A lot happenned today to say the least. I woke up, had a bunch of waffles, and chilled out before having to leave for my race in the afternoon. When I arrived at the race I found out that registration was in a bar. There was a tiny room in the back of the bar with a couple officials where I registered.
I got my bike ready and warmed up for a couple minutes and then lined up. I got a front row start which was really nice and there were about 50 other 15-16's in my race. The race started off neutral for the first 400 meters and then it was off. The race was 65km long consisting of ten technical laps. I quickly found out that the pack is very aggressive and that you have to fight for every spot. Unlike the U.S., there is no yellow line rule here, anything with pavement is fair game. Many kids would hop the curb and then attack on the sidewalk! The course was very flat which made the race very fast. Every single corner you had to sprint out of. After 7 laps, I blew up and rode solo for the next two laps before getting pulled. I finished 27th and even got 5 euros in prize money. The race was the hardest I have ever done and now I know what to expect for tomorrow's race. By the way, the race took place in a rural area and the smell of cow crap filled the air.
After the race, I had a cookie and got back in the car with my instructor to drive back to the house. On the way back to Oudenaarde, we had to go through Izegem, so we went a little out of our way to go see the USA national team house which was really cool. Those were pretty much my adventures for today and I am going to rest up for tomorrow's race.
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