Today was the best stage yet although a complete blur between the extremes of pain and suffering and adrenaline and exhilaration. It began like a road race with a 10km neutral start to cross the city, before we hit the first big, incredibly steep climb. We lost sight of our Topeak Ergon-Hansens Flodeis Team targets during the start, but managed to catch them just before the top of the climb. From there a great day of battling began!
We had to push hard to stick with the girls on the climbs but knew that if we managed that then we could be faster on more technical descents. Halfway through we came to a massive long rocky descent that must have gone on for half an hour. Sally and Kristine were in front going in to it so we chased them down rocky drops, tight corners, around big berms at breakneck speed. It was SO much fun! Towards the end one of them overshot a turnoff and suddenly my racehead kicked into play – I darted in front and hammered the rest as fast as possible to try and get a gap.
The caught us again on the next climb and we were back to chasing along a dusty, trail of drops and kicker climbs following a river. It was a struggle to hold on for another two long, steep climbs but fighting the pain we just about managed it until the course left the steady fireroad and hit a killer steep technical climb. It was unrideable in parts, especially at that stage in the day when my leg muscles were screaming to stop. We were still only a minute or so back and felt confident we could catch them on the final long descent. I can´t believe that the graph of the course is accurate because everytime we thought we couldn´t possibley have to climb more, it kicked up again so that in the final few km it was back into survival mode. In the end we were 6 minutes back from the girls, 1st in the mixed cat and much higher up in the overall field than previous days.
After the stage recovery is almost as important as the racing itself. Firstly a recovery drink whilst we clean the bikes an prepare them for the next day, next a hot and cold shower followed by compression clothing and more food. After stretching and a massage (provided free by the organisers), its time for a rest and maybe a snack. Then the daily award ceremony and video followed by a big dinner with our rival team at a great Italian we found down the road. To be prepared for the next day eating enough is really important but you have to eat so much its getting to be really annoying! Tomorrow is a monster - 115km, over 2000m climbing.
Josh’s video is here