Inspiration and Stuff

Well, I had a great weekend on and off the bike! I got in a good hard ride on Saturday, and it was the first time in a long time that I’ve ridden over 100k’s in one go. I felt a lot better than I thought I would, which served as a good little indication that my training seems to be on track and all the other little changes that I’ve made over the last three months or so seem to be paying off too. I’m hoping that the motivation stays with me.
On Sunday I sat down with a mate to watch the Road Nationals. What a race! Some really inspirational efforts from some very talented bike riders. Cam Meyers effort, riding off the front by himself for 3(? maybe 4?) laps just to set up his team mates for a strong finish was a fine display of team work, and the big finish from Gerrans, Loyd and Porte, after 165ish k’s was awesome.
What really got me excited though, as a Mountain Biker, was scanning through the break away bunch and seeing two of Australia’s top Mountain Bikers up there mixing it with 21 of Australia’s top Roadies, most of whom race professionally in Europe. Not to take anything away from their ability as bike riders, but to be up there with those guys in an event that’s not your specialty is bloody impressive.
I saw the purple and black of Dan McConnell’s kit first and started to get all excited, and then a few minutes later saw the Search to Retain kit of one of the Van Der Plogg’s (Neil I think?). I turned to my buddy, pointed to the tv and said ‘holy sh*$! They’re Mountain Bikers!!’. But, it wasn’t over yet! Shortly afterward the camera’s went back to the chasing bunch where there were about 5 Mountain Bikers in the mix, working to reel the leaders back. What was even more impressive here was that some of them are no longer professional riders!
It’s a bit funny considering I don’t know any of the guys involved personally, but I was a little bit proud to be a Mountain Biker and genuinely excited for those guys to see them doing so well.
Now, the excitement doesn’t stop there. A friend raced in the women’s race on Saturday, so  while I was having a look to see how Heidi did (not to bad, incidentally!) I saw that not only had one of Australia’s top female Mountain Bikers taken it to the girls in the road race, she’d finished on the podium! Bec Henderson, who has been pretty much killing it on the dirt for a while now, rode away with silver in the Elite Womens Road Race. Outstanding stuff, and if that doesn’t help with Olympic selection I don’t know what will. Unfortunately all the telecast showed of the womens race was the winner coming across the line so I’m not entirely sure how it played out, but considering half the field DNF’d I’m guessing that it was a tough day on the bike.
Well, that’s it for Monday morning. I hope everyone found the nationals to be as inspirational as I did, for whatever reason.

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