Halfway through!

In the spirit of New Year and the fact that I now am more or less midway in my cyclo cross season, therefore I thought it was time for some overall year view. Not the complete year, otherwise I’ll ever be able to complete this post... 

On the racing perspective, all my training and racing was built up for living and racing the real cyclo cross down here in Belgium. In august all my Belgium dreams collapsed because my former team closed down, and left me without any bikes, wheels or other equipment 1½ month before the season start. So all of a sudden it looked like, that there were not going to be any Belgium cross trip for me. Luckily I got everything sorted out, and as you know, I’m down here and doing it. Living my childhood dream out as a prof bike racer in Belgium.

I can go on forever talking about Belgium, cyclo cross and racing, just because I really like it. I still get amazed that you actually can see cyclo cross in TV you don’t have to watch some live-streaming on your computer. I’m more or less halfway through my 6 months stay! In 3 days I’m for the first time since September heading north, towards Denmark! I’m looking forward to meeting friends and seeing family, especially my younger brother, it’s gonna be nice. But when this is said, I’m also really looking forward to come back home again, and finish this cross season in a proper way.  

During the off-season, I had some of my best time racing on my MTB  and I have done some good thinking down here, and next year I’ll be racing way more on my mountain bike, simply because that I love it! It kind of reminds me of cyclo cross J

If you have been a follower of my blog, you will know that I have been doing a lot of thinking! A lot of wandering about what I’m doing, what I want to do or simply about how I would like to live my life. None of these questions has been answered yet, and I haven’t found the perfect solution or the golden mean yet!

But what I have found out, and what I consider as way more important; is how I DO NOT what to live my life. I have discovered that the last couple of years I have been living in a small bubble and wasting (in some aspects) my life, and forgetting all about my dreams and desires I had! So far this Belgium trip has been quite an eye-opener! Let’s see what I can get out of it, when I’m back in DK the 20^th February. 

Happy New Year Everybody

Drink a beer or two for me! I’ll be celebrating New Year with hopefully a good ride in Baal the first of January.

/Nikoline

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Keep on rocking girl!

After saying goodbye this morning before leaving to Azencross, this blog post came to me in the car. Listing to our song in the radio, with (I got to be honest) tears running down my cheeks. I started remembering all the fun stuff we did, all the great times we shared down here, and now you are on your way home! I just wanted to let you know, that you girl -> you rock, and thank you for the great time, we had together.

I’m not good at saying goodbye, not good at emotions and words! That’s why I’m writing it all down, because there was so much, that I wanted to tell you, so much I wanted to thank you for. Most of all for just for being such a super friend, who could know, when we first met in Treviso, that 3 years later we would be housemates, and rocking the place in Blauberg J

The house already feels empty without you, who am I now supposed to watch cyclo cross with, and miss out the crucial point, just because we were talking. Still can’t figure out what happen, but like you said, it’s just one of those things, you never get to know.

Sad to say goodbye, but I know, we will have great times coming up.

Wishing you all the best! I know that all your dreams will come true, no matter what happens! 

/Nikoline

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Christmas = racing!

Christmas here in Belgium and especially for us cyclo cross riders equals racing. Ever since the last worldcup in Namur the 18th. of December, racing has been the major event during Christmas. The worldcup in Namur gave me my spirit and good mood back, and I once again started to look forward to this big pile of race. After Namur I did the surhuisterveen and my first ever SP in Diegem, which was such a fun race in the middle of the center of Diegem. After Namur the legs feels better again, and I started looking forward to the next worldcup in Zolder, which I have done 3 times before. 

But before all the action with another WC takes place, we had an amazing christmas dinner with Vicki and Marc. I have been living with Vicki for about 1½ month now, and I'm really sad that she has to go home, not because that I'm once again alone down here. It's more the fact that I really like living with her. We kind of have the same crazy sense in humor and we like doing things, seeing new places and experience basically everything new and interesting. 

