Update part 5 - Sweden World Cup

Anyhow, the reason why I was so hesitant to give myself a proper break now was the fact that I was down to do the World Cup in Vargarda, Sweden and then the Lotto Decca Tour in Belgium with my regular racing team TIBCO. I thought it was too close now to take a break and just forced myself to go on training. To be honest, I wasn't sure if it was just all in my head or not, because I did have good days too, like in the Ballinrobe, but just somehow everything I did felt so much harder than it should have.

Training with my team in Sweden

However, I managed to put in some half decent training and hoped it would all somehow come back together for the racing with my team. I travelled to Sweden to be reunited with my team and we cracked on with our first TTT training together. It didn't go too bad for a first time, but I felt the speed and pain in my legs and was the first to get dropped in training. This did not bode well for my confidence, normally I would be the strong one that can keep up the power and drop people. For the TTT race so I was very nervous. On top of that I had a bad start and had to chase onto the rest of the girls, then, just when I was trying to recover, I had to avoid one of the girls nearly binning herself in a right hand corner. For the second time within a couple of minutes I had to chase on hard to the fast disappearing TTT train. I was racing in dark-red before I even put in a pull myself. This was not going well. Finally, about 10min and only 5km into the TTT, I couldn't suffer any more and had to let go. Frustrated and disappointed at my embarressing performance I rode shamefully to the finish. Yes, we hadn't ridden together well at the start, but nothing hide the fact that my form had not returned.

After a day recovery spent on an easy ride, the Word Cup Road Race was on the plan. All the big teams were here and the course was hard with some tough climbs and strong winds on the day. I tried my best to stay protected wherever I could, but was struggling from the start. My legs didn't allow me to get to the front to attack, as I had been instructed to do. I was feeling shit and was eventually dropped, riding around with another few girls until I was pulled. What a crap experience. My director was obviously not happy either, feeding my feeling of misery and the atmosphere was not great.