I cant help but be disappointed.......but have learned a lot

OK I am disappointed, let me just say that before you read on..........
Yesterday (was it only yesterday I raced the Australian Open Time Trial Championship at Buninyong near Ballarat and whilst I knew I couldnt win, I had a couple of goals an people I wanted to beat or ride similar times to based on previous time trial events. I had done heaps of training and maybe in hindsight not enough recovery but hindsight is 20/20 and so I will give you a quick run down on the last two days:-

Shane couldnt come with me so I had arranged for a close friend Rocky and my father in law Bill to make the trip and help, Rocky for emotional support and her calm nature and Bill for mechanical expertise. I trained and did some short 1 minute efforts on Tuesday and then picked Rocky up from the staiton, packed the car and then we were off, we picked Bill up en route and drove to Williamstown to watch the last day of the Bay Crits which was cool (but in hindsight part of my undoing really...it was a warm day and my timetable went tlike this
5:30 - alarm goes off - go training for an hour
7:00 - pick up Rocky from the station
8:30 - Drive to Melbourne to pick up Bill
at about 12:30 we were at Williamstown, park the car and walk around for three hours!!!!
3:30 - leave Williamstown and drive to register at Buninyong (about 1.5hours drive), then did two laps of the circuit and a hugge photo opportunity was missed. On our second lap of the circuit a car had stopped in the mddle of the road and when we stopped, there was a koala on the middle of the road and the driver was trying to shoo him back into the bush......and I didnt take a pic...........it was quite cute (but they have nasty tree climbing claws and can be quite nasty...........
about 6:00 we checked into our motel and then went and had dinner and it had been go go go all day
9:30 I went to bed......I was exhausted

BUT there were some highlights at the Bay Crits

I got to meet Phil Liggett the "Voice of cycling" and I got a hat signed by him too which was a bonus.

We spent a while in the Jayco sponsor tent as Bill was a guest in there and Rocky and I got guest passes.

Bill enjoyed the food and wine, but we didnt drink the wine.....

I got to meet Shane Kelly the olympian, probably most famous for "pulling his foot" at the Olympics, unfortunately, although he is an awesome track rider!
The other gentleman is Kevin Hine (I think) who has won world champsionships.

Saw Robbie McEwen being interviewed by David McKenzie at the start of the mens crit.













Then we headed to Ballarat and on the day of the Time Trial, I did my morning pre-start on the windtrainer

At Buninyong, Bill was on Bike duty, Rocky was on photo duty, I just gave her my new expensive camera (that you need practice using and said "take some pictures".....she did a great job...she took the photo with Phil Liggett the day before so that was a real highlight and her job was really done then.  (awesome)

Bill geting the Plasma right before the race, and I will say the bike ran like a dream. The wheels were great, the tyres were great, everything was going well and so I cant complain there.

This is Bill and I and a marshall just before the race. I was very nervous.

On teh Time Trial day

7:00 - woke up did 30 min pre-start on the windtrainer

8:00 - drove to Buninyong for race briefing which wasnt actually on, as it was mainly for the marshalls but that is not what it said in my programme - back to motel

10:00 - Drove to Buninyong to set up for the day

12:12 - started time trial

1:00 - had coffee and wind down

then we found we had a flat battery in the car and had to wait for road assistance to come (it took an hour) to restart car. Lights had been left on - they were on as the car was a support vehicle during the time trial.

6:00 dropped Bill home

9:00 got to my home - another big day

So the race........I did 28.1km in 51.05 which was an average speed of 32.88. Taking into consideration that I missed a turn which probably cost me about 20 seconds, I was still about 5 minutes slower than a time trial I did in August at the state champs and about 3.5kph slower. It is a tough course, but so was the one in Aug.

Ok the positives:-

I rode a National Championship against some world class riders. The winner rode 40.57, 4 seconds in front of the 2nd place rider.

Everything ran smoothly, the bike, my prep on the day and my warm up and I was pretty calm considering.

The negatives.

Where were my fast time trial legs?

In the wash up I can only say that the walking around in the heat the day before did me no favours and perhaps I was lacking in recovery at times during the hard training I did in December. I was training much harder than I had trained for a long time and racing and just putting in lots of work, which will be a fantastic base, but it did me no favours on the day. I placed 29th of 30 finishers and learned a lot. I want to try again next year so I havent set the base too high...lol.....

The two days just flew and it all feels like a bit of a dream today as it was go go go.

I will give it another shot and continue to build on the base I have started to get now.......I know I could have ridden at least two minutes quicker on better legs based on history in the last twelve months....not disheartened, just a bit disappointed and yes I know you will have good days and bad days on the bike......it was one hell of an experience though, surrounded by officials, coaches, mechanics, awesome riders, nice bikes, everything.....awesome......my ride - not so awesome....next year I will do better.

Huge thank you to Steph Frawley for her encouraging words after the race, to Bill and Rocky for their awesome work and help and anyone else I spoke to yesterday - to Karen Munro for reminding me that it was a big task and to Dave Arnup, Gary and Gabby, Tony and Kristy for their nice text messages......I had a bad day - learn and move on....2010 will be one hell of a year!...nearly forgot my husband Shane for his encouragement too - on the phone before and after the race....and my coach Bob for believeing in me and he was also a bit disappointed as he knew I could do better........this year my new years resolution is to believe in myself more.........!!!see what happens.