Road to Beijing

Friday, February 23, 2007

More comp

Hey. since sydney Annaliisa and I have had an interesting couple of weeks.

The first week back we were both aware we had to get back to training relatively quickly as we had nationals in inver in a couple of weeks. So we did. Well our minds were in it. Our legs were somrwhere else. The first couple of sessions were interesting. Annaliisa made a new word for the feeling, it is 'manure' as in it feels like s**t but of course Annaliisa being Annaliisa she doesn'i yalk in such profanities.

My first track session was hell. We did a flying 200m and I felt like my quad was ripped to shreds. It was a new and interesting feeling but not one I want to experience again!

So we are leaving on the 8 March for Wellington. We are going to do some riding in Levin, a camp in Wanganui and then ride the crit in Wellington. We then fly down for track nationals to Inver. We are racing 3 races down there. The pursuit, kilo and sprint. I am looking forward to it. Now I know what competition is like, I want to give it all I can. I feel Alfie and I have so much more to give- it just relies on me scaling up.

We have more competitions (maybe) after Inver back in Oz in Melb, but they have not been sorted yet. That is one thing about cycling. You never really know exactly what is going on until it is very close. Sometimes that's alright but I do find that it is a little hard at work when I just spring these dates on them...

So I will write again after Inver. I hope everything goes well and Annaliisa and I do some pb's. This weekend it is Kevin (manager;s) birthday. Sadly the weather is pretty average but we are off to play golf!

Ciao!

Saturday, February 10, 2007

The pursuit and things.


I woke up the morning of the 3000m pursuit quite tired. Annaliisa and I were both in a relaxed mood and this helped me to stop getting tense about the whole ordeal. I had a good breakfast and we left for the track at about 12.30.

When we were down at the track, competition soon started and we started warming up and psyching ourselves up. My tiredness soon disappeared and I was more or less jumping out of my skin keen to get on track. We watched some other competitions while warming up and Annaliisa was constantly giving me little tips and words to calm me down. Michele and Jayne the other NZ girls were up before us and did a 3.56880. I thought they raced well against the clock and was sure they would qualify. Alfie and I raced against the world champion Aussie team of Lindy Hau and Teriesa Gallagher. They were very fast and I think we got caught on the 4th or 5th lap. They were very close to breaking the world record. Though we got caught by the Aussies, we still raced for time and did a 3.54561. I was stoked as it put us in the final. I was also very tired and would have been quite happy to go home and go to sleep instead of racing again.

We finished about 5pm and had an hour to go home to get ready for the night final. I got home had a shower and a massage. At that point I was definately ready to go to sleep only I had to start psyching myself up for the next competition. We put our skinsuits back on and went down to track eating a couple of pieces of fruit and energy bars for dinner. I was too nervous to stomach anything anyway. When we got down to track we started warming up. Annakliisa and I were both serious and businesslike. There was not much laughing from me as I was trying to focus. I listened to music which helped me. The rest of the team came down later and sat in the audience. We were the only N.Z team competing that evening. We were pretty sure that we would get beaten so when I asked Brian the goal of the race, he told me it was to finish the pursuit without getting caught. We started the pursuit well riding a relatively small gear. We did a lot of spin and both pushed as hard as we could. The Aussie girls caught us with 6 of the 12 laps to go. They did not try for a world record. I think they were tired from the morning session as well.

Brian and Annaliisa were both happy as we got the silver. I was stoked and happy that the other two were happy. When we got home Annaliisa went to have some drinks downstairs while I went to bed, exhausted but happy.

The sprints the next day were going to be good fun. And they were. We were beaten by the other N.Z girls by 0.2 seconds which put us in 5th place and out of the running for a medal. As Annaliisa abd I have not done a sprint before Annaliisa was a little nervous to stand with me as my muscle imbalance in my left leg could effect our riding. This was fair enough and I was very happy doing the 13.17 second time we did without standing The other N.Z girls went on to compete for bronze and gave it a good go, but were beaten by the Aussie team of Katie and Felicity who are excellent sprinters.

The friday after that we trained in the am. Annaliisa and I tried pushing a bigger gear and felt quite happy pushing a 96. We did a 10 lap tempo on a 94 which I bombed out in. I fatigued after the third lap and could feel the lactate accumulating. I started using my whole body to get around the next 7 laps, and every lap was 2 seconds slower than what we were aiing for. Annaliisa was having a hell of a time holding the bike still. Arvo we went out to look at some shops , and then went out for a shouted dinner near the opera house in Sydney. It was a beautiful dinner and I ate croc meat and kangaroo meat. We got home late and I packed that night as we had to be out of the hotel at 9am the next morning.
The next morning was nice and restful though I was still tired from the 1.30 am night before. We got out of the hotel and went into sydney. Brian, Annaliisa. Fi, Jono and I went to look at the big clarence street cycle shop. It was nice and I got a cycle computer.We then had some lunch and left to get our plane back to N.Z. The airport was rushed and we didn't get to say goodbye to everyone. But the flight was relatively quiet and after getting through customs pretty fast with questions and examinations of the bike, we arrived to a crowd of family and friends at about 1am N.Z time. We got home and after a small chat with Mum, I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. And so ended our Aussie trip.

