A day in the life of a tour groupie

I was woken up by a ray of sunlight right into my face through a little gap in the curtains. I was still very sleepy. The sun felt very hot in my face and I was wondering what time it was. It had been late the night before. Alberto stirred in his sleep. He was waking up slowly, too.

Curiosity finally made me lift my head and pull the curtains back just enough to get a glimpse of the outside. The brightness of the sun hurt my eyes and I quickly let go of the curtain and retreated back into the dimness of our temporary home on wheels.

After searching for a vacant camp ground in vain the night before, we had driven the camper into a pitch dark empty side path amongst paddocks, just one block back from the beach, had finished off the wine and gone straight to sleep. A deep dreamless exhausted sleep.

To my surprise it was still very early, not even seven, yet. It was going to be another beautiful day with a different kind of heat to what we are used to in Queensland, a lot less humid. We got moving straight away once we were awake, down to the very close-by ocean, to Maslin Beach, only one beach up from were the race was going to start in a few hours time.

It was magic. We hadn’t been to the beach in ages and I couldn’t help myself but run up a little sand dune hill, bare feet and excited, careless and free. Alberto had coffee and muesli ready by the time I got back. We had breakfast by the beach and afterwards we run into the freezing cold ocean. I’ve gotten soft in all those years living in Queensland. It took some courage to brave the cold waves, when some nine years ago it would have been the most pleasurable experience. Once in, the water felt warm and we couldn’t get enough of body surfing and fighting the surge, and invigorated and fresh, we finally headed for the start of stage five of the Tour Downunder.

When we parked the Camper in a small residential street, just some 800 meters from the start area, we immediately spotted Lampre and Ag2r riders cruising up and down the little beach side village streets, just like you and I would when warming up for a local race. The place was buzzing, people everywhere, and the voice of the announcer carried across from the loudspeakers. I recognised Lance Armstrong’s voice, being interviewed before the race start.

It was a good opportunity to see riders close up and to take photographs of Lance rolling back to his team bus after the interview and having a chat with Oscar Pereiro. I still can’t believe I had forgotten completely about big Jens. Kudos to a charismatic rider! This would have been the perfect opportunity to say G’day but I would have probably said “Guten Tag”

Once the peloton was sent off I got ready to get on my bike as well. A phone call from Danny, a Brisbane friend, and I decided to wait and ride out to Willunga with him as he told me that they were only a few kilometres away.

Danny never arrived but I was glad that I had hung around for an hour soaking up the atmosphere as the time went quickly and the intermediate sprint was awesome to watch.

I decided to just join one of the hundreds of groups of riders all heading for the same destination: Willunga Hill. A friendly and experienced looking rider in stylish Italian jersey was dodging his way through pedestrians in search of open roads and I started chatting.

“Of course you can tag along. Where are you from?”

“Brisbane.”

“Yes, but where is that accent from?”

“I’m originally from Germany. How about you?”

“I’m from Bright, Victoria.” he said.

“I know Bright very well …” He cut me off, noticeably excited, looking at me curiously: “Did you ride the Tour of Bright last year? Did you write about Mt Hotham climb? Yes, of course it’s you. A German, in Brisbane! I read your report on the internet. It’s beautifully written.”

I was embarrassed and proud at the same time. He introduced me to his friends and I was relieved that they didn’t make a big fuss and that we started rolling towards Willunga straight away. I was so keen to push the pedals, elated and happy as Larry.

Later that day, after I had caught up with Danny and had raced (and beaten) him up Willunga Hill, and had watched the Pro’s go pass twice and had reunited with Alberto and had laughed and joked and had been surprised and thrilled to see our good friend Aaron on the slopes of the climb, I joint up again with Ross and Gary and the group from the morning and rode with them the 50 km back to Adelaide. It was a fast ride, down the Expess Way, forbidden for cyclists any other day but police drove pass without a word (hello critical mass), and only the fading energy made me aware that it was approaching late afternoon and that I hadn't eaten anything since that breakfast by the beach.

