Just like living in paradise...

Eat, ride, eat some more, stretch, recover and sleep. They are basically the only things you have to worry about over here. Forget work, forget all the dramas back home and concentrate purely on what you are here to do, ride your bike.

Over the past few days, we’ve embarked on more challenging training rides such as double sessions and more recently a 6hr ride with SEs and a 10km climb followed by some pacelining in the 35 degree heat!! We also rode over part of the 2009 World Road Race course, it’s definitely one for the climbers! Although it may have seemed like an epic day in the saddle, after a recovery day yesterday we are ready to get stuck in and do it all over again today! Motor pacing this morning then in the arvo we are pulling out the big guns with some power climbs!

Off the bike, we have started having our Italian Lessons. Ariane has been given the duty of teaching us some basic Italian so that we can survive whilst we are over here. We’ve had a couple of lessons so far and I’m really enjoying learning another language and make an effort at every opportunity I get to try and practice it with the locals. I even managed to order myself a piece of steak (I made sure I learnt how to say the word ‘beef’ so I wouldn’t end up eating horse or anything :p) from the butcher who then proceeded to have a conversation in Italian with me to which I had to reply ‘Mi scusi, non capsico!’ I’m still working on it but my goal is to be able to have something that sort of resembles a proper conversation with someone by the time I get home!!


Not surprisingly, the girls and I have also ventured across the road for numerous gelati trips. The man who owns the shop makes the gelati fresh every morning fee from preservatives and with all natural ingredients (yes, so that gives me the right to have it everyday and not feel guilty :) ) and since he uses whatever ingredients he has on hand, you never know which flavours he is going to have!! So far I have had: banana, coconut, strachiatella, hazelnut, strawberry, some rice crispy one, a ferrero rocher one and something called ‘biscotto’ (which is basically the cookies and cream equivalent to gelati)!! My favourites so far are by far the biscotto and banana however these seem not to be made very often…Oh well, just means I’ll have to get extra when it is there :P And since we are talking about food, I think I’ve mastered the whole ‘cooking your own food in Italy’ situation. I now know what you can and can’t buy (no, don’t bother looking for ‘mixed herbs on spices’ in the racks…) and have been introduced to the world of fresh bread and cheeses. Yesterday I bought a fresh loaf of bread form the pizza restaurant called Risto around the corner, it was still warm when I bought it and needless to day it didn’t last long after I used it for lunch and made the tastiest bruschetta know to man for dinner that night!


The girls and I have also taken UNO to a whole new level, making it ‘high stakes’ UNO. Screams and shrieks can be heard well into the evening as whoever loses is forced to do whatever punishment the group has decided on before hand. So far Chloe has been the only unlucky one having to wear chamois cream on her face instead of sunscreen and today has to do the motor pacing session in leg and arm warmers which may not seem bad for those of you back home, but when it’s a lovely summers day like it is here...Let’s just say I’m glad its not me!

So apart from that, nothing much else has been happening. Belinda Goss arrives today so I am no longer by my lonesome which will make for a nice change! Rumour also has it that we are going to do a recon of the time trial and one of the climbs in the Giro (the Monte Serra) tomorrow which will be good! And we are also thinking of heading into Milan to do a bit of shopping either Monday or Wednesday and we have a date with the Pizza restaurant scheduled in there too!! Beth is also back so we are being pampered with massages and Ariane now comes twice a week for Italian lessons!
So things are looking pretty good over here. I think my body has finally started to adjust to the time zones after waking up at 5-530am everyday since I’ve been here, I was relieved this morning to roll over and see my watch was ticking over close to 630am!! Success!! And I’m starting to feel my legs again too which is good considering the training that we have coming up! Not to mention something we call the Giro starting just around the corner….

So until next time, take care

Ciao

Miffy
xx

P.S Uploading photos seems to be a touchy subject for my computer at the moment... I will try again soon but in the mean time feel free to check out my photos at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=275166&id=746470234&l=7a4717fe97

After a rather late night, I was not surprised to find myself awake at the ungodly hour of 5am. Unable to get back to sleep I admitted defeat and jumped online to wish my twin sister a Happy Birthday. It has been 3 years since we last celebrated our birthdays together as this time last year I’d just arrived in the USA and this year I’m in Italy…When you put it that way, life sounds kind of tough :P

So I had a long chat to my sister and she revealed that for part of my birthday present she’d hacked into my blog and totally redone my layout and so VOILA :D Although I was angry she’d hacked into my account, I forgive her because I think that the layout is bloody awesome, gold star for effort :D

On the agenda today was a 4hr ride with some SE climbs. Have only being been here for less than 24hrs, I was exempt from the efforts and so casually ‘tapped’ up the 10% climbs taking some happy snaps as I went. After we’d finished the efforts we rode round the Swiss border and round a beautiful looking lake (pics below) before riding though a rather hectic Varese back home to Castronno.



Later that afternoon, Lauren suggested that we go out and find ourselves an authentic Italian hot chocolate (ciocolata) to try. Rumour has it that they are so thick that you put a spoon in the middle of it and it stands straight up…needless to say it wasn’t long before we’d jumped on the townies in the direction of Bar Cavour. Our journey did not go incident free mind you, lets just say that I may have lost a little skin on my leg and that the score is Townie 1, Miffy 0. There will be revenge!



So we ordered our ciocolatas and Lauren got hers with panna (cream) and my draw literally dropped when the waiter placed my order in front of me. Sitting there was a cup of chocolate ‘sludge’ which tasted exactly like chocolate pudding…apparently these things are everywhere and it’s simply how the Italians do hot chocolates!! Yummy :)

Loz and her Ciocolata con Panna


Me and my Ciocolata


We then casually rode the townies back home so that we could greet out newest addition to the family, Chloe who had just arrived from the Netherlands after a tour with her Moving Ladies team. It was great to finally see her again as I haven’t seen her since she left Canberra nearly 3 months ago!


the Townies

For dinner that night we embarked on a journey to Varese to go and sample what was some of the best Italian pizza by Dave McPartland, our coach until Marv arrives on the 1st. After trying to decipher the 100 different types of pizza (pizza with mozerella, tomatoes and basil or mozerella tomatoes and oregano etc..) and with the help of the very patient waiter, I managed to order a pizza with fresh tomatoes, basil, artichoke, mushrooms and mozerella. Oh my goodness. Apart from being close to 3 dinner plates in size, the pizza was probably the best thing that has happened since the invention of the Italian hot chocolates! Each of the girls devoured their pizzas whole and were all in agreement that they could probably eat more! Pizza is never going to be the same again. