After Etna marathon, I did a few other races, a long distance road race called the Libero Grassi and some mountain bike races, Granfondo del Volcano, The Conca D’Oro and the British marathon mountain bike championships.   The Libero Grassi was my first experience of a road race over 100 km.  It’s the most popular race here in Sicily and it attracts riders from all over Italy.  It was a great experience and the scenery was just stunning.  The race set off and ended in Patti and then climbs up through the Nebrodi mountains.  The first part was really fast with some 30km flat out along the coast.  I hung on to a group with two other female riders, Antonella who is a really talented bike rider and mum and Lisa who has a wealth of experince in road racing which really shows in her ability to always stay at the front of the pack and never waste energy tagging along at the back.  We hit the first hills and from then on I was able to get a good lead.  The climbs were pretty long and the last one was a km long wall!  All in all it was worthwhile race and I definetly appreciated the help provided by my dear friends, Alfio and Lucia.

 

The Conca D’Oro is a marathon race which takes place near Odolo, Brescia. It’s like a long xc race with short climbs off road and on road with lots of single track descents. I arrived the day before the race and  I felt okay, but it wasn’t exactly the right time of the month for doing an mtb race. I was really careful not to tire myself too much during the lead up to the event, as I didn’t want anything to effect my enjoyment of the race.  Nevertheless I felt pretty low on Saturday.  While getting ready to try out part of the course, we met up with some Felt riders including new pal, Paolo Alberati.  We felt really honoured to get get to ride some of the course with these riders.  We kept up for the first few km, but soon got left behind when we got to the off road.  After about an hour, we turned back and just got back to the hotel before it started to rain.  This didin’t effect the  terrain conditions as it had been really dry so we weren’t concerned about muddy sections.  The next day we woke to sunny weather and we set off for the race start and warmed up for about an hour.  I was in the front start grid as this is usual for elite riders and then the other riders would set off at ten minute intervals to avoid bottle neck situations.  The start was really fast but I managed to get past a few girls on the first climbs and was in 6th place not far behind Felt rider Alessia Ghezzo.  The flatter  road sections meant I could put into practice my road biking skills, so I caught up with her half way. However,  the rest of the course really didn’t suit me that day and  I just didn’t have enough power to gain on the short climbs, which were getting steeper and longer as the race progressed.  I lost sight of Alessia after getting stuck behind a fall.  Then I also fell, bashing my right knee and causing another rider to fall, too.  I limped on and he had to cope with a nose bleed.  I tried to ignore the pain as I knew it would go away and then come back after the race had finished.  Some of the single tracks were quite slippery after the night’s rain which didn’t help my descending as I was foolishly feeling afraid of falling yet again.  This was causing me to be too cautious and so I lost another position to Sandra Klomp.  I soldiered on and came in 8th, a little disappointed for my result, but satisfied that I had been close to the lead female riders for the first half of the race.

 

Other reports to follow!