Over the weekend I raced at the New Zealand Elite National Cycling Championships in Cambridge.
On Friday I raced the Elite Women's Individual Time Trial. Very pleased to say I won and I am the 2020 NZ National Time Trial Champion.
This means I will be able to wear the National Champions kit in any UCI Time Trial races I do this year.
The race went exactly to plan. I warmed up well, stayed aero in the race with my head down and hit my target power number over the flat fast course. I do this week in week out in training so it was all about executing this on the day which I did. I could not have done anything better.
On Sunday I lined up in the Road Race, 109km with two big hilly loops out of town, then two small / flat town loops to finish.
This race was a bigger question mark for me having only done a handful of road races in the last 10years and only a few before that!
It is a very different event to time trialling, the surging, power spikes, plus speed and technical / tactical aspects of the bunch riding are not things I practice often.
However it was a tough course and suited my strength so I wanted to get amongst it and ride hard.
I rode in the group for the first big lap and waited for the hilly second loop. Over the top of the main climb I found myself with 3 other girls. We immediately began to work together to get a gap on the rest of the field. Once we hit the town laps we kept working hard to catch the leader who had gone solo in an early break at the start of the race. We caught her with 1km to go. At this point I attacked and attempted to get away solo. Alas I have minimal punch. Two girls stuck with me and we had a 3 way sprint to the line where I placed third by 0.02secs!
I am very excited to say that I am proud of how I rode and achieved another podium result at the NZ National Cycling Championships.
Overall a very successful weekend of bike racing and some great training in the bank for my next race - Ironman New Zealand.
Back to Triathlon - thank you all for continuing to support me in 2020! I hope to build on a very successful 2019 where I placed:
- 2nd at Ironman New Zealand.
Overall time - 9:05:32
- 1st at the Ironman Asia Pacific Championships in a course record (back to back champion). Overall time - 8:48:33
- 1st at Ironman Western Australia in a course record with the bike course record as well. I also qualified for World Champs in 2020.
Overall time - 8:38:42
I finished the year ranked 7th in the world for Professional Long Distance Triathletes.
I also had the fastest Ironman bike split of the year which is also ranked 3rd fastest of all time.
I am extremely happy with my 2019 achievements. I exceeded my own expectations, learned a lot and had fun doing it.
With just over two weeks to go to IMNZ I am feeling good and into the last of my key sessions where I focus on pacing and nutrition.
It will be my 3rd time racing Ironman NZ. I am looking forward to testing myself on the course again and seeing if I can improve my time and placings from the last two years. It is also nice racing just a few hours from home and having my family there to support. It is definitely a race I like to go well at, so I am working hard to make that happen.
I had a slow start to 2020 with a couple of weeks of not feeling well or like my usual self. I had a few doctors visits to check everything out and make sure I am 100% fit and healthy to do the training required.
Ironman or any sport is hard on the body so I am careful to give my body rest when it tells me to. The energy it took to win Ironman WA in December really took a lot out of me so I made sure to respect this and take the extra time needed to recover.
Below are a few pics from training over summer.