And, that's a wrap!

Track Nationals have been run and won and what a week it was in Radelaide!

Here's a day-by-day wrap of the ACT track team's adventure to the SuperDrome.

Racing commenced on Australia Day, and while most good Australians were out celebrating with beers and BBQs, we were sweating it out on the boards.  Day 1 saw the first medal to our small team with Catherine "Goat" Culvoner taking silver in the elite women's 500m TT, and posting a 1.5 sec PB! This went some way to making up for the disappointment of the sprinters (Nathan Hart, Danny Ellis and Alex Bird) being disqualified from the team sprint and missing out on riding for the bronze medal.  Hot tip, if you see ASADA coming for Catherine, remind her to not have any more to drink!  It was a late night with doping control waiting for her samples to be suitably concentrated!!

Day 2 was all about the individual pursuit for the elite women and sprint qualifying for the men. And the PBs continued.  Beck Wiasak knocked almost 4 seconds of her IP and just missing out on the bronze ride off, and Alex "Birdman" Bird in the flying 200m.   Day 2 was also the day for blistering times by the SA men's team pursuit team and Annette Edmondson.

Session 1 of day 3 saw the girls, Beck Wiasak, Allison Rice and Ailie McDonald, ride themselves into the gold-silver ride off in the team pursuit.  Given that the best the girls were expected to do was a possible ride off for bronze, this was extremely exciting (if you don't believe me, ask to see my SMS stream from the session!).  Danny and Alex continued to progress through the sprint rounds and we were teased with the possibility of it being Danny v Alex in the gold-silver ride off!

Day 3 session 2 and the television coverage commenced.  The girls went out in the TP ride off, knowing that they were going to be caught by the WA girls, but with the challenge to prolong the race until the 2km mark.  They got close to reaching this challenge, but fell one lap short!  Full credit to the WA girls, I am pretty sure that pursuiting is what they do for fun on the SpeedDome and team's pursuit training is their idea of a fun Saturday night!

Catherine also continued her impressive performance at this year's nats, making it through to a quarter final match up with Anna Meares.  Unfortunately, Catherine didn't make it to the ride for gold-silver, and had to settle for a bronze ride off, and I think the full program may have taken it out of her and she finished 4th.

For my money, the performance of the week came in session 2 day 3 with Alex getting the better of a very in form Matt Glaetzer and then going one better and beating Shane Perkins in 2 rounds.  You have never heard such a small team make so much noise!  If you haven't seen the footage, head over to Cycling Central and check it out!

Tom Clarke was also in action on Day 3 and after winning his U19 kierin heat, rode his way into a bronze medal in the final!  Nice work from a fairly new rider to the track!

And as if that wasn't enough, we still had to get through the women's point score.  Without a doubt this was the toughest points race I have ever ridden and I know a number of the other girls said the same!  The decisive move came with about 40 laps to go with Beck W getting away with Sarah Kent and Annette Edmondson to successfully take the lap.  And in doing so, picked herself up a bronze medal! As a team member, there is nothing as rewarding as seeing that happen and knowing you played a small part in the result.


Final day and final session and think we were all happy to see the end of week approaching!  TV coverage was continuing as well, which means there are highlights available over on Cycling Central. And thanks to that TV coverage the event order was changed so that people at home could watch a madison and try an understand what was going on- put your hand up if you figured it out!!

The elite women's scratch race was in the middle of the session and as a team we had a loose plan for the last 10 laps of the race. And from all accounts it looked like we might have pulled it off, until Beck and Sorelle came down with 300m to go.  Both girls got up after the crash and are largely OK- Beck is missing some skin, has some bruises and I would imagine some splinters.  Sorelle has a ruptured tendon/ligament around her shoulder area and last I heard will need surgery.  Speedy recovery girls!

Catherine went out and got herself a bronze in the women's kierin behind Anna Meares and Kaarle McCulloch.  When she grows up, Catherine is going to be super speedy!

Apparently the men's points race which rounded the week was excellent viewing, but I was hanging with doping control, discussing possible conflicts of interest due to past employers and current colleagues, whilst waiting for the 4 bottles of water to do their thing!!

So there you have it.  A small team coming home with a bag full of medals!  Nice work team!

Big thanks to the support staff- Glenn Doney, John Forrest, Brian Simpson, Braham Hart, Darren Clarke, Gina Hart, Helen Clarke and Kristy. The week wouldn't have been as smooth with you.

And a massive thanks to the whole team for making my final trip to an elite national champs as an athlete enjoyable and successful!* 

I don't have a whole lot of photos- if you were following me on twitter you would have seen some images from the stands at various points through the week.  There are some photos here, and I thought I saw Mark Gunter getting around but I haven't seen any other photos.  Video highlights are here.

And just to remind  the team of the week we had here is the wolf!!

(Explainer: this along with some other classy tunes, is on costant rotation at the SuperDrome!)

*Yes that means exactly what it says, I am going off to pretend to be a grown up.

The straw that (almost) broke the camel

National Individual Time Trial


This is an image of rhinovirus (about 9 billion of these could fit on the head of a pin!). It is one of the viruses responsible for the common cold.

It is amazing how rapidly months of training can come unravelled from something so small.

The signs were there on race day- elevated resting HR, a couple of things not quite right in my warm up etc- and I ignored them all, attributing them to pre-race anxiety and excitement. Afterall, the indications from the days before were that I was in for a cracker.

As I set out on my 27km journey it didn’t take long to realise something really wasn’t right and it was going to be a long day. It took all the mental strength I had to make my legs turn and make the most of what had been dealt to me. I had done the work and I wasn’t going to leave anything on the course. It was going to be tough, I had no power and no speed.

Of course that attitude took a bit of a battering as I was caught on the hill by a fast moving Amanda Spratt and an even faster moving Ruth Corset. I dragged myself over the top of the hill, which is also when I started trying to cough up a lung! And set about re-catching my minute marker (I had passed her around the 15km mark) and putting in a decent final 5 km. That final 5km hurt- a lot, but it was respectable and that was all I wanted. I don’t think I have ever been so relieved to be over the finish line, but I was also incredibly devastated that my ride had been so utterly awful.

Trying to hold myself together I warmed down, packed the car and got out of my wet kit. It wasn’t until I was safely in the Tardis that I allowed myself the tears of bitter disappointment before making my way to mum and dad’s.

It wasn’t long before I became aware of the razorblades in my throat. The signs that I had been ignoring earlier were starting to make sense, and I finally understood what the problem had been... I had a cold.

I am still absolutely gutted from what could have been. The organisers had rated me highly enough to start me 11th from the end and I could barely scrape into 30th! For each person who will judge me on this number there is someone who knows this is an uncharacteristic performance, will ask and will sympathise. In hindsight maybe I should have sat this one out, but it is a long way to travel to DNS and I learnt far more about myself and how tough I can be than I would have otherwise.

And at the end of the day, it is just a bike race. (Thanks Lyn!)

Massive thanks to Brian and MaryAnn Simpson for everything leading up to the event and on race day. Mum for expertly driving the follow car on her first attempt- ie thanks for not running me over!! And Matt for my shiny new disc wheel :) (I will tell you about that some other time)