Keagan Girdlestone fought through the pain as he continued his comeback at the Grafton to Inverell Cycle Classic in New South Wales, Australia, on Saturday.
Part of the National Racing Series, the 228km race was only Girdlestone’s second elite event after his crash at the Coppa della Pace in Italy last year.
The 20-year-old said the pace from the start had been aggressive with a number of attacks.
“The rolling terrain would normally play to my strengths but as I’m not used to the intensity it zapped my legs.
Keagan Girdlestone (centre) continued his comeback at the Grafton to Inverell Cycle Classic. Photo: Supplied
“By the time the big 17km climb came I’d used up a lot of energy just to stay in the bunch over the shorter climbs and I paid the price for it,” he said.
“I then had a bad patch about 130km into the race, where we had just gotten up the big climb and had been racing for just over three hours, and my legs were sore and so was the body.”
The South African admitted the physical toll his body had taken by the time he was 100km from the finish line, was tough to overcome mentally.
“I tried to mentally psych myself up by telling myself I’d done the hours of hard work and should trust in my training to get me to the line.
“I also thought to myself that the pain I was feeling would be over sooner the quicker I got to the finish,” he joked.
After his extensive injuries from his crash last year, Girdlestone expressed a somewhat different perspective on pain.
“Pain always ends, it’s never indefinite,” he said.
“I’ve gone through some pain that I thought would be with me forever and it went away after three months.
“I guess in my mind I know a race won’t last longer than eight hours and you don’t hurt the whole way through. Even if it did last that long, it’s still nothing compared to three months of constant pain.”
The pain came to an end when he finished half an hour behind the leaders with his Team Ultra Racing teammate Richard Lawson.
Girdlestone said he had no immediate plans for future races but would continue to work on rehabilitation and training.
“I have no idea what I’ll be doing next, I’ll see what opportunities present themselves.
“I’m naturally driven to achieve my goal of racing in the WorldTour one day and I know all of this is a stepping stone required of me.
“I know that I’m going to keep pushing my limits and keep working on getting stronger so that I can start winning races again and not just finish.”
