We had a kind of long drive today – 1:45 to get to Lichtervelde today. This was all about mud and very unforgiving deep and soggy grass. The course was basically flat with a big bump in the middle. The course was set in a farmer’s field. I think they had just moved the cows out this morning because I saw some piles that did not look like mud…

So Marc and Ed were up first. They both rode super well. Marc finished 5th and Ed finished 7th. Impressive rides since this is the first time we’ve seen this kind of mud. Congrats guys on good rides. I worked the pits during their races. Marc pitted once and thanks to a friendly Belgian guy, Marc’s bike was clean and ready for him. I was flailing around trying to clean it and this guy came over – told me I was doing it wrong and cleaned Marc’s bike for him. I got some laughs from the other guys in Marc’s race when I cheered him super loud and pointed out that the pit line was the quickest line!

My race was a bit later. I had a good warm-up on the trainer. With the mud it didn’t make sense to go out on the course and suck the energy from my legs. I rode the trainer for an hour, watching the Masters A race. I’ve written a race report here. Not much to write home about. Suffice it to say – I had my not-so-good day on the bike.

Saw David Q. again before the race and got to see him race a bit. After a quick hose off with the power washer, we hit the road for home. I conked out in the back seat. Love that back seat – so easy to fall asleep and recover.

Got home and spent about 45 minutes in the garage cleaning up the gear and getting the washing going. Pretty quick considering. Jos cooked us supper today – chicken curry and quinoa. Nice! Thanks Jos for the fine meal. We chilled out and watched the women’s race at Scheldecross (yesterday’s race) – amazingly it was on television. Coolest part was we saw me twice! It was cool to watch as I could see how the leaders rode certain sections. Particularly the sand – where I had to run the entire sand – the top two basically rode the entire sand section. Most impressive.

Okay, I’m off to bed. I’m not racing tomorrow. I had registered for the World Cup in Nommay but the travel, etc. was getting a bit stressful. So after some discussion with coach Steve, we decided to pass on the race. But since I had registered for the race, I’m not able to race tomorrow. No worries – I’ve done two races. Tomorrow I’ll go out for a couple of hours. Thinking of hitting up the canal path. Should be good. Everyone else here is going to Wilrijk to race. So it will just be me and George (the cat).

Here are a couple of pictures that Jos took at Scheldecross. Thanks Jos!

Scheldecross speed

Scheldecross corner

Here is a picture of my name on the television – from the start list at Scheldecross. Coolio.

Scheldecross name on television

Best of luck at the World Cup in Nommay! I’ll be watching on the television…