ACTAS Road Camp: Day 4

On today’s schedule was another 140km of undulating terrain with a hike up Macquarie Pass thrown in for good measure. I went down to meet everyone for our 9am start and do my pre ride weigh in when Glen came up to me with a genius plan. He offered to hook me up with a radio and every 10min was going to tell me to drink and tell me to eat at regular intervals during the ride. I had previously approached him about the difficulties I was having to remember to eat and drink on my rides and during racings which was ultimately affecting my performance, noticeably in the closing stages of the race. I thought it was a brilliant idea! And was surprised that no one had suggested I do something like it before! It was an epic task to take on on his behalf, as well as tedious, having to constantly remind me every few minutes, but I am eternally grateful and believe that it had a significant impact on my performance during the ride! I felt stronger on the climbs because I’d taken on adequate fuel and fluid before the major ones and found that I had more left in the tank in the closing stages of the ride! I think that it helped me a lot and I’m truly thankful to Glen (and Grant) for taking up the challenge!
Back to the day’s ride, it was again another undulating ride (remind me never to complain about doing cotter loops ever again!) with my favourite climb of the camp: Macquarie Pass. Macquarie Pass is about a 6km climb? I don’t know.. I’m just estimating.. it was long.. long enough for Viki to get in 2x10min SEs and another 6min one lol. It has a gradual increase in gradient, sort of like a Stromlo back home and it presented people with the opportunity to ‘tap’ up it or go all out and smash it to the top! I love it! Another significant part of the ride was the climb up Cardiac. Let me tell you, its not called Cardiac because it is easy. Far out. It was near the end of the ride and I was already feeling the affects of the last 3 days of camp…it hurt. It was only just under 1km but it was a very steep pinch. I was secretly praying for Glen to drive up in the car and offer me a tow up it but again, that would be giving up.. and that is not on.

Needless to say, I was glad when we finally got home! I went straight for the baked beans on toast and then it was just a case of relaxing in the ice bath (I’m actually a bit of a fan to be honest!) and soaking up some sun in a last ditched effort to get rid of the tan lines before formal on Thursday! Our room decided to celebrate our last night at camp by ordering Mexican..yummy! I got a chicken Chimichanga (don’t even know how to begin pronouncing it) and it was sooo tastey! Hmm..and so huge! But I ate every last bit of it :) After letting my stomach digest what it had just taken in, Chloe and I again treated ourselves to ice cream from the ice creamery again.. just because we could :) and then we called it a night because we had to get up early to start our trek back home!



Well at least my tan lines aren't THAT bad :P