1 Day. 3 Races. 2 Victories. 2 Top-tens

Easter Monday was a very successful weekend for my team. The team was spread out between three races. Tanja won a criterium near her house in Germany. Five of the team were in Italy for the first World Cup in Europe for the season, where Emma stamped her name all over the competition winning solo with a gap of nearly two minutes. She'll be wearing the World Cup leaders jersey for the next round in Belgium! She's my hero, and a huge inspiration! Then three of us were at a national category race in southern Germany and added two top ten finishes to the day.

My team director pulled me off the start list for the world cup after fighting some illness in the last week. I was happy about this because it meant I had a little bit of time to build up my system before heading back into the full swing of things the first week of April in Belgium.

After the start being delayed for a half hour the race finally got underway in temperatures near zero. The race was scheduled to be 7 laps on a 9k rolling loop with a hill top finish. Besides us there were three other strong teams on the start, Bigla, Nürnberg, and Team Stuttgart. During the first three laps there were several breakaway attempts. I was in the action and a few times I thought we had a good mixture of teams present. One break I was sure was going to work with Christina Becker, Andrea Thürig, and me. Unfortunately, the first break I wasn't in was the one that went. The bad part is that I saw it going and knew that every team but mine was represented but mine and I didn't react quick enough. At that point in the race I was empty. Looking back at the race those few seconds I should have pushed through are minuscule in the race and my season and life and I should have pushed through them but looking back is always easier than doing... In that crucial point I went to ask my two teammates what they were doing and how they were and if they could chase, unfortunately they couldn't and we missed the break.
I attacked a few times but by then the break was too far up the road to bridge alone, and the represented teams were bringing the field back to me anytime I tried. Sitting in the field after the others have sat up knowing their teammates are secure in the break is not fun, knowing I missed it. To make things worse it started to get really windy and we got even slower in the group.

After lap four I attacked again, this time taking Christina Becker, and Andrea Wolfer with me. Having those two riders with me meant that neither Nürnberg nor Bigla would chase allowing us to get away. Because of my previous mistake I had to settle to perhaps bringing them to their teammates in the break of four 1:30 up the road from us. However, since my teammate had said they had bad legs and we couldn't count on them in a field sprint, and I always prefer to be in a group as opposed to the field I figured by eliminating the number to seven was better for me than sprinting to 20th.

Over the course of the next four kilometers we reduced the gap to a minute. However it had started to snow and the officials shortened the race. We only had one lap to go. In that lap we kept chasing but weren't able to bridge all the way. Maybe with an extra lap we could have bridged but who knows. I ended up 7th, and once again learned a lot. My team mate Andrea was able to sprint to 9th to pull in another top-ten for the team. It was a great race for her after just getting over a lingering back injury from last season.

The only good thing about my making mistakes in the races is that it makes me even more motivated for the next race and next chance to give it a go.

I'll keep you posted:-))