DREAMING

The dream is this: we will be happy when we reach our goal.
Start the season with a win.
Then we get there, and if we are human, we immediately start to dream about something else.

Before I left for Spain, I wrote down my goals for the trip; Get back into the race mode, set up my new bike, leave with more points than when I arrived. Did I achieve it? Well, yes. I did get 4 race starts, so definitely got back into the whole rhythm of racing. I did set up my Lapierre, both suspension wise and bike fit wise. I also left with 76 points, which was 40 points more than last year at this time, but I had dreamed about more. It didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped, but on the other hand, I had set some goals for the trip, and I completed 3/3 of them.

Those small goals are all steps on the way and part of the progress, and I know that. But when I raced the first weekend in La Nucia, I felt so capable and strong. I was confident out there and my numbers were some of the bests I had seen from myself. I left La Nucia with such a smile on my face! Was awesome to take the win, especially with all the new sponsors and staff.

​We continued in land to a town called Chelva. Chelva delivered a demanding, technical, and fun racecourse. It’s rocky and loose and puts the bike under pressure. Great spot to test out equipment. My performance there was what I felt like a solid day. Nothing crazy bad nothing crazy good, but overall, a pretty good day.

And who would want to live a

​life without dreaming?

One thing about these winter team camps that you might not know, is that it’s not a training camp per se, it’s a race-training-media-photoshoot-video-meetings-sponsorvisits-testing kind of camp. Most riders and teams combine these early races with all that. It’s part of the game, but it takes a toll on the body. The last weekend of racing was in Banyoles, I could feel that we had been doing all of the above, but I was determined to put in a good race effort.

Friday we raced a short track, fun to be back racing in this format, plus I actually had a really good ride! I think I finished 8th. For the Sunday race, it was a different story. The weather gods played us well, and the course went from dry and fast to deep mud and sliding around. I was a little sad to finish the trip with a bad race, I took some bad decision and couldn’t recover from it during the race, so I had to settle for a finish far behind the leaders.

​The life as a racer goes up and down, from wining to barely crossing the finish line.
Now I’m back home, writing this from my sofa. It’s still cold here but the sky is blue. I feel the energy is creeping its way back. Getting World Cup fast is a progress, and this trip was an important step on the way. I’m already looking ahead. What’s next?

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The thing about us always looking for the next target is that we never stop dreaming. And who would want to live a life without dreaming?