and not before time. so good to be back with just [and i mean JUST] enough form to complete the cols ride. i made it up all hills today but not without questions in both my brain, and fitness level. it was as start with 7 riders, me, trieu, churchward, phil, jeff rooney, james [bernard rider] and alicia.

alicia rode both OBR and lapstone then on the descent of mitchells returned home. jeff rode all but decided to ride on and across the plains to home – rather than taking the right up to alpé de heights. james from bernard could have taken the easy option across the plains as well but decided to climb the alpé which was awesome. at age 47 hes a really strong rider. trieu finished and completed all climbs. it was really good to see all his hard work paying off and even better he ended up beating me up warks hill.

^ 3 for $5 – bargin, should have taken that offer up.

for me it was mixed. i don’t think i bonked but last night we went to avalon for lisa’s 40th. my issue was i didn’t really have a complete dinner, just small hand catered for kind of food. still on total detox i only drank water all night but not eating a full meal i think took its toll today. to top it off the alarm didn’t go off so i didn’t get to eat my full breakfast, and what i had i scoffed down whilst getting ready so i didn’t let my food settle properly before leaving. i made it to churchy’s slightly late but stressed.

i had good form and felt stronger than i have a long time. i wanted to make sure trieu made all climbs and trying to keep with trieu’s pace up kurrajong hurt. i realised now i need to keep my own pace to have any chance of consistency on the climbs. it was a great day out though and makes me realise i only need a good couple of weeks and i should be almost back to my best.

the girl had a massive clicking rattle sound that i had at some point completely blocked out until churchward pointed it out. everyone thought it might be the cassette and james confirmed that on one of the stops. i fixed it this afternoon.

for training purposes it was perfect. checking the stats some how i couldn’t have scripted it any better with about 1 hour in every zone.
Z1 – 1:04:33
Z2 – 1:05:04
Z3 – 1:07:08
Z4 – 1:10:37
Z5 – 2:34
with Z5 being redlining it’s even better that i only just hit it as it would have killed me spending any more time there.

KOM’d the flats but funnily it was all of us – taking turns etc – i think me uploading to strava first gave me the KOM.