And that had really only been the beginning of the day …

Tour Downunder 2009

I took 308 photos and about ten little videos. We covered more than 700 km in less than four days with the Campervan and woke up every morning in an unbelievably beautiful countryside.

I rode about 100km, mostly uphill and managed to get a sunburn and very obvious tan lines in South Australia's scorching heat despite slapping on tons of sunscreen.

I met fellow blogger Buttsy and blog readers.

I witnessed awesome racing action and soaked in the atmosphere and hustle and bustle of professional bike racing. I saw lance Armstrong less than ten meters away from me but missed to see my favourite German rider Jens Voigt.

We indulged in great food, cheeses and wines and beer.

Alberto had a chance of catching up with long time friends and I finally met people I had heard so much about.

I'm so full of impressions and have so many stories to tell that I don't know where to start. We had such a great time and are making already plans for next year.

The taxi driver

In the taxi on my way to the airport:

"Off touring, are you?"

"Kinda. I'm heading to Adelaide to watch the Tour Downunder."

The taxi driver was a lean looking elderly typical Australian, his almost white hair slightly dishevelled, his grey beard neatly trimmed and he was looking at me with inquisitive and friendly grey eyes.

"It has been very humid lately, hasn't it? You'll be hot, riding around Adelaide" he said, while turning the air con a few notches cooler. He must have noticed the sweat perls on the bridge of my nose. I felt grateful for the cool air, blowing into my hot face. The last few dashes through the sticky humid house to make sure all windows were closed and that everything was switched off and that the cat food was outside, had left me all hot and sweaty. I was running late, the usual.

The taxi driver was taking a slightly different route to the one I usually take to the airport and I felt irritated. It wasn't a big detour, just not the shortest way. I was glancing at him from the side as he was concentrating on the early morning traffic. He seemed a down to earth type of guy.

'Crap!'

I forgot to send this important email to payroll yesterday. Someone wasn't going to get paid without that email. Emergency phone call to the office.

'Phew! Fixed! Is there anything else I forgot? What time was it?'

The traffic wasn't too bad for the time of the morning. The air con felt good. All the sweat had gone from my face. I started to relax.

"So what have you got? Mountain bike or one of those fancy road bikes?"

"Roadbike. I've got a roadbike."

"Are you going to race down there?"

"It's a professional race. They wouldn't let me" I replied, aware that it sounded strange. He didn't seem to notice or was polite. "Ah, is that the race they move around the states every year? It was in Canberra last year?"


"The Tour Downunder has always been in South Australia as far as I'm aware."


"It's surprising that cycling is not a more popular sport" he replied. "People don't watch it on a Saturday afternoon like football. I mean, it is a very exciting sport, with a lot of action, not like lawn bowls."


"I heard on SBS that they had 150,000 spectators in Adelaide yesterday."


"Really?" he was genuinely surprised. "I'm not an SBS fan... but that's only one big event so it would attract people. I'm more talking about the local footy on a Saturday that people go to watch and follow. I bet there is no one watching races at Chandler."


I glance over to him, surprised. He knows the velodrome?


"Do you ride a bike?" I asked curiously.


"I used to, as a young guy, in the 50ies, on the track. I spent a lot of time in a bike shop, too, actually nearby from where I picked you up."


"Velo?"


"The shop doesn't exist anymore. It was on corner Gympie and Rode Road."


"So you know a thing or two about bikes?"


With a smile he told me that back then the fancy race wheels were made from cane. He explained, obviously enjoying the memory, that they broke easily with a big bang when the spoke tension was too high.


"Today they are made from carbon" I say, in need of anything better to reply.


"Right, the Mickey Mouse stuff"

I laugh.


We were passing Nundah on the airport arterial and I could get brief glances of the criterium circuit from the road. Pointing out the window, I mentioned that there had been a good local race the night before.


"See, that's exactly what I mean. You never hear about these races. They don't advertise or write about it in the local paper. I'd love to come down and watch it. Someone should make the the press aware and get them to write about it."


