After Krasna lipa I was really looking forward to a nice enjoyable week in Belgium. Dale came out to visit me which was really nice as it was nice to take my mind away from cycling and racing for a few days. Helen introduced me to the chocolate shop in ooudenarde which is the most amazing coffee shop and I’m actually considering moving to Belgium to be near it! That made my week. After my week of enjoyment I found myself once again in a car enduring a 7 hour drive to Germany….. something which I’m starting to become accustomed too!
To say I was nervous for this race was an understatement. Looking at the list of riders doing Thüringen was pretty daunting! The race hotel was really nice and was definitely looking forward to riding with the team especially Hanka as I know I could learn a lot from her! It was really inspirational to be riding with her with what she has achieved in her career.
I thought Czech was a hilly race but I got to stage 2 of Thüringen and then realised that this was even hillier! The racing was at a different level and you could just tell how experienced the girls are that were riding this race which was amazing as you felt comfortable in the race and not nervous going down the descents.
It was good to be rooming with Annie as it made the stage race bearable when we were both struggling with the quality of the field. It was good to have down time and watch films to take our mind of the racing and how hard it was! We watched the little mermaid whilst we reminisced back to our child hood days when we had no worries. Soon found myself thinking about how hard the next day’s stage would be! I knew that I was racing against the bike riders in the world so I knew that this was as hard as it would get.
The journey back from Thüringen was another interesting 7 hour journey filled with lots of playing boggle and scrabble which the outcome was inevitable…Helen Wyman smashing our heads in! Got quite used to being beaten in these games!
I’ve taken a lot of positives from the race and I’m looking forward to the rest of my season and see if I can start pulling some wins out! Sparkassen is the next big race this Sunday so hopefully Horizon will be able to pull out a good result and with Hanka and Helen on the team with the way they are going it’s looking possible!
Hannah
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