Around Brunner

Well time has been going faster than I wish it would. The worlds are getting quite close quite fast and I am kind of realising. Trainig is going up in volume and intensity slowly. I think Annaliisa is hoping I won't notice!

Annaliisa has been doing a lot of racing on single (nenchmark races). This has meant I habe been doing training with different partners which ha been fun!

Annaliisa and I did however race the around brunner race together which had 1200 people entered! That was fun but hard. The biggest race I had raced bedpre brummer was Coop Town which was 90 km. Neither Annaliisa or I were very sure how I would go racing 130km. But we gave it a go. And it was a good go. The race started at the chilly time on 8am. Luckily I had just bought a merino top and didn;t feel it too bad. We were a little late and so ended up starting quite far back in the bunch. It took about 5 full minutes to get going and once we did we realised we were riding with a BIG bunch of 100 people or more.

I had drunk coffee too close to the start of the race, and my body quickly told me I needed to stop for a pee. Annaliisa reluctantly let me off the bike, and the big bunch went on ahead. When we got going it wasn't long before Jackson's we stopped again. This time we had a puncture. Annaliisa was cussing as she fixed the puncture and apologising for it, but I felt exactly the same. When we got back on the bike we were fired up and took off. My hip flexor was sore but I was so frustrated with the time we missed I didn;t care. I can't even remember very much as I was so focused and in the moment. I remember it seemed to take a long time, there were lots of false flats, and we ended up working with 2 guys whom we didn't know as we had no bunch. We ended up overtaking quite a few bunches. Man I think it was the hardest race I have ever raced. We really went hard, and kept pushing right till the end. We finished in 4hrs and 2 minutes. When I got off my hip was giving me quite a lot of pain and I was very tired. Annaliia, Nigel and myself were driving back to chch within an hour of finishing. It was an very testing race. Annaliisa was happy with the way we raced it as was I. 4 other tandems finished before us, but we were the first female female cycle to finish. We weren't really there for the placing anyway. We were there to see if I could do it! And I did! Oh and the views were beautiful as well, if I hadn't been so focused on the race, I would've realised I was in one of the most beautiful places in N.Z.