Hello everyone!
Here I am again, thinking about how time flies and how another race season is almost over, again.
I am coming back from Ladies Tour of Holland were I had some good races with my team in preparation towards our biggest goal of the season which is the Team Time Trial World Championships.
“Standing on the podium with your team mates is very special” is what the majority of the girls say when they win it and I totally agree with that. But to me, what is really special and what actually I will never forget about team time trials is, a part from the reached pain level which is always over the limit, sharing our feelings and our emotions the days before the race, feeling the adrenaline and sometimes the stress growing through your stomach the hours before until the last second before the start and, the fact that you feel that responsibility towards your team mates knowing that they need you at your very best to not let them down. I always care about my team mates, but when it comes down to TTT, I really try to be my best to make our group a unit. Sometimes I am the one who takes care about them, other times they take care about me. When I joined Canyon//SRAM I had no clue about time trials, well, honestly, I hated them, mainly because I never performed decently in this speciality.
Step by step, thanks to my team mates, (Trixi over all) and the staff, I started to like this “ new world” and transform it into a routine . I say “new world” because it really is a parallel full world where most of the performance is made at home through good preparation on and off the bike and the hours before the race through high focus, feeling ready for that effort and having a “schedule” in your head where all the pieces of that puzzle are in their place. Then, for sure you need a lot of power and good legs to perform :-).
I am a bit sad and frustrated about the news that this will be the last year in which team time trials will be part of World Championships as I have the feeling that the level in this speciality was growing very fast and that many teams invested a lot of time and money to develop our equipment, aero positioning and all the other details to be as fast as possible.
But, I am looking forward to give it a last go and do my best with my team.
My next blog will be written after my holidays and in the middle of my off season, so I guess I am going to talk about something different from cycling and races, so, as every kid does at the end of school thanking teachers and mates, I would like to thanks Voxwomen for involving me and my colleagues in your project and most importantly to give us the opportunity to speak out about women’s cycling and the improvements and the set backs we have to face in our job.
I loved Christine’s blog and I thank her for having the courage to say what she thinks, using some very polite but specific words. I can assure you all that the big majority of the women peloton agrees with her.
Wishing a nice Worlds week to everyone who will be racing and to our fans : climbs, cobbles or flat: you are always the best part of our adventure!
Elena!
