I had almost forgotten how early one has to get up for a road race, I really did not feel like waking up at 3.30am when the alarm went off on Saturday morning and it was time to get ready for the 99er! I was warming up in the dark and we started at 6am, just as daylight appeared.

We started with the men, but at this race they put all the racing men together, so we did not have the racing snakes in our bunch. It meant a race without many attacks and that mostly stayed together. I was happy with the pace since I started the race with tired legs from 2 weeks of lots of work and training. I was waiting for the hills towards the end and knew that those were the ones that were going to decide the positions. With about 15km to go we had to do a 1,5km long gravel section, not the best for all the roadies, lots of crashes happened there during the day. Straight after the gravel piece we went up the first hill out of 3 to the finish. I put the hammer down on the first one and thought my legs were going to explode! I got a gap and pushed really hard to stay away. I managed to squeeze out every little piece of energy to take the win by about 2 minutes by the end. I had nothing left in my legs!!

Thank you to the organisers for a really good race, I will be back next year for my 11th time!

I had some good company during some sessions last week, one of the most promising young riders in the world, Jenny Rissveds from my home town was here with her Scott pro team. Was very nice to ride with her!!

Maroesjka, me and Leana on the podium

Luckily we had the guys with us when Jenny punctured;)