The 24th.of December the 4 of us went to Bergen op Zoom, which is a nice city in Holland, just at the border. We walked around for hours, and spend some good quality time in the Hopmanns bike store, and brought home some chicken for our Christmas dinner. 

It has been a tradition, during the last 3 years I have spent Christmas in Belgium, that we make for the Danish people the "Risalamande", which is a kind of rice pudding mixed together with whipped cream and almonds. Normally you would make the whipped cream with a hand mixer, but the house I stay in doesn't have one... So for the third year in a row, we did it by hand.... yes... it only takes something like one hour, but it's possible and durable!!! 

We had good dinner, with crackers, cheese, pate, chicken, salades you name it! It was great, and I really enjoyed it, but for the first time in years I actually missed my "normal" Christmas together with my family. We have our fun tradition with Santa and lighting the Christmas three... which is just our thing, that we do in my family... 

After dinner (at 21:00) we went to the church in Blauberg. The service was very nice, they had like a brass band and a choir, so only thing you had to do was to listing to all the Flemish songs! After having hot chocolate and glüwein we went home to the dessert! 

This wonderful day ended with us unpacking presents in the bed, looking at the amount of gifts that I got, I have been a "good" girl the year! or maybe I'm just spoiled...!!! 

NB: the gifts in the pictures was not all for me, half was for Jacob. 

Hope you all had a good Christmas either with family or good friends. 

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Namur worldcup

The mood here in Belgium and on this blog hasn't been the best the last couple of weeks. I haven't felt good on the bike, and together with the loss of power in the legs, my mojo and good spirit faded out. After never finding my rhythm last weekend in Scheldecross and Overijse I decided not to race the GVA in Essen, instead I drove to Namur in order to pre-ride the worldcup course. And what I course! Mud, steep up and downhills and fast flat out power sections. It was one of the hardest courses I have ever riding! Before I went to bed, I told my self, that no matter what happen the next day at the worldcup I just wanted to have fun again. Because I don't know what will happen next season, and therefore it's just waist of good energy being frustrated on how racing is going or not going. I came down here with the purpose of having fun while racing, not thinking on results, Danish championship or qualification for the Worldchampionship, and I ended up being frustrated, sad and enclosed. 

So with this in mind, I stood ready at the start line, ready for some serious fun, and fun it was. I literally blew up my start, which meant a lot of hard work trying to capture the time I lost in the start. I ended up as nr. 28, not the best result, but I had fun all the way.  

Kris Claeye took this amazing picture of me, after I crossed the finish line. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp0eeVcjxDw This is a video from the Worldcup Namur!

Now a big block of racing has begun, which is the best Christmas present I could ever wish for, and I think my mojo is back :-)

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Not everything turns out the way you want...

Well don’t know what to say about this weekend of racing! Last night I was not feeling super at all! I was very disappointed about my self and my racing, this was not what I had in mind!

I spend the most of the night searching the internet for funny clips to keep my mind from thinking on this bad weekend of racing! I had a good talk with a good friend, which help a lot to get the right angle on how, why and what happened this weekend. I try not to sleep at the thought, now I think or hope that I just landed on the shit this weekend, not much to do about it, You know shit happens - they even got a slogan saying it, so it's true :-) there is nothing you can do about it, sometimes that is just simply what happens. As a person I’m very competitive, and I hate losing or being weak, that’s why I always get rather frustrated, angry or confined when I’m not happy about how I performed. I can spend hours thinking on what I should have or could have done!!! Normally it takes some hours staring at my computer, mostly facebook or the TV to realise that it's okay! Life is good, and Belgium is still an amazing place to be... Don't want to be anywhere else than here!

Krist Vanmelle took this awesome picture from Scheldecross! He just nailed it! Do I need to say more!!!

