Bonjour as they say in France and as I have said to a few people since returning to Sweden on Friday afternoon. So how has a month of fine cuisine and very little exercise treated me? Well, at least an extra 0.5kg has appeared somewhere on me. But it was not completely without training because I needed to ride a very old Giant MTB to get food. But this had a basket and quite the wobble and was seriously around 20kg which may have been why I was so surprised at my own bike yesterday in Tidan.

Yes, shock my system with a 45 min + 2 lap race in Prestige at Focus Cross Race. What could possibly go wrong??? Well, I took two test laps and felt kind of like I have never ridden a bike before but luckily the feeling came back over time. The course was much the same as 2 years ago with a slightly different hill part in the grass. It was dry but very bumpy so it was hard to get any flow at first. And on those test laps I never did make it up the last of the hills. So with all this experience I was obviously ready for start. Or should I say ready to wander around and socialize with most of CX in Göteborg.

The start went as starts normally go and I was fine at first except the grusväg section right at the beginning was slippery so I ended up losing a few metres already there. So all the way down the long straight I was trying my best to keep contact with the last 3 who had obviously done quite a bit more training that me. By the grass section things were already looking bad and I had to focus on actually staying on the bike. But staying on the bike was not always possible and I discovered that my pedals were shite and I couldn't really get out of them. Since this was also where everyone was standing it was the makings of a nice fall sequence. But I didn't fall, surprisingly.

Already in the first couple laps others were having technical problems so if I could hold on I would not be last. And I am pretty sure I passed one person and I think a second also who passed me again. But mostly I was just looking ahead to the gap and I could see that when I entered the grass section the closest in front of me was already heading for the tricky slide hill...quite the gap. But the 45 min passed and I felt okay and suddenly confident on the bike so I decided to go all in and accelerate som fan. This obviously led to a touch of heavy breathing but also it was working and I had flow and power. So on the last lap I could actually see Ida who was ahead of the person I thought was ahead of me and I knew I had to try with half a lap to go. Around this start of the grass section a group of 4 lapped me and 3 of the 4 had passed Ida before the slidy hill part. The 4th will not blog about this but the slight slowdown here was enough to get me på rulle and after surprisingly not messing up I could pass her before the löphinder and build up a 9 second lead before the finish. A finish that was still only good enough for 24th place in Prestige but considering my preparations I am very satisfied with the day.

But now to continue the shock training it is time for Vallen and GöteborgsSuperprestige...