Race Report: Giro Stage 1

Today was the first stage of the Giro Donne 2012 over 140km from Napoli to Terracina.  To say I was nervous before the start is an understatement.  After, what seemed to be, a really hard “neutral”zone the bunch took off with crazy speed (49.7km average according to my SRM) towards the first sprint of the day at 5km.  Since there was a small break up the road that contained relatively unknown riders for the main part of the race the bunch sat up.  We raced along the ocean the last 50km or so and the not so very cool ocean breeze was still a welcome change with the average temperatures for the day being 37°C (99°F).  From what I could see with a few very quick glances to the left the oceanfront was really pretty and at times reminded me of Champman’s Peak in Cape Town, South Africa.  The bunch caught the breakaway group with about 25km to go.  At this point it was anybody’s race.  It turned out, as expected, to be a perfect day for the sprinters.  As with the first 5km of the race the last 5km of the race was also super fast.  Our team did not get a result today and I finished with the bunch.  Today was a good confidence builder and it feels nice to have returned to good form just in time after a couple of hiccups along the way.  Tomorrow we head to Rome for a 7.2km time trial.  I got to see the Colosseum through the window of the plane on the trip over to Italy and I am sure that racing on the streets of Rome will be something special.

View from the start at the Giro Donne 2012