Night 1

1 down and 5 to go. I was glad to get the first night under my belt. I had some extra nerves and general anxiety about racing in a situation that was unfamiliar.

We ended 4^th overall on the night. We each raced individual elimination races which gain points towards the team if you place in the top 5. Eva did her job and got some points… I, on the other hand, didn’t. I got in a bad position and eliminated in the middle of the pack. There really is a different style of racing and that was a wake up call for me.

Our Madison together was FUN! We made plenty of mistakes and will clean those up and do better next time. Here were a couple of the learning points:

- don’t miss exchanges. We missed 2 which left me stuck in the race. A team never wants to miss exchanges and really don’t want to leave the sprinter in there in such a high paced race for that long. Eva learned from those misses and we won’t make those mistakes again.

- I needed to be more aware of the lap counter. It was different here because we raced it like a scratch race with time counting backwards and then when the time ran out we had 10 laps. Well, I wasn’t really paying attention. By the time I thought to look up there sign said 2. I thought it was 2 minutes but it was 2 laps. Oops! Our plan was to have me in there for the sprint but instead I threw Eva in thinking we had 2 minutes on the clock. She finished 4^th which was great but that wasn’t the plan. I guess it would help if I spoke the language since the announcer was counting down the laps. But, of course, I didn’t understand at all.

- I was the one who started the race and Eva started on relief. We needed to start towards the front. I had no problem with this but some instructions from a race director before the race had me confused with the rules on moving up at the beginning. I ended up towards the back and that was a mistake. It was a fast race and hard to move up!

Had to include this picture. They do sprinkles on bread as a savory treat. Hmm...

I got home last night and couldn’t sleep until 5:00am- I slept from 5-11am. I think I was on sensory overload and my mind was racing about the racing and what I was going to do differently the next race. Tonight I take an Advil PM!

I am going to try and attach some videos… hopefully it will work. I left my real camera in the hotel room and all these pictures and video were taken with my iPhone.

BTW- reason #42 I really like Europe- even average hotels have really nice Grohe bathroom fixtures. None of this American Standard stuff.