The Day Before
The Day Before
This morning we did one last proper ride. About 40 kilometers, with a solid chunk of trails around the Berg River dam. It was a good one, technical enough to feel purposeful, but not the kind of effort that leaves you wondering whether you've overdone it. The terrain around there feels quite a bit of what's on the menu for Stage 1 and 2 in the Montagu region (if I recall correctly). So in a way, it was a nice preview. A reminder of what's coming without the pressure of it actually being race day.
But the best news of the morning had nothing to do with the ride itself.
Jeroen is back.
He was feeling well again, properly well, and I could tell within the first few minutes that the strength was there. Not cautiously-testing-the-legs. Just him, as strong as I experienced him to be on that one ride of our supposed to be training camp in January in Girona. After a few days of uncertainty around his health, that was just great news. You can prepare meticulously for eight months, get your own body in the best shape you can, and then realize that none of it matters quite as much if your partner isn't at full capacity when the gun goes. So watching him ride this morning was genuinely reassuring.
After the ride we showered quickly and drove out to Meerendal for Registration Day. We picked up the suitcase — one dedicated bag that gets transported to each stage finish for you. The whole operation at Meerendal was impressively well organized. There's something about walking into such an environment, with all the teams and bikes and the unmistakable energy of people who've been building toward the same thing for months, that makes it feel very real very quickly.
It is real. Tomorrow it starts.
Eight months of training, three respiratory bugs, a ten-day break in Switzerland, more indoor sessions than I care to count, and approximately too many conversations with Jeroen about power targets and pacing strategy. It all funnels into a starting ramp tomorrow morning.
We're ready. Let's start chasing!