A few minutes later and we arrived at the airport. When I wished him a good day I was hoping that I would meet him again one day, down on the track, watching a race.

I'm sure he's got many more good bike stories to tell ...

Packed again

It took about 20 minutes to pack my bike late last night. I hope I've got everything. Mick lent me his bike bag again and I'm starting to feel a bit guilty because I seem to be using his bag more often than he is. Maybe I should invest into a bike bag but I want exactly this one because it is by far the best and easiest to use bag I have ever come across. So far I only found it on an European website with no shipping options for Oz.

I'm now waiting for the taxi to take me to the airport. The best thing about this trip? It's a holiday. I'm not taking my bike somewhere to inflict greater pain on myself. The emphasise will be on good food, good wine and watching others race hard. Aaaah!

Weight Question

OK, I'm dying to figure this out.

This question was raised during one of our salad dinners the other night. Alberto admitted to having eaten a pack of chips that day. He has put on a few grams recently (and looks great in my opinion but he doesn't quite believe me) so when I pointed out the amount of calories in a pack of chips he said he would only gain 100 g the most, since the pack was only 100 g.

An interesting discussion started, where we both pulled out half forgotten science knowledge from schooling days some couple of decades ago. It was mind-boggling as I kept getting mixed up between calories and weight of food. 100 g of high calorie food must surely make you gain more than 100 g in weight but also see Alberto's point that what you don't put in (in weight) can't miraculously appear on your hips. I'm confused and not completely convinced that you will ever only gain the equivalent amount in weight of the weight of the food you eat, regardless of calories.

This is of course hypothetical and under the assumption that you don't burn any of the calories in the food.

And, no, I'm not obsessing with food. It's pure scientific curiosity.

Unstructured training! Better than no training at all?

Dinner last night was extremely delicious. Alberto made a mouth-watering, scrumptious, lovely fresh prawn salad! The cat was jealous.

We have been having salads for dinner all week so my weight has remained constant at 55.5 kg despite the odd 4 PM - get - me - through - the - rest - of - the - day - chocolate - bar in the office.

Training (if you can call it that) has been very unstructured, sporadic and ad hoc.

I was quite indifferent to racing this morning. Alarm clock deliberately unset, I had slept in till 7 am. To get to the 8 am race would have meant stress and rush. So still somewhat sleepy I decided to settle with my coffee on the terrace and to give the bike a miss. Alberto thought it wasn't a good idea for me to race anyway (and still thinks so and is probably right, too) but since when do I ever listen?

When Alberto announced that he was getting on the wind trainer for an hour I had still enough time to make it to the C-Grade race. I finished my coffee quickly and got moving. I arrived just in time to see Scott roll across the finish line for first place in a fiercely contested sprint of strong B-Graders. Awesome!

C-Grade was a good line-up of about 30 people and a nice breeze was blowing. For my part I had no expectations and no goal. It was a training race and as such I just wanted to work as hard as I wouldn't have otherwise had I gone on an easy afternoon spin by myself. In reference to a post on Cycling Tips about the question "Is racing a good form of training?" I think this race was most certainly good training. I lasted 15 minutes and one second before I popped. I did apply the five second rule about ten times. I spent 15 minutes and one second in the red zone, with an average heart rate of 171 bpm and a top of 181 bpm (my max HR is 185). I haven't seen those numbers in months. After the initial disappointment of getting dropped I was quite happy with how the morning had turned out. The easy cool down and ride home finished it off nicely.

Click on graph to enlarge

Apres Velo and Advice on rollers needed

I purchased these two mega comfy shirts from Apres Velo in Sydney and had planned to write about them earlier but energy levels have been rather low as you know.

Then I managed to play with my camera and the shirts the other night. I took a whole heap of photos and while it was fun to get all inspired and creative, it left me with the problem of choosing, which photograph to use for the blog. Today I played with Picasa and found this great collage making tool, which solved my problem and I'm very proud of the result.

