I felt after Normandie in March that I needed rest, and it was never planned to happen, but perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that I came a little ill after Normandie and I made the call to have a 2 week build up towards Loir Et Cher, the 5 day stage race, to be honest I spent one week cafe riding, and when I say one week I had 2 days off, between sickness etc I felt I needed it. In Normandie I wasn't really climbing well, I was strong but not fighting or finishing strong. Now results and races can make you go 2 ways, but luckily I had 2 weeks after until my next race, one week feeling a little sorry for myself, and then 1 week + with Long hours and training between the hills etc, I'm not the best climber at all, but I also don't have the attitude that when I see or know there's a climb that I think, "oh well, today is over for me" it's a fight until the next people on the road have caught me, and with racing I don't get to train in the Ardennes as much as I'd like, so to work on it is difficult at times.
My 1st race this month was Loir Et Cher which started on the 12th, the day that saw the teams first win of the season with Damien Shaw, we spent 4 days defending the jersey before we lost it, that sort of gave me free reign for the final stage, because it was such a short stage around a town the classification was not going to change. My confidence to say to people and myself that I can do a certain performance or fight for a victory didn't come until this race, I was able to get the confirmation I was looking for between the stages that I needed too for myself to push. Everything in this race was for the build up towards Rutland Classic back in the UK, when I go home I always want to perform, better yet I want to win, and I thought that was possible in Rutland, here I was able to create the break away for the days race, and it was absolutely perfect in my mind with all the top teams in the UK represented, and my team mate Kasper, unfortunately with some bad luck we lost the person who we needed in my mind to survive to 2 punchers, his team then had to chase and we were left with 4 guys from the original 10 or so with around 20-30 km to go, Kasper eventually pressed on over one of remaining sectors with another British rider to try and take the win with me returning to the reduced peloton, that attack also did not survive, it ended up with a combination of 2 riders from British teams attacking on the last lap to fight for the win, eventually myself and Kasper went 6th and 11th after hanging on to the finish line.
Bretagne was up next, the 7 day stage race in France, I again thought it was possible to do a strong result here, and if anything a reasonable result came from where I least expected it, a bunch sprint, with 200 meters to go I thought I can win this, but I paid for my efforts in the early part of the stage and I was only able to hold on to the line and not push forward, again it was a 10th position for me, I'm never happy with these results, it only leaves me wanting more, that's normal for cycling, but again it's a lot more and a lot better than I was achieving in the UCI races before this. This week saw are 2nd win of the season with Kasper, the guy with the most race days in the team, he just keeps going, and finally he got what we all believe he deserved. The whole week was the element of team work, we didn't go in stupid break aways to ruin our selves, we went with the ones that counted and the ones that had the most chance of bringing a result, everything was covered, and on the one day the result we worked for came from the work we had done before hand. Although the over all basically went very far South for us on the last 2 stages I could only walk away thinking that things were changing, things are more consistent and the work for and from the team is finally starting to show. Now it's just a case of holding this feeling and fighting for a real result myself.
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