...to be fit again!?
Fitness and Form are such fickle creatures. Sometimes it seems as if they come and go as they please. When you’ve got them, you don’t want to let them go, but know that you must do so sometimes so that you can get even fitter. You might be in form, but still have off days. You might not be fit, but can pull a blinder out without knowing how you did it.
It’s been a tough season for me. I felt like I was going pretty well when I was racing the last month in Holland & Belgium. So trying to get going again after the accident and surgery, when everyone said i'd be going great and wasn't, was hard. I don’t have the base for that to work yet. That’s what this winter will be about. So this past summer I’ve trained and raced my way back to that feeling, a long slow 5 months. Starting out with doing the Tour of Bright to purely get the k’s in my legs, trying get through Bay Crits in the hope that it would give me a chance of at least making it half way through Nationals. Unfortunately it didn’t work, however that’s what my first few years in this sport is about. Trying things out, changing them if they don’t work, remembering them when they do.
Things finally started to click after the Tour of NZ. Oceania’s went great apart from crashing, and I’ve been having days on the bike where you just don’t want to get off. Like I belong on the bike. The pain in my legs as I cling to the wheel in front is something I had forgotten that I love. Last time I loved that feeling it was when the bunch was strung out, 150 riders single file along the cobbles of Central Holland.
That brings me to last weekends first NRS Tour. The Tour of Mersey Valley. Hilly and hard, I loved every minute of the pain, which made me think back to those times. The first day was a little flat, but the second day if I hadn’t been gritting my teeth so hard, I’d have been grinning from ear to ear. Pushing beyond where I’ve ever pushed since I’ve had the ability to track the numbers, it was a good day. Coming 15th I just scrape in to get some points for NRS, hopefully something I can build upon during the winter season.
Now it’s one final training block as we push towards the 2nd Round of NRS in Canberra in just over 1 weeks time. After that I’ll do the Phillip Island Kermesse and then have a little bit of a break to celebrate my BirthMonth! (Why just limit it to one day….?)
And in preparation for Winter, I’ve started to stockpile gloves, arms, undershirts, jackets and beanies in preparation for a big winter. Because regardless of the weather, I’ll be out there! Feel free to join me :-)