Today is a new day, and already looking forward to tomorrow where I going to take my beloved Brothers cross bike for a spin. If you want to know more about my cross bikes you can check them out here: http://www.brothers-bikes.de/

Yesterday when I was searching my mind and the internet for answers I found this song. I heard it by coincidence and now I just love it… I don’t understand what they are singing, but it sounds good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyTazPPWIKk&ob=av2e

Now I will act all Danish and take the city bike in order to do my grocery shopping! The sun is shining, and the sky is blue, what more can I ask for… Life is good and I’m happy!

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Just some thoughts, which had to get out!

Before I came to Belgium I was in a frustrated state of mind. Not knowing what is gonna happen with me and what would my further be like… I really really wanted to be a paramedic, but when I was at my training camp in Italia I was told that I didn’t get in. More than 1100 applicators had applied, and only 70 were elicited to go to the first round of interviews. I was sad, angry and frustrated; I just felt that I was put back! Once again I was asked the same question over and over, what do you wanna do? What now? What about your studies, school or work?? I just got so tired of having people asking me that, because the truth is I DON’T KNOW. I have a weak idea of what I would like to do, but I don’t have the master plan all written down in paper. I haven’t yet giving up on the whole paramedic universe not yet, but my mind is still spinning around, and hasn’t landed on anything yet!

I had thought about being a paramedic for so many years and then my dream was gone. Like that! Then I decided to go 100% for my Belgium trip, no matter of the cost. Sitting here in the little town of Blauberg, I am glad that I went. It has so far been a very good trip, and I’m living my life as a professional bike racer, whatever that mean... I’m kind of living in a small cyclo cross bobble down here, I don’t really follow up on what is happing outside of my front door. A nuclear bomb could drop and I wouldn’t notice it, it’s all about the training, the races and the rest! Period end of story! I try to make it a more “normal” life, by going out and experience places, cities or just cafes, but sometimes it’s just hard to kill time.

Yeah that’s truth of living as a bike racer, everything everyday is about cycling! Most of my days down here go with training, eating and relaxing in front of the TV, my computer or with my knitting. Some days I stop calculating how many times I have log in and out of FACEBOOK or TWITTER. It’s just not healthy!

This knitting project of mine helps me to kill time. For the moment the house is almost full, with people coming for shorter periods of racing, which is so nice with people to talk to. One thing I have learned social interactions with others is vital and crucial for my wellbeing. My season is still long! It will end the 19 of February with race in Oostmalle, then I would have done more than 30 cyclo cross races here in Belgium, Nederland, Czech Republic, Schwitzerland and Denmark.

I will be heading home the 20, after spending half a year in Belgium! And what is going to happen then, I don’t know! And I really couldn’t care less.

I will figure it out, as always. I hope so!!

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Wearing the hat of a tourist!

After more than 2 months in Belgium was it this weekend time to take away the cyclo-cross hat, and instead I found the tourist side up! It was time to bring out the camera, wander sneakers and the rain jacket. Yes rainjacket!! After weeks with good weather and nice temperatures the rain has, some would say finally, found Belgium!

After not having time for camera shoots during the last period of training and racing. I haven't really looked on the battery status, which turned out to be a big failure, because after the first picture of the city Leuven, the camera died! Luckily Vicki had brought hers!

I have a very big weakness, which is magazines or catalogs. I can spend hours just looking, flipping and reading them. In Leuven there is a international magazine store.... can you see where this is going??? Yeah in a short period of time I was in heaven, all this magazines from all over the world. I really pulled my self together and only bought 3 travel magazines. So now I'm trying to figure out where my next adventure is going.

We spend hours just wandering around the city, looking at everything from Belgium chocolate to old buildings and fancy shops. At the Punto Cafe I had a big hot chokolate and a good brownie. You can't be in Belgium without trying all their great chocolate. At almost every corner there is chocolate, and it's "unfortunately" really really good. It's addictive!

I'm definitely going back, still lots of small cobblestone side roads to experience and cafes to visit. Next time I will remember to have fully charged batteries on my camera. I had a good time being a tourist in the country I for this winter call home.

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