The Final Phase
It has been a little while since the last posting on here. Since an average Tour of Gippsland where a nasty chest infection stopped me from helping my team mates, Robbie Hucker and Brenton Jones, from having a good Swan Song in the Torq colours, there was a stint of university placement for two weeks (it's amazing how full time work gets in the way of good training - made even harder as there was no financial renumeration for the period), this gave way to some NSW races.
With the Goulburn Crit followed by the NRS Goulburn to Sydney my first race outing in a while. The crit didn't go to plan, I missed the break, wasn't given an inch and riding solo against the likes of Drapac and GPM who definintely had numbers on their side.
Goulburn Start Line, pre Chin Scar
Lining up on a cold Sunday morning for the Goulburn was an emotional day thinking of my old training partner from Nowra, Robbie Williams who tragically passed away a couple of months prior. Standing on the start line, next to Stu Shaw who was also a good mate of Robbie's from Canberra and hearing his father, and another good mate, Bruce say a few words made for a very tough and emotional start to the day.
Rolling out of Goulburn I tried to knuckle down to the task at hand, and got first tweet mention of the race with Mick Curran of NKC-Lexus as we got off the front straight away for out moments of glory in the Goulburn fog. After a couple k's dangling we were reeled in and it became time to hide before the race got serious further down the road.
Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to do anything when things were lit up on Razorback, as I was tangled up in the big spill a couple of kilometres prior to the Berrima feed zone. I had done everything right, was sitting in the top 15 of the bunch but a stupid mistake a couple of wheels up brought my day to an abrupt end, doing a superman onto the tarmac. This left me with 4 stitches in the chin and a very angry drive home with my poor girlfriend Jen having to put up with the steam coming out of my ears all the way back to Orange.
The following weekend was the NSW State Road Championships. After nabbing silver last year in the elites, I was hoping for a similar result. It wasn't to be, I was marked out of the race by other teams who all had superior numbers. This resulted in a big mind blow, which is made worse by doing laps of a 30-odd kilometre circuit. So part way through it was all too easy to climb off, get in the car and drive home.
2 weeks, 2 races and some very poor showings.
Nothing a week off the bike couldn't fix. And now have come back stronger, and a bit sharper. Unfortunately couldn't make Tassie, or the Warnie, the team not doing either and uni exams have gotten in the way, but with my last uni exam tomorrow, all eyes for me are on the Grafton this Saturday. Last year was my first Grafton, and after initial plans to just try and survive the brutal distance, but came up with a 12th, the thought of doing better this year has really spurred me on.
Western Divisions Road Championships Podium. (Mark Windsor)
Training has been going well, with some strong rides in local races, including a nice win in the NSW Western Divisions Road Championships against a class field of fellow NRS riders, I would like to think I am ready. You always come into such a big target with doubts and worries. Have I trained enough, or possibly worse, trained too much? I know though that I have the best nutrution on my side with TORQ, great bars, gels and energy drink to match up with my feeding strategy to get me through the distance. There has been some great training facilitated by the ol' geezer Fenz at FTPTraining.com, and a great steed kept on the road with Monza in the form of my Cube, build up with SRAM and ENVE wheels which goes like a dream.
Ciao for now. Grafton to Inverell is calling!
PS Happy to have a beer with anyone in Inverell on Saturday night!