One week before Tour de Namur

It's sunday and it's time to relax. One week ago I was cracked(which in cycling vernacular means dead tired) after doing a race and then riding back home. I got a bit of a head cold the next day and spent this entire week taking it easy, going on 2-4 hour rides but nothing too intense. Matias was racing a stage race so I basically had the entire house to myself all week. On Friday, I went and watched the TT and again, the set up was impressive. The team buses, cars, trailers occupied an entire town. It kind of reminded me of an NRC race back in the states except this was a bit more polished and nice. Also, every rider has a follow car and lead motorcycle for the TT. Every single rider!

Anyways, after the TT, I went with Matias and Freddy to the team's masseuse and got a massage. Ahhh, so nice.

I raced Saturday at a kermesse really close to the house. My teammate Laurent and his girlfriend picked me up and we all drove over to the race, about 15 minutes away. We were running late and got registered 20 minutes before the race started. Riders number 148 and 149. Great warmup. I was  bit worried due to the lack of a warmup but the group decided to take it easy on the first lap, which was nice. The course had one hill in it yet we still went up it fast-20mph. Hills...climbs....where are they in this country!? I managed to go off the front once with a small group but the everything stuck together. On the last lap, two crashes happened within inches of my front tire. The riders around me went down but somehow I managed to keep the bike upright. The second crash happened in the last 5K, which really hurt the legs putting in the extra effort to unite with the front group. I lost some significant positioning due to that crash but still managed to pull a teammate near the front. I finished in the front group, and after last weeks very subpar performance, I'm happy.

One thing that I will definitely have to work on, however, is the pronounciation of the OOOO and UUUEEE. I rode up to my teammate Laurent during the race and said, "Laurent, OOOO(water-l'eau in French".

"What?" , he yelled.
 "OOOO", I said again
"What?"
"Water, do you have water"
"Ahh, water. No I don't have any water"

I ended up finishing the race with no bottles; one was empty and one was lost during my near collision with the crash. Sometimes, English works best.

 I wasn't too sure about my conditioning going into the race given my easy week of riding and no racing, but this race confirms that I still have good fitness and the legs are good.

Some of our friends at the Tour de Wallonie last week

I'm not sure how many races, if any, I'm doing this week, as next Saturday is the Tour de Namur. I'm pretty excited for it. It will probably be very challenging, but I'm looking forward to racing against other Americans. What?! My manager told me the U.S. under-23 national team will be there. How ironic-I'm going to be racing as one of the only Americans in this race but for a Belgium team nonetheless. And I'm pretty stoked.