TOUR OF ADELAIDE

The past few days saw the introduction of the first ever NRS race in Adelaide (finally) and it went off with a blast! The three-day tour consisted of a 20km downhill TTT, a 103km Road Race (with some dirt sections) out Woodside, and finished with a 66km Kermesse held on the outskirts of the city. The Target TREK team line-up for the week had a world-class theme with the addition of previous Junior World Champions Ash Ankudinoff (NSW) and Kesley Robson (WA), accompanied by current aspiring Junior World representatives Ruby-Marie Greig-Hurtig (VIC) and Emily McRedmond (WA), plus of course…me!

Ash, me and Kelsey in the Gorge Road downhill Time Trial

After a patchy start which included me leaving my wallet at the Canberra airport, missing the compulsory Team Manager’s meeting and a $391 speeding fine thanks to yours truly Mr. Moroni, I was hoping for smooth sailing when the tour kick started. The TTT was my first ever, so I was grateful to have Ash on board who took control and drove the pace. We had two early causalities in Ruby then Emily, but managed to catch the composite team ahead of us before troubling myself with the final few pinches to the line. I was stoked with fifth place, which was an important result as GC would be close to set in stone with the format of the tour. Polygon won the stage ahead of VIS and Pensar-Hawk.

Tackling the gravel sections with ease..

I headed into Saturday’s road race a little apprehensive. I knew I had lost form since Mersey Valley, but was hoping the shorter gravel climbs wouldn’t cause too many problems. I tried to breakaway early but with everybody wanting to be part of a move it was clear that the ‘right combination’ would be difficult to obtain. I stayed toward the front for the climbs hoping that an opportunity might present itself, but short-lived spurts were unsuccessful for anything other than minor QOM points. But eventually the race lulled and Holden Racing took the initiative and formed the three main breaks of the day.

Amy takes an easy victory in the Road Race

Miranda Griffiths (Holden) was temporarily away with Sarah Roy (Bike Bug), followed by a solo attack by Lucy Coldwell (Holden). But Polygon never panicked and bought it all back together for the second QOM. I hit out early to claim maximum points and the QOM jersey, and not long after Sam De Riter (Holden) rode away solo. I expected the pure climbers to hit out hard on the final two pinches, but instead the pressure to catch Sam was only enough to dwindle the 70 odd down to 20 in the hunt for a tailwind downhill kamikaze finish. I was in great position but my sprinting form only landed me in 6th. A classy win was taken by yellow jersey holder Amy Cure (Polygon) ahead of Ruth Corset (Pensar) and Jenelle Crooks (Pensar).

"...so then my team-mate Sam totally knocked me off my bike!" lol

I loved the 3.3km kermesse circuit. There was a fast roundabout that I just HAD to bunny hop every lap, a right hander made technical by a traffic island and then a long 1km uphill haul to the line. The girls were aggressive so I made sure I was alert. I was happy to follow moves and wait for the right moment, but whenever I saw it, I hesitated and the moment was gone. Bec Wiasak decided to go it solo, and her group swelled for four, and then nine including teammate Ash and I missed all the action...have I lost my race nouse? I think so!

Leaders jerseys line up for the Kermesse
Me, Jess Mundy, Sam, Lucy and Amy

It was an amazingly exciting finish, with the break and bunch coming together in the final hundred meters! Bec and Ash held on to take the top two steps of the podium, while a hard chasing Cure came in third to claim the tour. I rolled in17th, disappointed with my effort, having lost the QOM jersey and any ounce of confidence I had pre-tour. I think I’ve forgotten how to risk losing a bike race in order to win one! Let’s just say that this 7hr drive home to Bendigo has been fairly quiet. I can’t wait to hit the dirt trails on the MTB tomorrow!

Lisa Jacobs and I try to break early in the Kermesse

Congratulations to Amy Cure of Polygon and ex-Bendigonian George Tansley of Euride on their tour victories, and a massive well done to Max Stevens and his team who ran an amazing race with sold out fields. Is there anything Adelaide don’t do well? Needless to say that twitter ran wild in support of this Tour and I know that it will be a prime race on the calendar next year. Hope to see you all there… :)

AIS 'CALCIUM STUDY' CAMP

I receive a lot of unwanted mail. Not just from online shopping websites, fly buys and ‘ways to enhance your sex life’, but also from things that I have subscribed to such as Katmandu, MTBA and specifically for this story, Cycling Victoria. It was odd for me to not automatically delete a monthly update email, let alone begin to read it, and eventually scroll to the last item, the bottom of the agenda you could say, to find out about a calcium study that was to take place at the Australian Institute of Sport.