Love the gear for their uniqueness, interesting details like stitching and label and tears, its mega comfortable material and cool artwork. Now I can show off my passion and love for cycling even after the sweat from a tough race has been showered away.

Advice needed!

I have also been researching rollers (instead of blogging - I know, I know!) and am as clueless as I was before what rollers I should get. I'm currently looking at the Elite Parabolic but they are rather expensive. A friend suggested some Seiki (?) ones as the best he has ever tried but I don't seem to find them on the net. Any other rollers I should look at or consider? Anybody has got any second hand ones laying around and no longer needed or knows someone who wants to sell theirs? Let me know!

I did it

The sunrise was utterly incredible this morning. It certainly helps getting out of the house and onto the bike when the sky’s dipped in pink and yellow. I mean, how often do we open our terrace door at 4:45 AM to this?

When I arrived at the Nundah track there were already a number of cyclists turning their lonely laps. None of my friends were there, yet. I was the first one there.

Unheard of!

After a couple of high cadence laps to shake off the sleepy feeling, I spotted Suz just entering the track. Within minutes more and more people showed up and our little training group swelled to 14.

Without much ado we launched into the first of four “Five Lappers”, a fast pace line, where everybody takes short turns on the front and rolls back to the back to keep the speed high. It was a bit messy due to the amount of people but that suited me fine with my lack of fitness. The next set was fast. One of the sets I had to pull out after taking a turn. It was painful, but not that painful, and I should have just applied the five seconds rule – hold on for another five seconds even if it hurts.

Oh well, next time. I had great fun and afterwards I talked everybody into hijacking the Speed Skating Championship Podium for some fun pictures. Hey, they were all dying to get on that podium!

Let's try again

Another week - another chance!

Another chance to try and get back into some sort of training routine after last week’s outbreak of severe bed-suck. The bloody bed had me sucked in and wouldn’t let me go. Medical research isn’t paying enough attention to this serious condition. Maybe I should start an awareness campaign to get ‘bed-suck’ recognised as a debilitating illness and raise thousands of dollars to find a cure to free cyclists and other athletes from this terrible, terrible disease?

Or I should concentrate my efforts on getting up … THE numbers.

Excited and full of energy after my Saturday ride I rode down to the Nundah criteriums track yesterday morning to get a 30 minute power test done in order to take stock of how much damage has been done in the past two weeks of sporadic riding.

The bad news: I couldn’t do the 30 minutes time trial. 15 minutes in and I was suffering hay fever symptoms and had to ease off.

The other bad news (since there isn’t any good news): I lost a couple of Watts along with the couple of kilos over the Christmas/New Year’s break. Does this mean that my power-to-weight ratio remains the same?

If you think I’m going to spill the beans now and admit in public how low my average power output currently is, you are wrong. It’s just too embarrassing. Let’s just say it’s a starting point.

Alberto was very supportive and positive when I got home disappointed and frustrated. He assured me that I had done the right thing to back off since I wasn’t feeling well and suggested that next time I just continue with pedalling drills at this stage if I can’t maintain or continue with the required effort.

Now I’m slightly optimistic about this week’s training actually happening.

Long in coming, but worth the wait

“Not ready, yet” was the title of a post I had written but that post never got published; instead I put out a post with the title “Ready”. Thought I’d give it a more positive spin. It turned out that the first post would have been more on the mark.

Wednesday morning I got up at 4:30 AM, got dressed, got ready – only to decide to go back to bed at 4:45 AM. I was so tired that my arms felt numb. Ever been that tired? Me neither! I just thought that it wasn’t a good idea to ride with numb arms.

I meant to mention this for a while now. The tea against the hay fever actually worked. All hay fever symptoms gone.

The alarm went off at 4:30 AM every single morning of the past week, only to give me the same experience. Alberto told me not to worry and rather get a proper undisturbed solid nine hours sleep until I was rested but I had to try at least. I felt frustrated.

I didn’t take the hay fever tea with me to Sydney. With New Year’s celebrations and all, we didn’t get much sleep down there.

