VERY average weather

Well things are rolling along quite nicel

I have been doing a lot of windtraining recently as the weather is still pretty average. I am so sure this winter is colder than most but Tracy tells me that from now on a minute of daylight will be added to every day. I think racing is an integral part of our training, but right now is not really worth it Racing right now is the club races which are mostly hill races, and trying to race a tadem up a hill is a bit of a mission! A slow mission. So unless Annaliisa is really keen to give it a try we may have to give these races a miss.

Several exciting things have been happening to get us closer to our dream though...
A track frame made by Brian Gilbert has been sentwn so Annaliisa and I can start track training. Annaliisa and I are hoping to dthe pirsuit and kilo on the track. Annaliisa is a master on the track, and I have ridden it a little bit with Gary last season, however I am still very nervous, and I am sure Annaliisa will be too when we first get out there. Anyway we have plenty if tune to think about it as the track doesn't reopen till mid october! Anyway I haven't seen the frame yet but John Rastrick tells me it is a nice shade of blue (to go with our pegasus uniforms!) and is very well made. I hope so as I can think of nothing worse than falling off a tandem while at a high speed on the track.

Kevin assures me that our sponsorship applications are on their way so we can get a new racing tandem soon. It is so exciting looking at all these beautiful bikes on the net and thinking 'if Annaliisa and I were on one of those we'd blitz the opposition...' There really are some fantastic bikes out there, and I am almost falling off my seat with excitement as I picture Annaliisa and I riding some beautiful bike in the paralympics. I guess the only thing about tandems is that they are expensive. And that is why we have Kev. Kev is a master at making money appear making it possible to fund our dream! Someone saw this blog and also offered the possibility of some sponsership And that is exactly what Tracy was aiming to do when she suggested I start this blog. She wanted to increase the awareness of our goal, and drum up support! And it worked!!

Carding is hopefully soon (before nationals) accirding to Brian. I especially want this to go ahead. I am still not 100% sure that this dream is happening. When I get carded by the academy of sport, I know that my excitement will grow exponentially. I am putting a lot of time into cycling, and I guess I find it easier to committ to something when I am sure it is going to go ahead. So though the carding enables us access to a whole heap of services (sport psych, testing, nutrition etc) for me it will be a big psychol ogical step.

Those are the three most exciting steps in the dream of the road to beijing, and I have just realised qualifying for China takes place next year around september! I dunno if you realise but that is little more than a year away! A little scary. I am pretty sure Annaliisa and I are going to get intensive pretty soon as we have a lot of work to do. She gets back in little over a week and a half.

So you'll probably see us training at some stage.

Neelu.

While the cat is away...

Yes, I am having fun. Tracy Clarke and I are making the most of the time we have while Annaliisa is away. We have ridden a couple of races, and done a couple of longer rides.

The racing has been a real laugh. I think it was humbling for the guys in A-Grade at the winter series to see not only a tandem racing with them, but a tandem with two girls! We stayed with them for about 14km before we were dropped! Then the next week we tried our luck with the B-Grade. Again the aim was to stay with them, and we did! Well up until the end sprint anyway where we had no chance! It is so tiring increasing speed for small efforts and then breaking and losing all the speed when the bunch slows down! This lagged acceleration and breaking rate also causes a problem for drafting as you cannot stay too close to someones wheel in case they slow down a bit faster then you expect and you do not have time to stop!
But it has been fun and is a bit of a break from the usual base miles.

Our sunday rides have been really beneficial too. Again Trace and I have been trying some new things. Annaliisa sternly warned me before she left not to push anyone into racing and doing hills, but while the cat is away,the mice will play! It helps that Trace is game for anything! These longer rides have been good as they have given Trace and myself a chance to identify what we can change while racing. They also let me talk to Trace about 'girl stuff' I know it sounds odd but as I have been riding with guys since I started, I never really got the chance to talk about girl stuff while riding!

Well everything else has been good. The intense endurance phase I am doing has got me spinning 3 hours a day. This has been inside for 3 days due to the nasty weather! And let me tell you three hours is a looooong time on the windtrainer. I have got it set u in front of the tv to make time go a little faster!

Anyway ciao for now.
Neelu