Life as a full-time athlete!

On Friday 7 Nov I packed up my life as a lawyer and for the next 4 months I will be a full-time athlete. Hurrah! Until March 2009, I will be living and breathing bikes under the watchful eyes of supercoach Donna Rae-Szalinski and head cycling coach at the SA Institute of Sport, Gary West. My aim is to see what I am capable of without any distractions or interruptions. With the road national titles coming up in January, Oceania Champs in February, and the NZ World Cup round and Tour of NZ in Feb/March, I should have plenty of opportunities to really give it my best shot.

At the moment, I am based in north-east Victoria near Bright, which fellow roadies will know as a mecca for hill-climbing cyclists. It has mountains, rivers, quiet roads and awesome weather. Right now, it’s the perfect place to get some quality training. I have a few races in Vic in Nov/early Dec, then I’m moving to Adelaide to join Gary and the rest of the SASI/NTID crew.

Long-overdue thankyous!

To Andrew, my lovely boyfriend and favourite training partner, to my parents, to DC and the team at Fitzroy Revolution, Kevin Hancett at Gravity Zero, John Hill at Fastgear, Tammie Ebert, Gary West and Ben Cook at SASI, Donna Rae-Szalinski at Cycle Edge, and Jane Hodder and her team at Freehills – without whom I would not be able to do all of this.

Opening the account...

First job of the season was a time trial in Bright on Monday night (10 Nov). It’s the same course as the Tour of Bright, from Bright to Wandiligong and back, which is I think around 16km. One of my Summer goals is to improve my time-trialling, and for the purpose DC kitted me out with Fitzroy Revolution’s TT beast – a beautiful S-Works which got me around the course in 25m17 – something I was happy with but will be even happier to improve on.