The World Cup in Igorre Spain:

We always love to come to Spain, especially this part of Spain. We know San Sebastian quite well and the races are always fun, the people always friendly. But this year, we had to change our plans unexpectedly and re-planning the trip was almost too much of a hassle. We thought about not coming at all. But finally, we got it all together. We left Belgium on Friday afternoon, a little later than planned to allow for Emma to finish her Sinter Klaas party at school. The Sint was very happy with her behavior in school and her effort to become so good in Dutch. We were proud. Jason gave us a ride to the airport and after a bit of a hassle to get everything checked in on Ryanair (oops, you can only have 15k per bag, not 20) we were on our way. I slept the whole way. Milo too Cori worked with Emma on reading. Emma is very excited that she can read little sentences now.

We spent Saturday doing not a lot of anything really until the evening when we had a nice time in the town of Amorebieta. We had tapas and coffees and the kids played at the parks in the square along with all the other kids that were still out when we left at 10pm! It's great!

Sunday was overcast. It drizzled from time to time but no real rain. The course was muddy. Not as bad as other years, but muddy just the same. We couldn't bring Franky this time. Because of the changes that had to take place, it was going to be way too expensive. We knew we would miss him. Cori especially, because she would have to take his place in the pit...and look after the kids. We were a little nervous before the start but it all worked out. THe kids were really well behaved. They stayed right on the fence and didn't let go. Except to eat their sandwiches and cookies. many people helped out by talking to the kids or just letting Cori know with a hand gesture or something that they were making sure the kids were ok as she nervously hurried to get my bike washed and back to the pit in the half a lap she had to do it! She was great. Never missed a bike change or even a potential bike change.

As for me, I wanted to have a good fast start. I didn't. In fact, I had a very bad start. Someone passed me and then proceeded to crash, all within the first 20 seconds! There was nothing I could do. At least I didn't crash myself, just had to slow down and put my foot down. I passed through the first pit in 37th...I didn't give up though. Nope. I kept the hammer down and passed guys every chance I got. I finally feel strong again and took the opportunity to see how strong I was. I didn't make any big mistakes, maybe a couple of little ones, but nothing that really mattered. I didn't know where I was exactly until about halfway through when I looked up and saw the 3 that I figured were leading, on the other half of a switchback section. They were far ahead of me but still, I was happy. Then Cori told me, screamed at me actually, "YOU'RE IN 9TH!!" I ended up passing one more guy that was spent in the last lap to cross in 8th...I am very happy with this result. It's a hard race. A hard course. And the start sucked so I really had to come back from far. I have been getting better and better each week and am glad about that. Nationals are coming and after that, my real goal, Worlds. I am hoping my form keeps going up!

Thanks to everyone for all of the support! It was fun to have my inbox overloaded on my phone last night and to take a couple of hours to look at all the emails and messages on Facebook. Hope to have some good news next weekend as well...and during the Christmas series and beyond! Thanks for reading. I am off to take the kids to the carousel in San Sebastian for their lovely behavior yesterday under adverse conditions and my wife for some wine, for a job well done!