Some days it is so hard to come up with a title for my posts. Hence, the lame title for today’s post. But in a way it is applicable. Today has been pretty smooth. Actually a fairly standard Monday for Belgium.

Work. Ride. Errands. Work. And very soon bed.

Got in an excellent ride with Ed today. We had no fixed plan – just 90 minutes at a good pace. Set off, noodled around Aarschott and Rillaar. Made our way back to the house – a bit gritty but definitely satisfied. Decent riding weather today – light rain and 10 celsius. (No snow for us!)

Not much else to report really. Went into Antwerp to hit up the Decathlon and Saturn. Didn’t buy much of anything of interest. Now just chilling out and doing some more work. About to shut down for the night. Yoga on the agenda and then some quality time with my book.

Watched the women’s race at Nommay while eating supper – thanks to Cycling TV. A pretty exciting race. Impressive riding by Compton and Gould especially. Zolder this Friday. This will be my first World Cup. I have no idea what to expect. I’m approaching it like any other race. Pre-ride. Warm-up. Eat the same as usual. Stay relaxed. Focus on the start. Have fun. Should be good. Pretty decent way to spend Boxing Day.

Okay, I’m out. Have a good one. Don’t know if you’re on Facebook or not but Jos has posted a bunch of photos from Scheldecross. (I’ve yet to look at them all – I will do it later – I promise!) But if you are on FB – go take a look – and leave a comment! Have a good one. Oh, and if you’re close to a Sbucks – have a grande, non-fat, no foam, no water, tazo chai for me…

Actually not so bad to have Sunday all over again. Nice way to perhaps avoid the onslaught that is the craziness before Christmas… Nonetheless, here is the post that should have been written on Sunday – but wasn’t…

So quiet day here at the house. Everyone was out at the races, except me. I’d already raced two days in a row – a third was not appealing or permitted based on UCI rules (I pre-registered for the Nommay World Cup – then decided not to do it – and this prevented me from racing…). No problems for me. I had a relaxing early morning. The usual, breakfast, tea, WWW, and seeing the others off.

Then I was off. Got on the trusty steed for a little “tip-tap” ride. No SRM. No feedback. Just me, the music, and the fine Belgian air. Plan was the canal. Perfect. Relaxing and no cars to deal with. Made it to the canal in a little less than 30 minutes of riding an excellent bike path and then simply pedaled and smiled. I hooked up with another guy – he came by me, I jumped on his wheel, started to feel guilty so rode next to him and chatted. I learned that the canal I was riding along would take me to Antwerp. We rode for a while and then I turned left – to follow another canal. Nice. Much better than riding along the canal in Ottawa. Nice and wide – and no strollers or roller bladers. I just pedaled and enjoyed the view. Came upon a bunch of rowers – their coach was riding a rickety old bike and bellowing at them through an enormous orange megaphone. This was at the town of Emblem. And where I turned around.

Ah, free speed. At the turn around I was gifted with the all-time bike rider’s favorite – the tail wind. I whipped along grooving to OMD, U2, Kaiser Chiefs, and k.d. The cycling traffic along the canal was steady but not overly busy. There were a lot of men set up along the canal with very long fishing poles – most had umbrellas to shield them for the wind and some had little stoves – to cook the day’s catch?

So made it home 2.5 hours later… This always happens, plan on 2 hours – ends up being 2.5. I was hungry and a bit dirty. It wasn’t raining but the paths were gritty and greasy. It was so warm I didn’t wear shoe covers or my Kingsgbridge winter jacket – was able to go with just my long-sleeve Kingsbridge jersey. Nice. So a solid ride. Quick and efficient cleaning of the bike and it was chill time.

Really didn’t do much. Walk to the bakery. More WWW. Lunch. Knitting (I’ll spare you the details…). Marc and Ed got in and told me all about their respective races in Wilrijk. Both were 9th. Both needed to pit – thank goodness Jos was there to help out. Much bike cleaning was done in the garage. Then it was off to Sultan’s for a meal out. Ah, Sultan’s – home of the Turkish kebabs. So good. Different from the Lebanese shwarma.

