Troy's Racing: The week that was

Its time to start mixing in some intensity with the strength & volume training I have been doing,
To kick things off, last Saturday I competed in my first open road race out at Creswick near Ballarat, this race in renowned to be very tough, It certainly didn't disappoint, 130km of true rough surface, undulating country road with some very exposed cross wind sections.

Even with the upgrade of my road bike with these super fast Zipp 404 test wheels from the shop, my day was to be a shocker, with all the volume & strength work I have been putting into my legs of late & with the pace of this race being up in the high 40s in these conditions, my legs simply didn't want to play.

Drop in to see Andy at KaosCustomBikes to test ride these wheels, you'll be surprised just how fast these wheels really are!

So it was time to head home for a nice hot Epsom salt/radox bath to try & get the knots out of my legs in time for Eastlink race the following day, this is a good trick to ease sore & tired legs, especially if timing doesn't allow a massage.

With the legs feeling a bit better, I managed to stay on the lead bunch for the Eastlink race, as mentioned previously in brief, was a shambles of a race, fast never the less.

Sending 500 racers off at once with no grades bunches, using just one side of the freeway, then putting 4ft high traffic bollards in the middle of the road as a divider for us to go up one side & back on the other, with 20 000 recreational riders on the other side, after we turned.

Just imagine for a second 500 riders starting 4 lanes wide, then about 2 km up the road with the bunch getting up to speeds of 50+km per hr, bollards start appearing every 50m in the middle of the road trying to funnel us into 1 & half lanes, with no rider briefing telling us so, just one guy in the lead car yelling at us waving his arms.

There was a crash in very close proximity to AJ & I, taking down about 50 riders due to a rider hitting a bollard with reports of a few others as well, hope these guys are ok as we were doing close to 50km per hr at the time.

There are many words to describe, Shambles, Joke, Debacle, Ludicrous, Chaos.............. the list goes on.

Tuesday night Kaos crew

To a more positive note & run down of the week,

Monday 1hr Recovery ride & massage, at PULSE to help get the legs back.
Tuesday night with the Kaos crew 2hrs,
Wednesday with the Fatties on the Yarra trails 3hrs, cut a little short due to a crash, deciding ice to the left knee would be more beneficial than the extra hr on the bike.
Thursday a very blustery, cold & rainy 4hrs.
Friday recovery & massage.
Saturday an easy paced 3hrs in more cold wet & windy conditions in order to save some legs for tomorrow.
Sunday/tomorrow 3 stage Race in the You Yangs, check back soon for the race report.
With a big week of kms planned for next week.