Team Cyclingnews.com - Down Under - 2004

May 16, 2004: Finding my legs again

Rund um den Flughafen Köln-Bonn (1.3)

By Cameron Jennings

Hi all,

Starting to feel better as my health problems are being resolved. The blood test did not show too much but did show that my iron levels were pretty low, not deficiently low but towards the lower end of the scale. I am sure for the general population my levels would be fine, but the general population is not trying to do what I am trying every weekend and then some. So, I am eating my nuts and bolts and resting up some and starting to feel better.

Last race was on Sunday, a nice 1.3 in Germany going by the name of Koln-Bonn. The sun was out again, hopefully for a bit longer this time as we finally found the change rooms after a 30 minute ordeal. Silly us, we should have seen the sign 'Douches' written on an orange palm card size sign on a pole. The team was Josh, Harro, Cody, Hamish, Eric, Phil, Sven and myself.

The course consisted of three 60+km laps and one of 40km. The 60km laps had four tough climbs all within 20km so it was a pretty tough day out. The start was pretty full-on as we hit the first climbs and I was beginning to wonder if my health problems were improving or not. Just felt really sluggish on the first lap as a group of 20 got away. Fortunately Josh made the group so I settled in, trying to find some decent legs as the Bankgiroloterij and De Nardi teams took up the chase as they'd missed it.

Over the next few laps the gap stayed at two minutes and fortunately the legs did get better, either that or everybody caught up to me. The pace was solid all day and as Josh came back to the bunch, the front group only had 1:30 but that was as close as they got.

Returned to the finish and had 40km of flat big roads left so with nine up the road, UCI points and prize money was still up for grabs. Sven, Phil, Harro Josh, Eric and myself were left in the bunch of 50 guys so anything was possible. With ten kilometres to go the attacks started so it was a matter of following what you could and having a good go yourself. Phil slipped into a group and so did Eric and my groups/attacks just did not get away so I slapped on my sprinting legs and had a go.

Phil ended up 14th with Eric and Harro slipping into the top 25. I was top ten maybe in the sprint but I'm not 100 percent sure. Not a bad day and happy to start spotting the light at the end of the form slump tunnel. Topped of the day with the best change rooms at a race for a long time. Hats off to the organisers for booking a room at the Holiday Inn across the road for a shower. Heaps better than some smelly old sports hall. I think Harro might have scored some towels so he was equally pleased with the outcome of the day.

Now, resting up for Tryptique Ardennes starting on Friday. Hopefully I will continue to get better.

Cheers,
Cameron

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