End of the year

Its the end of the year, everythings starting to finish and its party time. Last night raced the last road crit for the year, talk about edgy. There was extra prize money so everyone was mad keen to place well and everyone was just all over the shop yelling at each other and what not. I was having a greta time, felt good, no strugle at all just hammering arounf stromlo crit track and figuring out my plan for the sprint. coming into the sprint theres a right hand corner then a left hand corner. I decided to take the inside of the right corner and then accelerate on the far outside of the last corner. The guy in front did the same and I was hammering it and accelerating alot faster than the bunch. I had about 10 meters to make up but I could have done it, had the guy in front of me not violently wobbled all over the place causing me to swerve of onto the grass, finishing in about 3rd last place, I was so angry, I realy think I could have done it, but it was a fun night anyway. Pete got 5th and Dave got 3rd, our best finish so far, so we went out and had some pizza as a celebration.
Tonight, Im racing the mtb crit which is a hill climb tonight as another Xmas special. Im going to try and do well but im probably racing Dylan Cooper and Ben henderson so I wont be disappointed if Im not there first.

Ive been training pretty hard since ive been on holidays (with the exception of last weekend which was too wet and windy). Im feeling alot stronger now, but I realy need to work on my climbing. I never thought Id have to say that but its true. So Im going to bust out some more hill climbs throughout the week and get back my inner mountain goat.
So im down the coast next week, probably with the roadie and then back to Canberra on the 27th for PHD which is going to go off and then after new years, party time is over and it becomes hammer time.

Any way have fun over xmas and new years, dont be safe and Ill catchya later kids.

Getting back on track

Ive been doing alot of thinking about what my goals are and what my strengths are. Illinbah left me in a bad state of mind, It was going to be my big race where Id make a name for myself, and it didnt happen. I went for a few rides last week and felt realy crapy, realt slow up the hills, and just weak in the crits. This was not how I felt before Illinbah and my cold. Ive decided that ive hit a bit of a dip at the moment and I just need to push myself out of it and get strog for National champs in january. This means im not going to race you yangs or anything other than crits till then. Im also not going to be on the mountain bike much for the rest of the year. My plan for the rest of the year is to just get as strong as i can by doing hard fast rides with flat fast sections, undulating rough sections and somegood climbs. Im not going to be over doing it either, I dont want to get sick again. I have no set days for riding just not riding on tuesday, crit on wednsday and thrusday and bunch ride on sat morning. I am already starting to feel stronger again, but still not there. Over Xmas my family is going down the south coast for a week. Ive been looking on bikley and the road rides look a little bit boring, but from what i can tell the XC tracks are few and far between, so im not sure which bike to take. I might have achat to Brendan Johnston see what he reckons, he lives down there, so id say he knows all the roads and xc tracks.
So thats where things are at for now, tell me if you know of any good roads or XC tracks between batemans bay and moruya.
Bye
Nick

Illinbah

Lets start by saying, it didnt go to plan. My preperation was terrible, I hurt my knee, i got sick 2 weeks before and I had to do alot of school work. I was feeling pretty good until I got sick and since ive just felt weak and empty. It didnt help that we drove there from canberra in a day and a half which was pretty full on. The track was probably the best track Ive ever raced, realy steep climb and a steep gripy descent. After my practise laps I knew i could handle the track very well I just needed somthing extra to get me up that climb that I would usualy roll up easily. Race day was warm humid, and the track was in good condition, damp but not wet, just perfect. However, an hour before my race the anouncer says, theres a huge storm coming over from the other side of the hill. We looked over and saw this huge black cloud coming over the hill. We decided that it will probbaly come a bit later but we put mud tyres on just incase. I went back to the tent to grab my ipod for my warm up. As i was getting out of the tent it started to get realy windy and started raining (within seconds). I decided not to take the ipod incae it got soaked. I started my musicless warm up and the rain started to realy come down. I thought I should go make sure the race is still on, I went down to the event hub and everyone was trying to stay dry under a tent which was blowing away. I warmed up by back pedaling under the CORC tent. it was delayed by 30 mins but we raced. The rain had stoped but that made no difference, the track would be horribly muddy (especialy since Elite had done 2 laps in the rain). I got a shit house start to what can only be described as a shit fight. We all just slid around fall over trying to get into our positions. I got held back on the first climb as there wernt many passing opertunities. I managed to catch and pass a few guys at the start of the second lap. However everything turned to shit on the start of the climb when I got chain suck. this persisted for every climb for the rest of the race. By the last race it was so bad that it was quicker to run/walk up the hill rather than constantly get of and try and fix my mangled chain. The main descent was full on aswell. It was going straight down the steeest part of the hill and was increadibly muddy. I ended up walking the corners at the bottom of it. I ended up in a very very disapointing 10th place. I know i could have beaten the four in front of me if I had had not problems, and mabey a few more. The drive home gave me alot of time to think about what had gone wrong and weather I would have done as well as I would have like if I had had not problems or if it was dry. Ive never felt so shit after a race.

My plan now is to try and get as fast as I can for national champs. If I do well I will try and race Buller and Ocianas. If Im just not on the pase, then I will consentrate on becoming a good marathon rider, something I would persue later anyway.

In the short term, Im going to keep training and race the road and dirt crits which are both good training.

Catchya