I learnt some things from it. Annaliisa and I have sorted out some things about roles and behaviours while we train, and I have learnt what competition is like. There is lots of downtime and that can be very hard and tiring when every minute in your normal day is taken up doing something.

I have also realised I have a long way to go. There are some things I need to sort out in my body to achieve optimum output and there are some priority decidions I have to make in my mind. All I know right now is that I am going to give it my all (within reason) to get to Beijing with Annaliisa.

As Brain said, this is the first small step to the top.

I hope the mext competition, N.Z track nationals goes as well.

Write soon,
Neelu

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Annaliisa posts from Oz

Gidday from Aus….the trip so far has been quite eventful especially Friday when we got here. We landed on time on Friday morning at 8:15ish, all going to plan so far. After we got through customs and out the other side we were greeted by Fiona Southorn (rider). She advised us that the rest of the team and management, coach and mechanic were still stuck in Wellington because of a broken down plane. Didn’t know when they were going to get here. Fiona and Paul Jesson then proceeded to go to the rental car counter to get our ‘van’. Paul got the keys and went and got the ‘van’ and brought it over to us…..picture this……we have got about 9 bike boxes – two of which are tandems – and all the luggage with 6 people, okay, Paul drove over in a people mover type car…..a Pereva or whatever it may be. Yeah like all that gear is going to fit. Paul and I then proceeded to go back to the car rental counter and ask if they have a transit type van and explained why. They found one that had just been returned so we said that we would take that one. The catch was we had to get hold of New Zealand and get them to book it because they were paying for it initially. Eventually Fiona got hold of Rachel and she got it organised and voila we had the keys to the van as well as the people mover. Got it loaded up and got in, put the key in the ignition and …… nothing. Couldn’t work out why. Found a guy that was shifting cars around and he had a laugh and told me to press the remote which unlocks the anti locking device – I knew that! Now, just to let you all know why I was driving the van, it is a manual which is okay if you’ve got all of your limbs. If it was automatic one of the other guys could have driven it. Finally we get the blinking thing going, Neelu (70% blind) was with me and we were to follow Paul to the hotel. Well, I didn’t get into the traffic straight away and didn’t see which way Paul went, so once I was able to get into the traffic – Neelu was trying to tell me when there was a gap – blind – I ended up going straight instead of taking the off ramp. Oh dear. I kept driving and finally managed to go the right way. We got to a huge intersection and had to go on the M5, that’s fine if you go the right way. Guess what!….we didn’t! Good job. Eventually got turned round and going the right way. We got to Bankstown which is where I thought we were meant to be but it wasn’t, so I went into the shopping centres info counter with a map book and asked them how to get to the Rydges Hotel on the Hume highway. She was very helpful and pointed me in the right direction. Finally 4 hours after landed in Sydney we get to the hotel – yay!

We then headed down to the track and had a play around on that which was really good. Very different on the tandem on the track to the single bike I must say. Came back to the hotel and one of the guys sent a text to Rachel to ask when they were landing and found out that they had been waiting in Sydney airport for an hour. Oops. They got a taxi van out to the track $$$$$$$$ and had a session down there then back to the hotel like on little happy family.

We’ve had some good training days both on the road and on the track. It’s very fast on the track. I love.

On Monday we rode the Kilo Time Trial. Neelu and I did a 1:18:908ish, the NZ girls Michelle and Jane did a 1:17:768ish and the winning time was 1:11:665ish, that was done by the World champions Great Britain. The two Aussie teams did a 1:12: something and 1:14: something. Very classy. I was quite happy really as it was Neelus’ first time at an International meet and only our third every kilo, our first official one. Nerves play a big part in it so really quite happy. Today is our 3000 mtr pursuit so hopefully all will go well for that. Yesterday afternoon we went down to the track and cheered everyone else on, even the Brits and a young Aussie girl – under 19 – who has Cerebal Palsey. She was amazing to watch. Tonight we went and watched Fiona win Silver and Paula win an amazing gold. What a pursuit! She was up at the start then was behind by .389 seconds and over the last 7 laps turned it around to win by 3.something seconds. We were screaming for her. It was such a fantastic ride.

I must say that I feel very humbled by these athletes with disabilities competing here this week. They have a lot more guts than a lot of people in this world and I really admire them for it. Being involved with the AWD is very humbling and I’m so proud to be a part of it. It’s a totally different atmosphere here with them compared to able bodied athletes. I love it.

Well, I shall sign off for now and go and get some dinner before we go down to the track and cheers on our guys again.

Will try and get an email away to you all on Thursday, oh yeah, we’ve been entered into the sprints – what a hoot that’s going to be. Will keep you posted.

Until then

C uAnnaliisa