On the weekend, I rode the 2009 Victorian Pursuit Championships, (held in December 2008, which sounds a bit Irish if you ask me).

 

Most of last week I was a bundle of nervous energy. I have been track training for 8 weeks now, clocking up 15 track sessions and was nervous and excited about racing.  Until Saturday, my pursuit career consisted of two competitions - State titles in January 2008, and then at Track Nationals two weeks later, so I wasn't drawing on a huge amount of experience as got ready to race the 2009 States.

 

I did a pre-start before breakfast to wake the legs up and then tucked in to my usual bowl of weetbix, banana, honey, followed by a few crumpets.  I am constantly amazed at the size of my appetite - not sure where it all goes but I seem to burn it off.

 

When I got to the track, I put a VIS Mavic front disc on the BT and rolled around for 20 minutes. I had only used a front disc once so I wanted to get familiar with the feel of it again. It felt ok so I decided I was confident enough to race with it.

 

Without much pursuit experience, deciding how fast to ride was the next issue.  The track temperature was a little cool so we opted for a smaller gear than I have been training on and did my final preparations to race.

 

I naturally start quite quickly and my coach, Rick Leonard, settled me into a fast but manageable lap schedule.  I felt great and just concentrated on my breathing, cadence and riding on the black line.  I saw 4 laps to go and suddenly my legs started to really hurt. I came around to get 3 to go and my legs were now really burning. I had so much lactate I could hardly pedal. My pedal stroke went all jerky and I swear I was doing squares not circles.  My last 3 laps were 2 seconds slower than scheduled and I finished 6 seconds slower than what we'd planned to do but I had made the gold/silver final against fellow Carnegie club member, Tess Downing.

 

I had 40 minutes to clear the junk out of the legs and get ready for the final.  I did a cool down, immediately followed by a warm up and was back in the starting gates for the final.  We decided I should start out more conservatively and try to maintain my form through to the finish. I was keen not to repeat the final 3 laps of my heat. I started a second slower and settled into my pursuit pace. I almost felt too comfortable and had no leg pain at all. I kept glancing at Rick but he seemed very happy with the speed I was riding. I became a little impatient when I saw 6 laps to go and Rick was still holding me back.  At 5 to go, I got the signal from him to bring it home. I needed no more encouragement and put my head down and buried it. After the finish I looked up at the results board, saw my name, and realised I'd won. 

 

I was actually amazed that I had ridden a faster time than the heat, after riding the first 6 laps so conservatively. It shows that the second half of the event is where it really matters and how crucial it is not to blow up.

 

So now I am clocking up the road km's again and getting ready to race the Bay Crits.  After that, it will be all track again, as I do my final preparation for the pursuit at the Track Nationals in Adelaide.  I hope I've inspired some of you to try pursuiting. It is such a great event and in terms of pain, it's not a lot different from a long road lead out!!!

 

Well, have a great Christmas everyone and see you in 2009.

Cheers

Helen.