The Zappi house was still fairly sparse as lots of the lads were coming and going over a 2 week period at the start of February. This meant that when we arrived, there were just 4 Zappi riders and 2 guests in the house. It was real 'chilled out' week, which was nice.
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| This great old Spanish guy on an electric bike was with us for 10 minutes |
Last weekend, I had my first race of 2017. It was a 70km regional race and the first tester of the legs this year. We woke up at the crack of dawn on race day to ride the 47km to the race, hit a pre-race expresso, then cracked on with the race. After the race, we had a fair bit more riding and efforts to do; it was a big old day (195km) !
Anyway, back to the race. The pace was pretty fast but nothing too crazy. It certainly opened up the lungs and that's for sure. The best moment of the race for me came when at a steady point in the race, I looked across to my left and did a double take - it was Johnny Brownlee! He then looked across at me and asked "are all bike races this sketchy?" After answering this and having a quick chat, I caught up with him and brother Alastair post race. They were really 'down to earth' and it was great talking to them. I found it very inspiring as I have quite a link with triathlon as my dad was a top level triathlete. Back to the race, another highlight was the finishing loop. It was the same as that used in the Tour of Valencia the previous week when Tony Martin took the win. It was a 5 minute climb followed by a descent to the finish. I managed to finish in the front split in 26th place. I was fairly content with this to start off the season.
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| Great to meet Johnny and Alastair Brownlee |
This week started steadily but the latter half has been pretty hard with a few big days and lots of efforts. I'm writing this with very heavy legs. Tomorrow we have our next Spanish regional race in Benidorm so I'll be back with an update soon.
Ciao
