taking longer and longer. Then we got word that the break of about fifteen that had gone on the first lap was back to only about a minute up the road. That of got some teams motivated to get organized on the front and the pace picked up even more. On the rollers I was slowly getting shuffled back and I was having a tough time. Like always guys started getting spit out the back. Unfortunatly I was now close enough to see this. I was really starting to go into my red zone by now. Then out of the blue I'm sitting probably in the last 15 or so of the peloton strung out in the gutter. We came to a section where there were some metal posts on the course that would normally split the road from a bike path but of course we were using the road and the bike path. The race organizers had some cones leading up to these posts but with how hard we where going and being strung out the way we were I guess the guys in front of me didn't see them coming in time. The guy right in front of me hit the large cone hard and went swinging out across the road in front of me. I had to swing way wide to get around him. The guy right behind me wasn't quite as quick to respond and he continued straight and hit the posts and went down taking a couple others with him. Having had been so close to the back though I was gapped off from the peloton pretty good after that and the team cars started passing me. I bounced back and forth through the caravan moving up then back then up again for a whole lap. A couple of times I was discustingly close to getting back in the pack. Then of course a turn would come and I'd get gapped in there by team cars. When I finally couldn't handle the surges of the cars anymore and they all passed me I just time trialed it for another lap. I picked up one of my teammates who was sitting up and had him just sit on me while I time trialed it. I was pretty irritated at how close we were staying to the back of the caravan and not being able to get on. Of course I soon ran out of gas and that was it. In the end out of well over a hundred starters there was only a group of about 35 still in the race. The wind and crashes had taken there toll. And now a day later I'm back to fighting this cold. Luckily today is a rest day. Thanks for reading!
Robert Lofgran

Ontem foi mais um dia de vento forte e frio. Tenho sido gripado a semana inteira mas nosso diretor Bernard queria que eu corresse ainda assim sendo que eu so tenho mais duas semanas aqui. Entao decidi ir e ver como iria. Minhas pernas sentiram pesados e nao bem a semana intiera mas quando a corrida comecou aquela energia da corrida ajudou elas sentir um pouco melhor. A corrida era como qualquer outro aqui. Tinha 11 voltas de 17km. Cada volta tinha 14 esquinas. Nao tinha o que eu realments chamaria subidas de verdade na corrida mas tinha bastante morros entao o caminho estava sempre rollando. Ainda assim estando gripado eu fiz bem ficando pela frente. So tinha problemas recuperando dos constante pulas de velocidade. Cada volta deu para sentir que estava ficando mais e mais dificil recuperar dos esforsos. Tinha muitas caidas na corrida tambem. Caidas estupidos tambem. Com a velocidade e o vento todo mundo estava tendo que fazer esfrosos no seus limites. Sendo que todo mundo estava ficand linhado e quase nao mais tinha um groupo tinha muitos que ficaram tao perto do lado da rua que derepente ficariam perto de mais e o pneu da frente tocaria na grama e eles iam caindo ao lado da rua e caindo nas trevas que linham as. Tinha muitas caidas assim. Tambem tinha uma grande caida de muitos corredores no meio do groupo por razao nenhuma. Depois de um tempao ouvimos no radio que o groupo de quinze que fugirem na primeira volta estava ficando perto de novo. Entao alguns euipes se orginizarem na frente e a velocidade da corrida pulou ainda mais. Eu ja nao estava sentindo bem. Devagamente eu comecei a descer no groupo ate que nao estava mais perto da frente. Eu nao fiquei muito preoccupado sabendo que logo teria um chance para subir ao frente de novo. Mas logo entremos numa secao da corrida com vento vindo do lado forte. Estavamos linhado atras do groupo. Tinha neste secao algumas barras que estavam na rua que normalmente bloceavam a rua normal de uma pista de bicicleta ao lado da rua. Os organizadores da corrida tinham coisas nu rua antes destas barras para avertir nos. Entremos la e o cara bem em frente de mim bateu numa dessas coisas. Eu virei para minha esquerda e de algum jeito nao bati nele. Mas o cara atras de mim bateu nestas barras tambem e levou various outros com ele. Infelizmente estendo perto do final do groupo eu ja estave atras do groupo. Eu andei na caravana por uma volta lutando a chegar no groupo de novo. Eu fiquei tao perto algumas vezes que aindo nao acreditou que nao consigui. Depois de uma volta fazendo isso eu finalmente fui passado pelo ultimo carro na caravana. Eu contiunuei andando fazendo meu propria corrida de contra relogio e logo pegei um membro de meu equipe que tinha saido do groupo. Ele nao parecia bem e ficou atras na minha roda e e continuei indo com forca. estavamos aindo tao perto ao final da caravana mas nao estavamos consigindo pegal-la. Finalmente eu nao tinha mais nada e ja era. Entao aquilo e a corrida.
Obrigado por lendo amigos. Espero que gostarem. Espero que vao gostar de meu novo site. Vou fazer meu melhor ter muitos novidades sempre aqui por voces de minhas corridas e vida em geral.
Se cuida Brasil!
Robert Lofgran