it was a rainy cold one!

Iam finally finding energy to process all that happened this past weekend.  Aside from the fact that it was my VERY FIRST WORLD CUP race it was pissing down rain ...and i mean cold rain (the race was in Varese, pretty far north close to Switzerland.) We arrived in the rain and cold at the hotel and hopped on the rollers right away...well maybe not so much right away i was the last one...so  not happy about one...a whole other story for another blog post! Then we had team presentation: each one of the girls from each team received a Lindt easter egg! We were all called up on the this podium thing where we were introduced to the crowd. It is a big deal. Holy cow! The rest of the evening was uneventful we just had a nice dinner and went to bed.  Race day: was bananas... i was soo worried about the conditions and wanted to make sure that i rode in the front to avoid crashes.  well that alone is hard to do in a good day let alone in the rain, but I managed ;o) i was pretty happy about that my biggest mistake was to race in my leg warmers ( if i had known that then...) well they kept my legs as cold as ice as they were completely drenched with cold water...so all the heating oil did absolutely nothing for my legs.  when we hit the first climb i saw myself in the tail end of the first group and my legs were just not responding.  I felt as if i had no legs! it was awful..they were in a steady state of contraction.  I was in a world of pain when i heard my teammate rosane ask me "come on little one bridge me over"  i dug in and took her to the front group and had nothing left for me....the front group kept going and i found myself in the chase group ...I was disappointed, learned a hard lesson, but felt good that i was able to help a teammate out since specially when you know you are not having a good day , we chased for 90 km on the last lap we got pulled! now that was the most frustrating thing ! after racing 90km of 120km , just one more short lap to go ....we were soaked and cold ...i could barely reach for food in my jersey pocket or grab my water bottle out of the bottle cage...the best was the "shower" at this chancy little soccer stadium...NO HOT water! OMG! i stood under this hot dryer i couldn't move or feel my toes i was red from head to toe and shivering uncontrollably! it was not fun! then we get in the team car after rosane who finished 34th got in and hit the road it was about 7pm when we stopped a gas station and asked our DS whether or not we were going to stop for food...and he said: "you are not worthy of food" because only rosane finished the race and he was soo disappointed..pissed off ...or maybe both.  WE WENT BANANAS!! there were tears of disappointment and anger and sadness and homesickness....gosh and you thought it wouldnt get any worse eh?