The food hall at the AIS

I believe in fate and thought that maybe this was a sign. I had just started back racing the NRS after five years away, and thought that this ‘camp’ atmosphere might be my chance to re-discover any passion for road that might still linger. So I rang Eric Haakonssen, the physiologist in charge of the project (and what a massive project it was!) and booked myself a spot on camp. One week before scheduled departure I pulled a muscle in my back. Was this fate too?

'Fate' brought Sam and this magnificent Brownie together...

And so it goes that 31 girls arrived at camp on the Monday, rode out in freezing weather to Stromlo, and completed hill repeats before riding home in both rain and darkness. Thank god I missed that! I flew in on the Wednesday and played catch up by getting bloods taken, skin-folds, bone density scans, completing a skills session and following it up with a V02Max Test. It had been five years since I’d been on the ergo and I hadn’t missed it all that much… Hanging out with girls though? I had missed that..

Testing Day at the AIS Calcium Camp

Through the week I fronted for TTT efforts, complained about my back pain, sat in the van and watched the girls sprint up Black Mountain, flew to Cairns and back to launch the announcement of MTB World Cups coming down under and ostracised my mattress to the loungeroom in our apartment because I had fallen victim to the late night Giro D’Italia, early morning Tour of California and ALL NIGHT (on repeat) World Cup victories by MTB’ers Dan McConnell and Bec Henderson!

Example of binging food on pre-test days

So when Monday came I was undone and sick, which made for poor test results but an interesting study all the same. The purpose of the study was to measure the amount of calcium we lose through our sweat while exercising, and the effect this has on our bones as the calcium is drawn from them. We had two testing days whereby we were put on controlled ‘diets’ – I use this word because we were on rations and STARVING – in the 24hrs prior, with one ‘diet’ being significantly higher in calcium intake. This simply meant that we binged when not under control lol The test consisted of 80mins at 60% of V02 Max watts, followed immediately by a 10min Max TT, with no warm-up or down!

Sarah's eating arm...

They took bloods pre-breakfast, pre-test, during the test, after the test, after the ice-bath, pre-lunch, post lunch and pretty much all through the afternoon. It will take a long time for all of the samples to be tested and analyzed but I’m sure everyone will wait in anticipation for the report. What an amazing effort by the team, namely Laura in nutrition and Erik in Physiology and AIS coach Martin Barras for keeping us in line for the week. So today I will fly to Adelaide to start the third race in the NRS series starting tomorrow. The Tour of Adelaide should be a hoot! (It’s my new-old motto…)

Roomies - Sam De Riter, Liz Fitch and Jo Tralaggan

On a closing note, it was at 2am in the morning, while sleeping on my mattress in the lounge room that I realised how strong my passion is for MTB’ing, and how much I wished I was in Germany instead of Canberra (pretty sure that goes without saying!). This camp has convinced me that road is not for me, but also that not all road riders are douchebags. On camp I met the funniest girl ever in Alice Wallet, the coolest in Sarah, the most enthusiastic facial expressions in Brit Lindores, the unbelievably sweet Liz, the inspiring and very cute Jo, and of course the craziest of them all..Sam, of who’s pink hair I feel indirectly responsible for, but I love it! These girls make you happy just being in their company, but a big shout out to all 31 of you who made it my favourite camp ever at the AIS :)

WOMBAT100

It’s by far the most dreaded race day morning of the year when the Wombat100 rolls around. Although the race venue in Cammeray Waters, just outside Woodend, is only an hour away from Bendigo, it’s the 4.30am alarm that really upsets the body clock and mental state, especially this year on the back of a cousin’s wedding…ouch!

Jarrod and I slept past the snooze and contemplated sleeping longer, and once on the road debated turning around before the halfway mark. A long pause in the car upon parking and even further discussion after entry still didn’t have us convinced that we were racing. At 6.40am we finally got dressed for an unwelcoming 7am start, but this still didn’t mean that I was committed to racing the whole 100kms…

Early on with Row and Tory in tow..

When the gun went off it was obvious that I had only warmed up the 300m from the car park. The men were out of sight immediately (which isn’t the norm for me in a mass start marathon race) but I wasn’t concerned because as my first effort since Cape Epic, I knew I had to let my body settle back into it. Newly signed Target Trek rider Tory Thomas was happy with my initial pace, and followed me through the field, passing Naomi Hansen and eventually catching Row Fry. Row put some men into trouble on the techy sections (that girl is quick) before a surge on fire-road saw her lose contact.

I can’t remember the exact time we lost Row, but it seemed to coincide with the catching of Jenny Fay who was struggling through the single track. It was 18kms in, our bunch had now swollen to 9 and I was feeling great! So great that I went to step out around one of the guys, and as I did I hit a rut and ran off the road into a prickle bush…amateur! I think it took me longer to calm the anger and compose myself then it did to pull the prickles out of my gloves. I quit…

A distorted photo of the damage from that damn prickle bush!

