Trucking Along through Winter

Since I last touched base a lot of things have been coming together. My preparation for the 3 day Tour of Taranaki on Queens Birthday weekend went very well. I rode strongly and finished about mid pack in 22nd. I was found out in a couple of areas, particularly the flat cross wind sections on the morning of the 2nd day, but my climbing and stamina were good, which I owe partly to the tandem riding.

The weather was of course terrible for that race, and everyone I know who raced ended up with a cold. This put me back a little, and I had to miss one MTB race because of it. But it gave me a chance to recover a little and start building again. I raced again last Saturday at the first round of the Kapiti Coast Road series. I am very pleased with the conditioning I have, and the training I have been doing is really paying off. It is certainly difficult to do quality training in winter, but I have made sure the quality is there, while sacrificing the bigger miles a little bit, this way its not so bad getting out in the rain to do something specific rather than riding for hours on end. Making riding more interesting by doing rides on the tandem adds a fun element while making training harder.

I have made plans to go to Canada on August 7th to do 4 races, including the World Championships in Mt St Anne (selection pending). I am looking forward to escaping winter for a while. I have loved being in Quebec each time I have travelled there and I am sure this time will be no different. In the mean time, I have lots of local races to do to continue building form, including road, MTB and cyclocross races.

I have never raced Cyclocross, and while Ill be using my MTB, it will be fun to try a slightly different format of racing.