Hi there Adventure Freaks,
Hope you had a nice weekend!! (sorry about the delay in getting this post uploaded, Soren sent to me weeks ago.. I'd like to blame someone.. but.. it's all my fault... Lyndon)
Yesterday I raced the Luxembourgish cyclo-cross championship. As the defending champion from 2018 you always feel a certain amount of pressure on you to “deliver” again. It was a super cool year wearing that champion jersey and I really felt that people in Luxembourg started to notice who I am and what I am doing.
The national championship race was something I had on my mind as a goal for this winter. During the last few races before the championship, I felt my shape getting better and better. I started to believe in achieving a good result again this year. I did not leave it on chance and trained on the track nearly every day during the past week. That’s why I knew the route really good and also worried about the fact that this race would be the most technical cross race I have ever done in my whole career, therefore also the most challenging. Unfortunately the bad weather and lots of rain in the night turned the track into some kind of BMX track with millions of low speed corners.
The race itself did not run as I had hoped for as I crashed twice, fortunately without hurting myself badly. This was nevertheless enough to frighten me and forced me to be more prudent. After having been witness to some really bad crashes during the first laps, I had to pull the breaks more than I wanted to. On the one hand a wise decision in order to start save in my MTB season, on the other hand a loss in view of a good standing.
At the end of a super slippery race I finished on 7th position.
Nevertheless, I know that my shape is good, and for sure a lot better than you can read from the results. But like I said: better safe, than sorry! –I will grab that jersey again next year.
My MTB season is starting soon, and I am really excited about that. Next week I will fly to Lanzarote and do the UCI S1 “4 Stage MTB Lanzarote”. See the following info with live updates and video from the event. The week before the event I will once again be hosting an international MTB camp in cooperation with the La Santa Sport`s hotel.
https://www.facebook.com/
After Lanzarote I will do some more training and stage racing in order to get ready for my big goals this year, which will be racing for the overall in the UCI Marathon World Series.
I will like always keep you updated regularly during the season.
Looking forward to another great season together with all of you. Hopefully we will meet at a few events during the year.
Best regards,
Sören Nissen
