Last blog from Belgium this trip

Today was a very easy day, I rode for 90 mins in Active Recovery and only did 'two lung openers' which is all I wanted to do for the day.

My bike is clean, and as 'tuned' as I can make it with a very limited tool set, I think it's going to be fine.

My plan for the afternoon was to sit on the hotel steps and watch the big UCI professional women's race that took place today, 208 riders on the start sheet. I was chatting to the 'Chef de Jury' last night at dinner, or the Chief Commissaire if you prefer. I was at one stage exam qualified to that job myself, I always found it useful when I was managing my team. Not that we talked more than superficially about racing we spent more time chatting about fiction books and stuff like that, nice chap.

Anyway back to the women's race, the last time I was here they raced 15 laps of a 7km circuit, so it was all happening and you could follow how the race was unfolding, this year they did one 7km lap then 7 laps of a 19km circuit.

I watched the first lap and after less than 7km there were already 30 riders about 1 minute down, another 15 @ 2 mins, so I guess in a field that big there is quite a mix of abilities. The think was the front of the race didn't seem to be driving either, the pace wasn't high.

I watched one other lap and got bored with hanging about with nothing to do, in anycase I needed to pack, so I left the ladies to it and got myself packed. I'll have to do it all again tomorrow but I'll be travelling on after the race tomorrow morning ready to fly out of Amsterdam on Monday morning.

I'll do an entry later to recap what I've achieved this trip, I know its not as good as the last trip but I also know my FTP (Threshold) is 40/45 watts down on that trip, I think I understand why but I can't do anything about it now! On the other hand my ability to put higher power numbers out for shorter times is still good.

So my plan tomorrow is going to be the same as Friday, do as little as I possibly can and stay in the race and hope it comes to a sprint of some sort. Its going to be tough, big field, good riders coming from all over not just the guys I have been racing and of course I'm giving away 'years' which gets tougher as you move away from the starting age of 60, its also going to be windy and the course is right alongside the open ocean, normally I'm good in the wind so we'll see. Let you know later.