Easter Sunday is the 9th of April. To me this has always been the day of getting a load of chocolate and doing an easter egg hunt - until the past few years as i have focused on cycling more then eating chocolate. From when i was younger i have always watched the Paris-roubaix race on easter sunday and have always dreamed of riding it.this year i got the chance to do that with the national team. On the 27th of march we did recon of the course where i got my first taste of what the race will feel like. When people had told me that it was brutal i didnt realise how really true they were, the cobbles were hellish and stretched for a relentless 3km, and i had 17km more of that to look forward to in the real thing.
After contemplating things i could improve on for the race i adjusted my bike setup to make the race more comfortable for me. I woke up on the day of the race for an early start at 6:00am to have my breakfast and prepare for the race ahead of me. We had a 20 in car journey to the start line and i used that time to manifest getting a good position in the race. The next thing i knew i was on the start line, i had warmed up and ready to go. The race was ferocious from the very beginning as there was already a number of crashes. Just getting to the first sector without crashing was an achievement - from that point on i set the mim=ni goals of getting through the rest of the sectors one-by-one to scale the race down and mak it easier to focus on different ways i could put myself in the right pod=sitions to be able to win. This was made difficult because i unfortunately got caught behind 2 crashes and consequently the chances of me getting back into the leading group were ruined so i found myself within a group of 5, and we all worked together to make it to the finish and for me to place 48th. I was disappointed by this because i knew i ha the potential to do alot better but that is just the unforgiving nature of paris-roubaix. Nonetheless it was still a good feeling to ride into the velodrome because i know the amount of people who didn't make it that far or haven't had the opportunity to get to were i was at.
I enjoyed having my family and my girlfriend there to cheer me on around the velodrome and it gave me an extra boost for the last lap and ½.