The longest day: Eislek gravel

After I took a small break following the US trip, it was time to show up to a race again. Eislek gravel in Vianden, Luxemburg would be a nice race to get the engine running again. The course was three laps of 36km containing 3 climbs per lap. Temperature would be a toasty 32 degrees.

As I did not know what the legs were ging to be like today, I did not have a specific goal for results in mind. I just wanted to do the best I could and keep pushing until the end. At 10:00 the mens elite race started. I managed to get over the first steep climb quite okay, but I had to dig deep. Looking back, this is probably where I messed up my race. I overcooked a bit and never recovered before the start of the second climb. As we hit the bottom of the second climb, my legs immediately struggled to keep up with the main group. Soon I found myself being overtaken left and right. I quickly let go of the idea/hope of doing any sort of good result and tried finding a pace I felt was doable. At the end of lap one, I was overtaken by the first age grouper.

Luckily things got a bit better from here. Slowly, my legs started to come back to me and I could sort of push again in the second lap. My pace on the climbs was okay and thanks to the support crew on the side of the road I was always cooled and hydrated. As the descents were mostly tarmac and non-technical I did not need to bother staying in the front of the group at all times.

The womens race had started 30 minutes in front of us, so in the second lap we started to overtake some of their groups. It was really nice to see Elli and Anna riding and it motivated me to stop being a little b.... and just get on with it. When we went into the last lap I just wanted to see what I had left in the legs. To my surprise, I actually felt really good and I could keep up a nice pace on the first climb. When we got to the second climb, there were only two of us left in our group and we pushed to the finish together. I felt I could push way harder than what I did in the first lap.

In the final descent we overtook another friend who was doing the womens race. Together the three of us went for a friendly sprint to the line. This was a really nice way to end the race as it was fun having some nice people around at the end of the race.

In the end I came in in 45th position. This is of course not what I came for, but it is what it is right now. At least I am really glad I felt so much better in the second half of the race so thats what I'm taking home right now. Nevertheless I had a really nice time being out with the team so I am definitely not regretting driving down to the race. For now it's just back to work and keep looking onwards and upwards toward new goals.

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