Hope all is well, recovery is going well and tomorrow is another flanderen championship race.

Its a long drive but it looks as though my durney driver is keen to take me there.

Then the next race is the 3rd of Jully in Merelbeke.

Last night Jeremy raced on a fast wet cobbly course in Zomergem. Look up http://www.wielerbondvlaanderen.be that basically means wheel Racing club of Flanders, look on the left tab which has Kalendar (racing dates) and Uitslag
(outcome) or results. This site has my races and results, and pictures are on cyclingnews.new on there. A lot at the Pasendale 20th June Dames Elite.

Big news, Jeremy made top ten! placing in a sprint finish of a bunch of 16 3rd place result! on the podium with Iljo Keisse (a pro recently turned amateur for drug cheating) and best of all put Bart Van Speybroucke into 4th place.

Hey everybody,

Today was a sunny day.. For a change and we drove out to the town of Bellesele, for the women’s elite race. I was in luck! 98 starters. The Great Britain women’s team and Norwegian team were there too! The women to watch were really the Belgians, and also teams like the Lotto Belisol women’s team. 

After sweating in the heat waiting on the start line for 15 mins, we were finally off!

I have never been amongst this any elite women, the small roads were packed and it was jammed coming in and out of very tight corners, slowing right down the accelerating then settling in again.

I worked on positioning and watched the way the teams moved I sat on wheels  of women I thought were strong and followed the way they rode and positioned, like the Belgian champ. 

I didn’t make any moves and stayed positioned in the top 10 the whole way because the Belgian champ didn’t follow any breaks. I successfully caught my bottle from Jan as we rode past real fast, great practice accelerating on cobbled roads.

On the last 2 laps I was in the peleton near the front and missed the Belgian champ going because I was on the inside of fat peleton, so wasn’t ideal. I moved up for the sprint but the corner coming into the last turn onto cobbles girls crammed up bad and it was a messy mass finish. Lesson learnt get ahead earlier!

In the bunch I finished in 39th spot of 88 finishers.

So this is great for me, I really wanted to make sure I got my name up there on the finishing sheet with pro teams, and with speed work starting off for me now with lots to improve, and have been on David’s programme with cycling inform since February, I am stoked to be here amongst it all only 4 months in!

Only two girls on the British team finished ahead of me and also only two of the Norwegian girls finished ahead.

My next race is on the 3rd of July in Merelbeke, an elite women’s race again.

Jem didn’t race as had a break today to support me but has races for the next two days.   

Kings north team won again with Jack Bauer winning and Mario Williams in 3rd place.

So a great day, we should have some sunshine this week after having thunder storms all last week..so that means long training days and also getting behind the Durney with Eddie.

We have a kiwi here from wellington Jack Bauer who has become a belgium star in only
3 weeks of being here with two wins and several podiums before that. He was on the
front page of the paper with Tom Boonen as the main article and sub picture. Then had
the whole back page. Today he was in the Belgian latest news with a half a page pic!
So here is an example of another kiwi on a mission at the farm house, its great! He's
24 so this is his time to make it as well. I'm very inspired here amongst it all. So I have to make
the most of the small amount of racing I get. 

I was reading an article over the weekend regarding recreational riding. There are a few options for riding them one is the long slow way the other alternative is to smash them out as quickly as you can. Personally I prefer the later, not that I ride them.  The interesting thing is that if you do a lot of long slow distance (base training) in preparation for recreational events you actually de-tune your body and train it to ride slowly. There is mounting scientific evidence to suggest that supplementing long slow distance with high intensity interval training actually will increased your average speed on recreational rides. I have known about this fact for a while based on my coaching experience so it’s nice to have the  scientific evidence to back it up.  So which would you rather prefer? Riding at an average speed of 25km or 35km?

Peter is learning all about race craft. Look forward to seeing him take out a few races in the next few weeks when I get back from NT.

Paul's dropping weight and riding faster. Well done Paul! You are getting closer than you think to riding the next Bright Boot Camp!

Yoni wants a new set of leg from all the hard efforts she has been doing. Picking up things very fast! Well done Yoni. Go smash them next week in the Road and ITT races!

Myra's has been pulling some fantastic efforts on the motor pacing in Belgium. Racing on Wed. Can't wait to hear how she goes.

Luke takes out more KOM's points today in the Northern Combine 3 day tour. Well done Luke!

