Taucho : Liga 2009, its all over

Taucho Open Tenerife : last task from philippe broers on Vimeo.

Clear blue sky & without the usual “panza de burro” (“donkey’s belly”) cloud layer... you just knew it was going to be strong! :-)
A 42km race to goal around, it seemed, all the tp's in the gps ;-) but a great way to end the 2009 liga nacional.
Before start, conditions were pretty stable with rough broken climbs to a shear layer / inversion at 1300m so after that I avoided getting too high. The green slime lurgy has taken up semi-permanent residence in my head and after a few tp's I couldn't see, breathe or work out what was up and what was down so had to ditch all hope of completing the task and run for home, paracetamol and the dark.
The various reports are of strong turbulence, rough climbs and low bases but possibly the lack of any perception of what was really going on kept me in la-la land thinking it was all smooth & lovely....either that or I'm a bit weird ( or so I've just been told! )

So thats it for 2009...
Looking back its been a year of many ups & downs & not just in the thermic sense!
I feel so much more confident again after these 2 weeks in La Palma & Tenerife. The 'caramelo' incident during the Nationals in Piedrahita seems to be a big thing in other peoples minds .... I walked away, luckily, and life is about putting these things behind you. Its been a slightly slow return largely 'cos I kept believing what other people were saying instead of what I was actually feeling about it all. I came here expecting smooth sea breeze conditions and gentle round thermals to recover lost confidence and so its been really great to get my ass kicked around the sky.
Just 32 sleeps till the Roldanillo Pre World Cup in Colombia....bring it on in 2010!