Just sitting here in my hotel room in Tabor surrounded by bikes, wheels, damp cycling kit and an array of other items that somehow need to get packed up tonight. Definitely looks like a bomb went off in here! But this is a small price to pay for the day I had today. Yes, in the end, it was a good day.

It seemed like everything just came together really well today. I guess this is when experience pays off. Nancy and I gave ourselves plenty of time to get to the course – which was good since we got a bit twisted around trying to find the parking. Ignace and Andy left earlier to get everything set up for us. So awesome to have the use of a mobile home (RV) at these races. I had somewhere warm to relax, get changed and to just chill out before the race.

Pretty much did the usual World Cup drill – got on the course for two easy/moderate laps right after the junior race – this allowed me to see the course again and to test out tire pressure and tire selection. Then it was back to the mobile home to relax. Today I had a bit of a massage before the race – Ignace rubbed some kind of cream into my legs before I hopped on the trainer – I think it really does help – my legs felt really loose when I started warming up.

So the race… I was called up last to the fourth row and elected to take a better spot on the fifth row and managed to squeeze up into row 3.5! Many thanks to Katie and the Danish team manager for taking my warm-up clothes. The traffic light changed and it was odd – nothing happened on our side of the start grid – we were all stalled. A bunch of us flubbed the start and missed our pedals… Sigh, but I just tried my best to catch back on and managed to get on the group by the first corner. There was lots of pushing and shoving in the first bit of the course and one rider event stopped to adjust her shoe… Anyway I was just off the back of the girls ahead of me and then I made a couple of mistakes and was chasing for the entire race. I had some fast laps and some slower laps. Essentially I really went hard and well for the first three laps and then the last two laps I made a bunch of mistakes that added up – missing my pedals multiple times after the stairs, crashing, using the front brake, not turning my wheel enough and being in the wrong gear at times. As well, I should have been standing up and sprinting more to accelerate rather than trying to accelerate from a seated position.

But these mistakes happen when you’re tired and I can learn to overcome them as well as improve on the acceleration. So all in all, I’m okay with the race. Getting closer to the UCI points I need to qualify for the 2012 World Cyclo-Cross Championships and this is the ultimate season goal.

Had a good time after the race chatting with so many different people and then watching the last few laps of the men’s race with Nancy and Andy. A big thanks to these two for all their support and friendship these last few days in Tabor – really great to get to know them better. Big thanks to Matt and Mo for their friendly faces, cheering and words of encouragement. Thanks to Jonas and Christine for letting me tag along with them for supper tonight and for helping out so much. Massive thanks to Ignace and Katie for their support, mechanic work and great company. Big shout out to Gabby for a fine ride today – and to Gregg for his help in Plzen. Thanks to Luc and Kelly for the cheering and photos.

Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without Marc so a big thanks to him for believing in me and enabling me to follow through with my dreams and goals. My sponsors have been awesome this season and it is so nice to be supported by a find group of companies who really help me out in any way I need.

I’m off to Prague on Monday and then flying home on Tuesday. Looking forward to getting home and seeing Marc and Mr. Murphy! Also can’t wait to eat some food that I’ve cooked myself. Alright off for some supper and then I’ll be packing up bikes. Thanks for the cheering, the Twitter comments, the emails, the Facebook comments and blog comments – really means a lot to me!