Rob pulls some fantastic HR data this week. Well done Rob. Great recovery rate. Fantastic efforts. Look forward to testing your LAT Power when I get back.

Jodie rides fastest woman in the ITT stage two and picks up KOM, sprint prime and wins stage three of the Benalla tour. Fantastic result! Very good result for someone that does most of her training in her living room!

This is a photography of me outside the cathedral in Oodenarde.

I'm just putting together an article that will discuss some very interesting and exciting scientific findings on high performance training techniques that produce high weight loss, large speed/vo2max improvements, longer life expectancy and higher resistance to disease.  Sounds too good to be true? I have been a little sceptical too. It goes against the training techniques that were very successfully promoted in the 1970's and 1980's and creates some doubt over the effectiveness of the "fat burning zone". I'm hoping to get it published in the next few days. All will be disclosed soon and it will change the way you'll train forever.

Hi! 

Today I went for great training ride it included the following climbs in it, The Koppenberg, Patterberg,  Oude Kwaremont, and the Kluisberg.
I really like the cobbles, it is like riding with very flat tires and really gets the hard rate up quick! We stopped at the town of Oodenarde where I took the picture by the fountain in front of the church, it issuch a pretty town all cobbled streets.
I will be going there for my hill efforts because the rest of Belgium seems to be as flat as a pancake.

Durney training on the river canals has been great to get my Belgium racing legs speedier, strong and smooth, and used to the small country roads(paths).
The next race I will do is 8 days. Mens racing is about every second day or so but womens is once a week.

The great thing here is getting in fast km's in great weather, what a luxury to be away from Tasmanias harsh winter, I would be braving the cold back at home if it weren't for my sponsor the Barbara Todd Ballet School in Hobart who sent me here to get the euro racing experience.  

I love being amongst the cycling culture and this is a cycling crazy land, it is thier tradition to race and they are very good! I can't wait to race again because it was so exciting getting amongst the fast women who know racing well and are quite fast too.

I am living with aussies, kiwis and poms and having a really great time and am part of a supportive team with Kingsnorth Wheelers, it is a great way to get to races and live with other riders with lots of talent. You may not believe it but we live with the toilet and shower in our kitchen. So it is very cosy but great! I haveseen any funny sights here, but the best thing is that everyone extremely old to very young, ride bikes.

Happy pedalling, 

Myra 

It going to be a tight finish to the Giro with Russia's Denis Menchov going into the last stage only 20 seconds ahead of second place on GC; Danilo Di Luca. A drama filled last stage saw Di Luca take time out of Menchov in the fist few km's only to have Menchov slowely claw it back as the km's continued to count down to the finish. Then, when we thought  Menchov's win was in the bag he hit the deck in the final km of the race. This giro couldn't have been scripted better. Just like a bad dream Menchov was down and slipping on the web cobblestones. As his speed slowed and was able to regain control of his slide he was seen trying to reach for his bike as they both skidded across the sodden rain soaked road. The quickest bike change in history saw him back on the bike again in lighting time. Meanwhile Di Luca was staring in disbelief at the TV screen with perhaps a little glimmer of unfortunate hope. Has he lost too much time? Menchov finally won the tour finally by 41 seconds. This Giro was certainly drama all the way to the wire.

So yesterday I was picked up and taken to a race on the border of France (100m walk away). It was a field of thirty elite women including the Belgian champ. I recognised Lotto team and body soul. After getting a feel of the cobbles and heaps of tight turns and accelerations, really thin country roads with cracks and the busy streets full of whistles and spectators I felt really comfortable and strong. My bottle had bounced out of the holder on the first lap and first bump! So can fix that for next time, got good at catching bottles in the feed station.

Got to see how fit the euro girls are and how they ride. I went off the small roads a couple of times, the second time got shoved on the last lap in the ditch and went from the front of the peloton to the back, so finished in peloton. I did make a couple of jumps over to breaks that didn’t work and the peloton got us, the girls got tired and wanted to stay on my wheel.

Next time I’ll go on my own for sure. I was feeling faster than the peloton. But wanted to get a solid finish for experience and played it safer this time. the Belgian champ had broken and gone by the time I was feeling comfortable on the course, it was handy to have mtb skills! I jumped a few gutters I’m really happy I’m up with them and will be looking for a win here. I’ll send you some pics of the race soon and data.
 
Thanks! Myra