For me this was another night that was hard to get motivated to go and race. I was feeling sick and the forecast was for thunderstorms and heavy winds. My daughter Katrina wanted to race in the kids race so I decided that I would race too.Because I was at the race for the kids' race, I managed to get a very nice warmup and was ready to race. We had a nice contingent of riders wearing Courtesy colours and someone even remarked that it looked like we breed like rabbits. There seems to be some truth that we looked like a group of rabbits as all the riders together looked really sharp like a large team.
As far as the race went, it was wet to start with. Then it rained. Then we had a nasty crash which required about a 1/2 hour wait, and then we had some very heavy rain. I managed to continue riding during the wait to keep warm as I already was wet from the early rain. After we started back, I didn't think that I would finish. When it started to rain really heavy, as in too hard to see, I thought that would be it and I'd quit the race. But, my legs felt good and, as long as there was a clean race, then I figured I'd go to the end.
I managed to survive the race and finished 11th. Our team rode strong overall, with Thomas winning outright. Yet, I think that this was the first race at the Ciociaro that was run really, really clean: There was very good riding by everyone and it was nice to race after all my not feeling like doing it in the first place.
Images from Charlotte Loaring.
Full results at: Ciociaro Thursday Series