We closed off the night with the Nommay World Cup. Interesting race. Fast. Muddy. Slippery. Wonder what it was like to race it? Have to wait for the blog posts, I suppose. Massive shout out to Natasha for a fine 13th finish! Cool to see two Americans on the women’s podium.

Okay, I’m out. Got some real world typing to do. On deck for today – a ride. Not sure what – need to check my plan from coach Steve. Have a good one. Try to squeeze a bit of Sunday into Monday – you’ll appreciate the pace and vibe. And yes, indulge at the office Christmas potluck – have some of that marshmallow, mandarin orange, and pineapple, coconut salad thing for me – you know you like it….

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…

So big race day today. Scheldecross. A great venue. A classic course. Perfect racing weather – short sleeve skinsuit and thin cycling socks – can’t beat that on Dec. 19!

We set off around 9 a.m since Marc and Ed were racing at noon. Made it there with no issues. Got registered and got the all important elite parking pass. This elite parking pass is crucial – it got us into the compound with all the big teams and riders. We got a good spot and were quickly surrounded by the Fidea trucks and cars.

Things didn’t go so well for Ed – he forgot his shoes. Tim did the best to get them to him in time but it didn’t work out. Marc had a super start. He was riding in 5th place. Then a crash on a descent onto the pavement set him back. This crash caused his SRM cable to come loose and get tangled in his wheel… And he didn’t want to pit because of a bent derailleur hanger. In the end Marc fought back super hard and his never say die racing style earned him a 16th place. As I told both Marc and Ed – tomorrow is another day and surely will be better.

As for me. Well I had a pretty good day on the bike. Today I finished 23rd. This might not seem super-fantastic but today I was racing with the strongest field I’ve ever faced. All the greats were there. I held my own and put together a good ride. There are areas I can improve on. Areas that I rode super well. So I’m content. I’ve written a race report here.

After my race I hopped on the trainer to get in a solid cool down. Marc set the trainer up so I could watch the men’s race and watch the people watching me. A very bizarre experience. Don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the starring. The fans check you out. They check the bike out. The stare at you for a bit. And then keep walking. Kind of cool. Now I know how giraffes and monkeys in the zoo must feel. One guy stopped to ask me all sorts of questions about my heart rate.

I met David Quist today. He is an American/Norwegian who has come over to get some European cyclo-cross experience. Nice to meet him. We’ll see him tomorrow in Lichtervelde. Got to catch up with Daniel and his sons – super friendly and encouraging.

The elite men’s race was pretty exciting. I wandered around taking pictures and cheering for my favorite – Vervecken. Unfortunately he abandoned – but he is still one of the greats.

So here are my pics from the day. Some are a bit blurry… Sorry about that. I’ll have more photos tomorrow from Jos and Ed.

Truly felt the cycling vibe today. Rolling along in the group ride. Who is a few rows ahead of me? None other than the man himself – Sven Nys. Doesn’t get much cooler than that. As Tim said “All the greats were out today.”

Hopped into the group ride close to the house and then dropped off with Marc and Ed in Zichem. Marc took us on a fun route that involved one of the largest and steepest hills I’ve seen in Belgium. I kind of thought Marc was joking when he said the hill was steep. So of course, I attacked… Mistake – big one. That hill was steep. Looking forward to riding it again next week.

Did a nice solo ride after that. No music. Just me, the bike and awesome little Belgium farm roads. Hooked up onto some of my favorite routes. Nice steady pace. A few openers for tomorrow. Not often that I ride without music. Had my iPod but just really wanted to get all the sense firing today.

Pretty chilled day today. Made a quick trip to the bike shop. Picked up some gear and Marc bought some swank gloves – some super warm Sealskin gloves and some slick BBB racing gloves. I might get some BBB gloves for myself – at 9 euros – can’t really go wrong.

Just us Canadians here at the house right now. Tim and Jos are over at Blauberg getting the British Cycling Federation riders settled in. We’re all flaked out getting caught up on the action of the day. Have a good one. Send me some fast vibes tomorrow. I’m racing at 1:30 (7:30 a.m. EST). Marc and Ed race at noon (6 a.m. EST).

Oh, it was kind of wet on the ride today. Not raining. Just greasy. See for yourself.

Muddy and happy