Roc Laissagais 2018

For the second time we traveled to Laissac in France. Last year the conditions were great; sunny, dry and even a bit hot. This year like the rest of Europe the weather has been precarious and at our arrival extremely windy 🌀.

Traffic around Paris 

Almost in Laissac

It's the first UCI Marathon series on our race calendar and that means a lot of world class racers are present. This year even more than last year, so qualifying for the worlds will be very difficult as not impossible. In the women's category I need to finish in top 5 to get officially qualified.

We arrived Friday in the afternoon, so we had enough time to get installed, get our race numbers and chill.

Chilling

Our hotel for the weekend

Turn clockwise 3X  🕙

Startlistcheck

 

💑

Originally we planned to ride one of the recreational rides on Saturday to get a bit of tension on the muscles but due to the wind we postponed our ride to later that day.

Around 16:00 hours we went for a reconnaissance of the start and finish

Sunday morning started with our race day "ritual".  Getting up early, trying to get some food behind the teeth, going to the toilet (3 times 😈), preparing the bikes, getting dressed for the "show", warming up, going back to the toilet again 😁, going to the startbox, wondering if I should go to the toilet once more 😖, 1' left, 3, 2, 1 GOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Different as usual Peter started 15 minutes before me for a longer distance.

The women's start was separately from the recreational riders. Really fun because we rode in a group of 16 riders to the first climb and then the top ladies increased the tempo. I could see the first riders in front of me. I was riding in 7th position and was able to keep that position.

I remembered from last year the last part of the track was the road to hell. A lot of long steep climbs and some technical (but fun) downhills. Stopped counting the switchbacks at 100.😊

Difficult to keep the concentration at 200%, so my frontwheel slipped, and that was seen by the two ladies following me closely. One by one the two passed me when I was still a bit shaken by my mistake earlier. I had to let them go, but still could keep them in sight.

After 50K I started  to feel my energy level to go down, and I knew I still had a nasty never ending steep climb to overcome so it became a mental war.
Although I overtook some other riders who were fighting the man with the hammer it was very hard on me. Beside myself I had another enemy, which one was trying to push me back from where I came from. HEADWIND, or better HEADSTORM... 💩

I pushed on and it payed off, I could overtake another female rider which resulted in an 8th place. And for UCI ranking even a 7th place. So no qualification but honestly that wasn't realistic between the top women at the start!

*#!&?