The good thing about not riding is having time for life. Movies, long talks, time to book a massage, the energy to try new recipes, clothes and ‘toy’ shopping sprees with Alberto, more movies. Seriously, we haven’t been to the movies all last year and now we went twice in a week. That’s unheard of since pre-cycling times.

I started drinking the tea again when we got back from Sydney.

This morning I slept in and had breakfast with Alberto on the veranda. That’s also something we did a lot in pre-cycling times. We had cigarettes with our coffee back then, too. Our lives have changed a lot since then, since we started cycling. We don’t sit on the back deck anymore for hours, having coffees and cigarettes while playing backgammon and talking.

But this morning and in the past two week we had many long chats about ‘god and the world’* and everything and I loved every single one. It’s not that we don’t normally talk. We do. About who gets what from the supermarket, when one would be home from work and who’s turn it is to cook dinner or if it would have to be take-away that night.

I was too tired to be bothered to make the hay fever tea a couple nights ago and haven’t had it since.

This morning, while sitting on the back deck with a nice breeze and our coffees, we talked about cycling and training and goals and plans. I was really excited about putting training plans together, getting stuck into it again, training hard, and having fun. We made plans to put reminder notes up to limit computer use to allow enough time for sleep and to get really disciplined with sticking to training programs and stretching every day and eating healthy. And Alberto mentioned that we will have to be prepared that talks will also return to “what’s for dinner” topics and that we will be grumpy sometimes if a workout or race didn’t go as well as expected and that we will be tired.

All of the sudden I had a tight feeling in my stomach. That’s a lot of sacrifice. Am I really prepared for this?

It was all forgotten when I was riding my bike this afternoon. I spent a solid two hours on the bike and loved every single one of the 52 kilometres. It was very windy. It didn’t bother me. I didn’t kill myself into the headwind but loved flying with the push of the tailwind. Just me, my bike and my thoughts … it was a good first ride for 2009.

I watched the kite surfers for a moment as they were struggling to get the kites in. The wind was blowing strong along the waterfront this afternoon.

They are making good progress with the new bridge across to Redcliffe. It will have a wider cycling lane.

Quick stop to refill my water bottle before hitting the winding path through the wetlands on my way home.

I want to do well in races this year. I’m happy to sacrifice … as long as it’s fun also, at least most of the time.

My naturopath is on holidays until the 22nd January. The hay fever is back. I’m not tired anymore.

* To talk about "Gott und die Welt" (German idiom) means that everything and anything was talked about. It does not necessarily refer to the discussion of religious topics.

Four thirty inspiration

I had a dream last night. I dreamt I would wake up at 4:30 AM wide awake and keen to get on my bike and race the short seven kilometers through sleepy suburban streets to the Nundah circuit to meet my friends. I pictured myself setting the pace for some fast laps around the track. I was confident that my dream would come true.

After Bright I felt pretty shot. Not in a 'shot = unmotivated' kind of way but as in dog tired. Motivated but tired, but not just the usual “I need to go to bed and have a good sleep” kind of tired. Rather the “No matter how long I sleep I need more than just a sleep” kind of tired. Like a body and mind kind of tired. I was still riding a high from all the thrill, exhilaration and agitation of Bright and couldn’t get enough of racing the Twilight criteriums. Deep inside, I knew I was pushing the limits, running the risk of frying myself. I was hanging in for the holidays, thought that a handful of races couldn't be that bad and a couple of days off work would fix it all.

It didn’t and it would have been wiser to have listened to my body but how do you know beforehand. I mean, really?

I haven’t been on the bike for a week now and only feel marginally better. I dream of training and racing and winning but come 4:30 AM I am just tired and uninspired.

Tomorrow morning I will wake up and everything will be different. Tomorrow I will get up. I will.

