It is 9.30 p.m. on Saturday evening and I am in a hotel room writing down anything that this comes to mind.
The moment has arrived. I am in Klagenfurt ready for tomorrow’s race! I have left my bike and bags in the changing zone after checking everything was in perfect order. My energy bars and gels are where they are supposed to be, my clothes, chip and skinsuit are resting on the back of a chair, so that when the alarm goes off at 3.50 a.m. tomorrow morning I know I will not forget anything! Everything is ready… but what about me?
Lots of people have asked me the same question over the last few days: “How are you feeling?”. And I have said the same thing to everybody: “Good, I think!”. But the last month – the time when you should be taking it easy and starting to enjoy your physical fitness as you begin to lighten your training as part of your pre-race taper, when you should be shaking with excitement as you get ready to leave for the race – has been one of the worst periods in my entire life.
At the beginning of June, right in the middle of the last two weeks of heavy training for the race, my parents had a bad accident on a scooter and my father had to undergo surgery, which kept him in hospital for over 20 days! It was a very…
