A big hello to everyone again. I’m back from the grand tour and honestly am feeling quite exhausted. It seems to always hit you a few days after the finish of the tour, never immediately. I’m walking around our apartment in Castronno, feeling foggy in the head and preferring the couch and the cool tiled floor to a bike saddle. Thank goodness that we’re down for a recovery week of training. Apparently this will have us all bouncing back next week. Hopefully this will be the case for the other girls staying here as they are off to France for the Tour of Limousin. Me? I will be left to my own devices. Scary thought. Well, actually Sara Carrigan and Oenone will be staying in Varese from next week until the Olympics so that should be some good training company.
I’m overjoyed that the potato eating has once again ceased. Well, at least the powdered stuff. I think I can still bring myself to eat sweet potato as I don’t really associate it with ‘racing’ and ‘tours’. I do think that good nutrition played a huge role again in getting me through the tour. Even though I can’t really look at potato at the moment I think it was vital to my time trial win! The same goes for all the ‘gels’ and Powerade that we consume for the sake of calories on tour. I certainly wouldn’t opt for any of these whilst just doing regular training. Special thanks must go to our soineurs on tour – Christine O’Connor and Beth Durham - who not only kept me topped up with plenty of fuel but made me feel human again after each day of racing with a great massage.
I’ve had a chance to read my husband’s blog entries and I must say that it’s really quite an accurate account given that he only had my brief text messages as well as some cyclingnews.com reports. Can’t believe how consistent he was. Every day! Makes me feel a little ashamed of my rather irregular blogging.
I’d like to send a big thank you to everyone at home who have posted on my Guestbook or emailed me words of encouragement and congratulations. It means a lot to me and makes me feel very connected with home.
I thought I’d give some more details on my stage win, though not give away too many of my trade secrets. ;) Thursday – Stage 5 started like any other day on tour. By this stage I was feeling like longer sleep-ins and it was quite an effort to drag myself out of bed that morning. I’d expressed at the start of the tour that I’d like to put in a solid time trial performance however I wasn’t at all nervous and actually felt abnormally relaxed. What was there to stress about? I’d put in the hard training and, thanks to God, I have stayed healthy and have been steadily improving with each week of training. In addition, unlike a road race where there are so many extraneous variables that can present themselves to affect the outcome of the race, in a time trial it’s just me and my bike against a ticking clock.
I had a chance to warm up on the course when we arrived however this was on my road bike as final preparations were being made to the time trial machine. This gave me the opportunity to suss out the course to ensure I didn’t take any wrong turns. (Bit hard as the entire course was cordoned off!) I can’t say I really rode it with any decent speed as Carlee Taylor and I rolled along and chatted away. Since I was ranked 30th overall it was 1.5 hours after the first rider started that I rolled down the ramp. Knowing it was only 9.3km and fairly flat disappointed me a little as I had hoped for a greater distance in a tour to split up the GC riders a little more.
I passed the time in my team van with loud music booming from my iPod. I love listening to music as it takes me into my own little world and always evokes positive memories and good feelings. A favourite is “Eye of the Tiger”. 
With 45 minutes to the start I hopped on the rollers for a spin. I tend to prefer windtrainers to provide some resistance for warm-up however this was the method today as there is only so much equipment that we can transport on tour. Anyway, the rollers certainly get your cadence up, if not the heart rate.
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| In the start house |
Once it was my turn to roll down the ramp, I was still feeling quite abnormally relaxed. This is the time to adopt the ‘race face’ – cool and collected and hiding any emotions from the TV cameras. The initial 3km involved negiotiating 3 roundabouts and my legs felt terrible from the gun! However, with expereince, I’m learning to ignore that burning feeling as there is no escaping the pain of time trialling. From the start, I don’t think there was ever a conscious decision to carry crazy speed through every roundabout and corner. It just happened and I was in some sort of weird zone. The 3km and 8km marks involved U-turns which is always a little scary on a disc wheel and in my mind now I can visualise how I took these turns, along with every other corner of the course… out of control! In fact, with each corner, it felt I was getting closer and closer to the gravel on the side of the road and felt my rear wheel skip and slide on several occasions. Apprently this was also visible to the staff in the follow vehicle who were starting to sweat. With 3km to go I caught my rabbit, my team mate Carlee. Knowing her strength for time trials, I knew that something had to have happened for such an early catch. I found out later she’d slid out on one of the early roundabouts and had unfortunately caught the attention of the photographers. Why do they always seem to capture us at out worst?
The last 1km is a bit of a blur. I just buried myself but at the same time tried to maintain some core and central stability to keep those legs turning furiously. I crossed the line with the Italian commentator giving an emphatic ’1st place’ scream… though at first I doubted my translation. I was asked by my team mates whether it had felt fast. Perhaps I’m not tuned into this side of things yet and need to experience more time trials to know whether I’ve put in a great performance. The difficult thing is that they always hurt and to weigh up those sensations would always lead me to say – “I don’t think I went that well!”
I had to wait for another 30 riders to complete the course though I didn’t sit nervously at the finish line as I still didn’t quite believe the result. Instead I wandered back to the team camp, fueled up some more (you expend sooooo much energy after a 9km time trial!) and then was informed with a few riders left to race that I should start to drink a lot of water as the winner of every stage has compulsory drug testing. Yes, that means you have to pee in a cup which is then taken to a laboratory to assess for prohibited supplements. The time at which it has taken athletes to produce 75ml of urine varies from 10 minutes to 7 hours! I certainly wanted to make it quick but it’s amazing how stage fright can set in when someone is watching you pee! On this occasion it took about 1.5 hours - mainly due to other riders ahead of me having their own difficulties in providing a sample!
The presentation went down well. It’s always fun to spray the crowd and other placegetters with champagne!
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| I think I’ve got the hang of this now… |
So there it is! It’s been good to write it down for future reference and preparation. Hopefully I can continue to improve on this performance in the second part of the season. As indicated in the news section of my website, I would love to qualify for this year’s World Championships in this discipline. I’ve done all I can as far as posting results and now I’m in the hands of the Australian selectors.
Here’s some more photos of the day. My team mate, Peta ALWAYS carries a camera… just in case!
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| The podium |
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| Me & Rochelle (Gilmore) |