Ready

Even though we didn’t take the bikes to Sydney (I have yet to log my first ride for 2009), the short holiday had lots of bike flavour. Visits to bike shops as well as coffee shops (inextricably intertwined with cycling as coffee conversations inevitably turn into bike talk), studying road surface, width and traffic for cycling suitability, the brain subconsciously searching for bike routes through the urban street… I laughed at myself every time I caught myself doing this.

Claude, Alberto and I at Bar Bici, Bondi

It’s times like this when I realise how much cycling is part of my life and ingrained in my every day thinking. Almost everything revolves around it. However, I have been procrastinating making plans for 2009.

My first and foremost goal for 2009 is to train harder, not more!

In 2008 I spent way too much time on low intensity long rides and way too little time in the painful zone. I suspect I don’t even know how to really hurt. It feels like most of the year I have been in base training. Sure it has made me fit, probably the fittest I have been in 15 years, but 2008 will remain in my memory as the year I did well but always just fell short of my own racing expectations.

It started during the Sizzling Summer Series in February, where I never delivered on the finishing line and always finished just outside the points. During the Tour de Tablelands, whilst placing first woman, I missed the Top Ten finish overall (and finished 12th). I failed to get on the podium in the Sunshine Coast Tour (and got 6th). The Tour of Bright, where I finished 19th (my goal was a Top Ten finish), has left me feeling exhausted, drained and in need of a holiday. The championships (Club, Metropolitan and State) I didn’t even start for various reasons and the only result to show for was 1st Woman in the Rainbow Ride, a race I had entered with no goal and no expectations at all.

I started the year with a coach and swapped to self-coaching from July onwards.

All year I struggled with nutrition and reaching goal weight. My weight was always just those last two to three kilos off the ideal race weight. I continuously battled with eating before, during and after training and racing and will have to pay closer attention to this area and become more disciplined.

Gym time will have to increase as I truly believe that the weight training leading up to Bright has improved my cycling immensely. Being a female cyclist approaching Masters Age (as a matter of fact my license this year for the first time says Women Master 2), weight training needs to become a permanent feature of my training schedule year round.

I have been way too often two (or more) minutes late for training rides and I’m grateful my friends always wait for me. Last but not least even this post comes a few days late as we are well into 2009 and I’m still pondering 2008.

The last nine days I rode only when I felt like and I procrastinated putting my 2009 racing calendar to paper. Tomorrow is the last day of my holiday. It’s time to shake the lethargy and get moving.

I’m ready!

Sydney

Gesundes Neues Jahr* everyone.

The Sydney fire works last night were spectacular and so was the food and the company. You are probably wondering: Sydney? A very last minute decision to spend NYE with friends in Sydney and we just jumped onto the next plane and made the quick trip down. I'm glad we did.

It's 9 AM New Year's Day now and I'm sitting here in our friend's cute and expensive little city apartment, waiting for them to get up so I can grind some coffee beans and have my first coffee of 2009. Alberto is busying himself packing but we won't be flying back to Brisbane until late this afternoon. We are planning to spend the day at Bondi Beach. Maybe I can work on those cyclist's tan lines that didn't go very well with the little black dress that I bought in Oxford Street yesterday and wore last night. Did I mention already that we had a great night? What made it great was the spontaneity and opportunity to meet interesting new people. You remember my last post where I rode with P? That's how it all came about! She told me about her NYE plans of meeting with an old friend, mentioned, only half in earnest, that we could come. I mentioned it to Alberto, we liked the idea, a few phone calls were made and we ended up staying with Alberto's long time friend from Adelaide days and his lovely partner (who we hadn't met, yet) and spent the evening with P and seven of her friends and friends of her friends in this posh restaurant in Kirribilli. The food and fire works were spectacular. We had all continents represented on our table of ten so it made for an entertaining night with interesting conversations. I don't think the word bicycle was mentioned once, which was very unusual but refreshing ...

Unfortunately I won't be back in time for the New Year's Day criterium on the Gold Coast but, hey, a girl can't have everything ... and it's only the first race of many in 2009!

Happy New Year!

*We wish a Healthy New Year in Germany.