I love racing. Especially when you’re feeling in form and prepared. However to get that physical form you require for racing, well, you kind of have to do the training thing. No easy way around it. (Well, there might be in the form of drug taking but I will never ever go down that path!) So I have to set my mind and body to the other form of performance enhancement – training. I can’t say I’m always 100% motivated for it either. Sorry to disappoint any readers with this fact. At the end of each day, we are required to keep a training diary and one of the questions asked is to rank our level of motivation for the day from “extremely unmotivated” at one end of the scale to “extremely motivated” at the other end. Fortunately I can say that this week has been a highly motivated one. Not really sure why. Maybe it’s because I’ve been deserted by every other female cyclist at the AIS base (they are curerntly doing a 4 day tour in France) and so I’ve got nothing better to do but train my little legs off. Maybe I’m feeling on a high from recent success (that can often do it). Anyway, whilst motivation is high, the sun is shining and my ipod is pumping out some great music, I’m going to enjoy while it lasts. 
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| The Australian Team at Cento |
Brief summary of Cento race last weekend. We didn’t quite podium – Oenone finished 4th. She’d being very aggressive all day, riding her way into most breaks that went down the road. As a team, we worked well until about 60% through the race when a few hesitations cost us. We’d been attentive at the start, initiating moves as well as covering them and it was quite different to be riding with such a large number on our team (9 riders). Whilst we had Oenone in the break which extended to 2 minutes with 20km to go, unfortunately she was the only one in a break of 15 and several of the other teams had at least 2 riders up there. So Oenone certainly had her work cut out for her in the sprint finish given she was quite outnumbered and that her legs weren’t really working by the end of the race. Kind of need those to function in order to sprint well!
It was a great learning experience for our team and that’s important if we are to continue to develop the level of riding amongst us Australian girls. It was a good mix of first timers and the very experienced in a UCI ranked race. There were a couple of crashes – always are, expecially when cobbles are involved. Fortunately, I wan’t one of them! Seems that I’ve got over my early season strike rate with a crash per race. This is good news! Maybe Carlee Taylor is taking over in that department. (Joking Carlee ) I think it’s all about testing your limitations when you first come over and step up into the European races. A significant proportion of them were my fault as I was figuring it all out and then others were just plain bad luck. That’s road racing. Not sure it puts my husband’s mind at any great ease though.
It has been gorgeous weather in Varese at the moment. Clear blue skies and even though we’re in the middle of summer, there are snow-capped moutains bordering Lake Maggiore. Beautiful. I’m also very glad that the early summer humidity that had me sprawled out on the tiled kitchen floor has decreased substantially making sleeping heaps better. I’ve been training really well with Tiffany, Rochelle and Oenone, who is looking in good form for the Olympics. We’ve got some killer sessions planned on the mountains around here for this weekend. Not sure how I will be Monday but a massage scheduled for that afternoon should sort things out.
Until then, ciao.
Here’s some action shots of last weekend in Cento. Looks like we were having fun.
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| Waiting for the start | Starting another lap |
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| Carlee | Tiff |
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| Vicki | Leonie |