Part time Canadian or...!

Just saw it has been almost 14 days since I lasted posted something on my blog. Is not that I haven’t had anything to do, on the contrary these last few weeks have been real action packed especially since the house has been full with 5 Canadian guys, 2 juniors & 2 U23 which have turned the house completely upside down. I really had a blast with those guys! This cross season I have only shared house/hotels etc. with Canadians so that I sometimes feel like a part-time Canadian ;-). It has been a fun rollercoaster ride which ended this morning when the last one flew home. The house is now SO quiet and completely different from the last 3 weeks. It’s gonna take me awhile to get use to be just me again, at least I now know that I’m pretty good at adapt to new circumstances and changes. Still I would prefer company then being all alone in the house. It is now more fun eating with others, sharing stories the cycling, normal life, or crazy video in YouTube, then doing it all on your own. 

The Worlds was an awesome, crazy, scary and truly amazing experience/race. I’m just a bite annoyed that a stomach flu should get in the way for a good result, I had a good start and was in the top 20, but halfway through the race I completely ran out of power, so ended as nr. 29. Not really satisfied, but everything considered it’s all right. You will have to be at 110% in order to perform well at the course in Koksijde.  The crowd, the atmosphere everything was 10 times bigger, crazier and greater then I could ever imagine. Here two days later I’m still complete out of words for how BIG the worlds in Koksijde were. It’s indescribable standing in 6^th row; trying to get a peek of the elite men meanwhile you are standing on your toes in order to be able to see the big flat screens. The last I have heard is that there were almost 70.000 people spectators! So you do the math! It was bigger than BIG, and I was there!  

Now I have one more month down here. The master plan is to do the following 5-6 races ending with the one in Oostmalle, then the 20^th I’m packing the car (hopefully it will start) during worlds I have 2 car breakdowns, because of a dead battery. So I’m a bite scared of driving in my car down here, I never know if or when the battery is going to die next time! It’s a ticking bomb or just another good adventure and story to tell when I get back home

In some way I don’t want to go back to DK, back to everyday life. I need to find a job -> start making some money again, in order to save up more money for going down here again and again and..! For the moment I don’t know how, or if I can find one, to be honest is very scary and frustrating. My biggest fear is to come back, and then I don’t have anything to do! I’m filled up with sitting in the couch. Now I'm just gonna enjoy the last weeks of racing down here, and then handling everything ells when I get back to DK!

For more pictures from worlds and my Belgium adventure see my Facebook profile! 

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Writing it down!

It's strange how a cycling result, a race, bad luck or just a bad feeling on the bike can have such a huge impact on me and how I feel... It's just affects me so much, it's hits me directly in my face like lightning, and there is nothing I can do about it or try to avoid it. 

Everything I do, everything I experience on my bike or with my beloved cycling hits me in the head and causes my mind to wander. Like I said I can't help it, it's has always been like that! That just the way I am, the way I react. It's silly but true. I am the proudly owner (most of the times) of a crazy ongoing thinking mind. It's never boring I can promise you that! I never know what's gonna pop up next! 

I know that the bad luck at the WC i Lievin where I crashed out in the 3rd. turn, and my bike broke down, which basically meant that the WC ended, before it really began. I know that all these feeling from that day, has caused this. I will be honest with you guys, in my mind I wanted to quite, and I stood in the pit ready to pull out, and have my first DNF, but I didn't...! I kept on going even though I knew that I in a couple of laps, I would get pulled, and I hated the feeling of riding around the course, complete lost in the back of the peloton...  I felt like crap, and therefore I kept my head down, just wanted it to be over! That day I felt like a very bad cyclo cross rider!

As a person I can be a bite self-destructive in a way that I'm my worst critics. I don't want to talk to anybody when I'm not satisfied with a race, it's a completely different story the other way around. But I don't want to talk or share my feelings about what I think/consider as being a bad race or a bad result. It's not my thing to do so, because it just has a too strong impact on me!