I couldn’t have crashed at a worse time as the majority of the next 10km was fire-trail and I knew the girls would be paced in the bunch. I tried to tempo through to get a solid 50k in the legs and felt good as the road started to climb, and then as I was cursing profanities at god (out loud of course) for making me look like a Gumby in a prickle bush, the figure of Tory was suddenly in the distance. This intense motivation came over me and the chase was on!

I timed the gap at 1:20mins and before the first feed ?kms I had made contact. Tory stopped for a bottle as I rode straight through in pursuit of Jenny who was only 30seconds up the road now. I caught her before the next single-track section but made no efforts to pass. My motivated had now been tamed and I was looking for an easy race ahead of the Australian Marathon Championships in Atherton next weekend. It didn’t take long for a chasing Tory to catch us and suddenly, just 30kms in, this was hotting up to be a good showdown!

Loving the manicured trails and bridges in Woodend

Jenny rode a leisurely speed and we even had a short chat before Tory dared me to do a ‘World Cup overtaking maneuver’. I had crashed once already and didn’t have the balls, so I let Tory pass and the pressure she placed on Jenny was ridiculous(ly good to watch)! After a few tyre rubs and inside skids by Tory, I noticed that Jenny was having problems with her cleats, and a mistake on a log jump saw us sweep past her and out of sight, feeling very at home on single-track :)  Tory pushed the pace and I was glad to follow, and when we hit the fire-trail we were lucky to have some male company to carry us along to the mid-way feed.

It was dejavu. Tory and I had come through Cammeray Waters last year in a battle for second place except this time I had a feeder in Keith Hamilton, and as her husband Tim has his hands full with a baby, she was forced to stop and grab her bottle from the table. This was the decisive point in the race. It gave me a 10-second gap that Tory couldn’t seem to pull back so I capitalised on this and put the pressure on through the fire-trail sections. I rode solid tempo until the main climb of the day and then Mr. Motivation came running back!

My motivated face :) courtesy of MarathonMTB

I smacked it over the long climb to the final feed station and caught a few guys that had passed me earlier. I was bombing if I do say so myself lol A brief bottle stop and a solid tempo for the final 30kms (in great company on course with a newly formed friend in Chris Palmer-thanks for a great day Chris!) and the race was over. It was all sort of a blur. But I had won. In my fourth attempt I had finally broken through for victory at the Wombat100 marking four years of racing on the MTB.

Fellow Target Trek rider Tory Thomas finished in second five minutes in arrears, with a popular Mel Anset claiming third. I later found out that Jenny Fay had pulled out not long after we’d passed her, and that Row Fry suffered a double puncture to come home in fourth (gutsy to finish). Naomi Hansen was also forced to withdraw with an eye injury, and Jenni King had been a DNS. It was a shame that such a great caliber women’s field had dwindled so quickly!

Elite Women's Podium: Tory, me and Mel Ansett courtesy of MarathonMTB

I took some great things from the race. I was nervous before-hand that maybe it was the wrong decision to compete off the back of Cape Epic, but instead it’s given me confidence for the Australian Championships this weekend. I felt well recovered and strong on the climbs and was especially glad to be back on Australian single-track. Thanks to Maximum Adventure for awesome trails once again, and to TREK for designing the Superfly 100 SL…it’s like cheating…

Jarrod was in a sprint for 4^th place but finished in 7^th after some awesome ‘cramp dance moves’ in the final straight, and a special mention to Target Trek rider Chris Hamilton who was 9^th, not bad for his first ever marathon race at age 17!

AUSTRALIAN MTB CHAMPIONSHIPS

When the Odyssey was over I felt a great sense of relief, but clouding that relief was whole body exhaustion, bad migraines and severe dehydration. It was just as I had anticipated, maybe even a little worse, and two days off work didn’t seem enough to cure me. Of course an early 2am arrival on Wednesday morning following a seven-hour drive didn’t help my recovery either, but I felt it more important to get out on the course on Wednesday then waste daylight hours in the car.

After a nice sleep-in we headed out to Stromlo Park for a bit of course re-con; I hated it. Every meter from Kowen Forrest back to the luge made me want to cry. The entire course felt rough and I was riding hopelessly, ready to go home if someone had only offered to take me. It was then that I met up with Ben and John Henderson who took me for a second lap. At the bottom of Cardiac we came to the first rock garden and I fell off. Ben made me do it again, and I failed. The third time I made it, just, and Ben said bluntly ‘that wasn’t good enough’. And so I rode it until it was good enough and we moved on to the next section. This went on for the entire lap and by the end of it I was in a good place mentally. After a third lap of the course, I was back to hating it…

Despite my hatred I felt that it was the best possible circuit following on from the Odyssey. There was very limited fire-trail aside from the initial start-loop, and the majority of the uphill consists of switchbacks, giving no real opportunity for prolonged efforts that I knew my legs wouldn’t be able to handle. Passing opportunities were rare once you got to the top, aside from the option of A or B line down the notorious ‘Hammerhead’, and the descent was pretty much a level playing field.

