Roc Laissagais MTB UCI World Marathon Series 7th April 2013

In order to qualify for the worlds every rider needs a top 20 in the series so I headed out to France with my folks for this year’s Roc Laissagais.  Two weeks after the Epic I was unsure if I’d recovered, my bruised quad was still sore but all other wounds were healed up and I felt well rested.

We stayed in a French converted barn in a tiny hamlet at 800m altitude with a log burner inside which we made sure never went out!  Saturday we woke to snow, a bit of a shock after the sunny UK we’d come from.  It was grey, miserable and wet down at the start in Laissac and I was glad we were just signing on.  I finally did an hour back up at snow line, wet but at least more scenic than in the rain lower down! 

Race day was dry thankfully but only 1 degree at the start line.  I didn’t mind that armed with 2 pairs of gloves, knee and foot warmers and our lovely new team winter jersey from ASG.  We headed out and started climbing. I found myself at the front and at the top there were only 2 of us.  On the muddy decent I was dropped, the Europeans really know how to ride in the mud and soon 3^rd place was passed me.  3 of us rode together as we hit an un ridable climb.  Finally I passed and dropped 3^rd place but lost the leader on a long descent and never saw her again.  The route was beautiful; forest trails, single track descents, river crossings, open gravel climbs and muddy hike bike climbs.  With so much variety on a challenging course and feed stops every 10km where my parents managed to get to with drink and a handful of sweets at one point I was enjoying pushing myself and racing hard again. My 32Gi tabs tooked in the bottom of my shorts went down well, it was a course for quick easy eating food as there was little time for taking hands off the bars.  The last 10km was hard.  It was warming to a barmy 6 degrees, too hot with my layers and where I expected a long downhill we still climbed another 500m in altitude in deeper mud lower down in the forest. 

With a hunger knock hitting I finally rode into town and across the finish line in 2^nd place, 4 minutes down on the leader having had a small fall and denting my helmet but not hurting myself just loosing a bit of time.  The interview in French was a non-starter, I muffled ‘fatigue’ and that was about it!  I was very pleased with the result having come from rocks and dust in South Africa to 1 degree and mud.  I was riding a lot of technical bits just not with a lot of speed so that’s where the work needs to be done now!