I know it's stupid, seriously I do know that... I know it's not correct to do so, and there has properly been written tons of books on what to do, and how to react etc., and I know that all these mixed and trapped feelings from the WC is what causes my mind to wander and why I'm writing on a blog-post at midnight, where I should be sleeping. I know all this but I can't change it, (or maybe I don't want to...) in stead I have my little wandermind/crazy thoughts notebook, where I write all my thoughts which needs to get out down on paper, and then I share them on the blog. 

I don't know why, but in a weird way it helps me to think more clear, when I'm writing down my thoughts... 

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Just a small blog post - WORLDS!

Oh boy oh boy - I got news! Good and for me big news. Today I got the sweetest email, saying that I'm elected for the hold on - the world championships in Koksijde. Yes season goal number 2 and the biggest of them all is achieved!  I'm going, this is gonna be my second world championship participation, and it's properly gonna be even bigger, more crazy and spectacular then my first in Tabor. Looking forward to it, already one big happy smile just by thinking of it. 

A world championship is always a very special race, and especially for us cyclo cross riders. The worlds is our Tour de France, there does not exist any race. This is the race every single cross rider dreams about winning, this is the ONE! The SuperPrestige or the GVA-trofeo are big race series but nothing compares to the feeling, atmosphere and desire by the world championship. Everybody dreams and wants the rainbow colours! So this Friday the 13th. turned out to be a very happy and good day. Still smiling here. 

My goal is to ride a race, where I can look back knowing that I did all I could do. I will be riding with a big smile and my face and enjoying every single aspects of it. It's gonna be a killer race, and I feel ready for it! It's not everyone who gets to ride at a world championships, I made it, but so far I will keep focus on the next two worldcups, the first to come in 2 days. 

Still flying as high as a kite...!! 

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Gotta good feeling... high as kite

Right now I'm packed with performance, experiences and inputs from both the human and sporty aspects from the last couple of days in Denmark, but especially the Danish Championship yesterday (08.01.12) really enriched my day, where I for the 4th. Time now is allowed to wear the most beautiful colors on my skin suit, namely the Dannebrog. 

I got a question from a Journalist which kept on popping up in my head, and I have since then given it some more thoughts. The question was; what are the difference from last year and this year? A very simple question, but with a more complex answer! Of course there is the physical aspects where I this year I'm stronger and with more power in the legs. 

But fundamentally this season I am riding with a completely different confidence and belief in own abilities not just on the bike, but also and more importantly in my everyday life my self confidence and belief has increased and I'm seeing and experience my life with new eyes and a new eagerness.

In some ways I feel different, like a “new” person, if you can put it this way… In many ways my choice about going to Belgium has been the best thing I could do for myself, and for that I’m myself eternally grateful for!  

The last few months with all this time and opportunities to think has been a turning point for me in many ways! In a weird way it feels like a burden has been lifted away from my shoulders, or maybe it me who has become stronger and better able to carry them…!

For the moment;

I am as high as a kite, and I don’t ever want to come back down. It’s an amazing feeling, and I will do everything that is in my power to maintain and preserve this, life is to short otherwise!

Nikoline

Danish Champion Cyclo Cross 2012 – with a good feeling. 

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HOME vs home

I'm back in Denmark, getting ready for National on sunday, before I once again turn the car towards south and Belgium. I arrived last monday at midnight in Odense, which is my home town, on all my documents, but I couldn't help feeling like a stranger, or maybe more like a quest in what used to be our home - my home. I took my self putting my toothbrush back in my toiletry after use in stead of just at it's normal place in the bathroom, but it didn't feel right. 

All this returning back to DK for a short period of time, has really pushed to my concept of what and where home is? For the moment I can't seem to find home.... Is home my place in Odense where I haved lived together with Jacob for the last 4 years or is home the place down south in Fårhus, where I crew up and lived for 18 years, or is it Blauberg (B) where I have stayed since September! What it it, that makes a home home?  Any ideas or suggestion? Almost all that I have beloved is in Belgium, maybe this will chance in February when the real date for returning "home" is? Maybe this ambiguous feelings will start to fade down or get even worse, who knows. 

I have discovered that I say going home to Blauberg and going back to Denmark, so maybe home is Belgium, it's hard to indicate. Who knows, maybe the old phrase, home is where the heart is has a hint of about it. That home is whatever place you belong to.... 

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