I made a few conscious decisions while out on course that day. The first being that I would ride my Trek Superfly 100; to save my body from reemerging aches and pains, and to limit the time I would have to spend out of the saddle on the rough sections if I was on a hard tail; my quads wouldn’t handle that! After looking at the course conditions I opted to run Rubena Scylla tyres both front and rear; not only are they reliable but I feel so ‘at home’ on them. I also swore that I wouldn’t even contemplate Hammerhead and instead focused on nailing the B line. I decided that on two sections, one of them being Cardiac Climb, that I would be so exhausted from a maximum effort during the race, that I would deliberately get off and run these sections to avoid the risk of ‘try and fail’. I knew I didn’t have enough time to get some of the A line’s perfect, so if there was an easier way around I would take it unless I needed to ‘block’ the track.

So on Thursday when the Team’s Relay came around, I was able to test my theories under race conditions. The Relay requires you to form a team of four riders; one Female, U19 Male, Elite or U23 Male, and a Veteran or Master+ Male. Each rider must complete one lap of the race circuit in no particular order, and the first across the line wins. Target Trek MTB Racing had entered four teams named ‘the Victors’, ‘remove Dan from twitter’, ‘I wish I had a motor on this bike’ and ‘team hairy legs’.

After a nail biting race, three teams rode off on the final lap within 10 seconds and despite closing the gap, I was still chasing John Henderson into the final finish straight to have my team lose by 1 second to ‘the Victors’. Although I didn’t time myself, I felt like I nailed everything out on course, including my designated run sections, and was left in great spirits following an amazing clean sweep of the podium!

I spent Friday again at the race circuit in Stromlo. I watched the age-groupers and spent some time with race media before hitting the track late in the afternoon. I felt hideous when out on course and had to force myself to do at least one lap before spinning the legs out around the park like a homeless person. Despite my legs, my head was calm. I knew that some discounted me for the title because I was yet to prove myself on a technical course, and I was determined to prove those people wrong.

I felt no pressure on race morning and was barely nervous during warm-up.  I knew that Bec Henderson was out to not only win the U23 race, but to trump the women across the line so my race plan was simple, to follow her. And so the fairytale goes that we rode away from the bunch on the first fire-trail climb and never looked back. I stuck to my guns and walked when planned, remained smooth through the uphill technical and pedaled at every opportunity.

Then things got weird. Usually I dread the first lap of a XC race because it’s so damn hard, but in a weird twist I felt great, and I though to myself that it must be the feeling of leading a National XC Championships!

I eventually lost small amounts of time on Bec as she rode up cardiac, but tried to keep her in sight to pace me, careful not to red line it too early. There was a point on the course I used each lap to judge whether I was making or losing time on Jenni in third and it seemed to remain steady which gave me confidence. On my fourth lap I started to hyperventilate as I came to the realisation that I could possibly win, or still lose my first XC National title. I high-fived Bec as she finished her last lap; U23 Australian Champion yet again, before pushing on through the final lap.

I made so many mistakes on that lap, but when I got to the top of the descent I started to smile and I didn’t stop until the tears came after the finish. I had so many people to thank and most of them were in line for a hug in the chute. First was my bestie Bec, coach Mark Fenner, my second Dad in John Henderson, sponsors and friends Rich Peil and Pete Dowse, event organiser Karin Jones, and then I spotted Jarrod standing to the side, who finally put his arm out for a hug, and I cried again.

I waited for team-mate Jenni King who finished as runner-up, watched Rowena Fry claim the sprint for third against Tory Thomas, and then saw Jodie Willett round out the top five. I gave them all hugs even if they didn’t want them before a few short interviews and presentations. After being presented by Courtney Atkinson (what a legend!) my day turned sour. I missed half of the men’s race and spent four hours trying to pee into a 90ml plastic cup. It was no secret that Jarrod hated the course even more than I did, and finished third in Veteran Men on the back of the Odyssey.

Sunday’s Eliminator was very uneventful for me. The heavens had opened overnight and a once exciting course had turned to mud and slush. I was on such a high from the XC that I couldn’t find the will to try and failed to qualify for the opening round, which was slightly embarrassing really. But I took it in my stride and watched on as Kath O’Shea, Rowena Fry and Lindsay Gorrell put on a top show in the final to claim the top podium spots. The miserable weather really kicked in to put a damper on out Target Trek team launch, but the message wasn’t lost through the sound of heavy rain. With four newly crowned National Champions, it’s obvious that great athletes ride Trek!