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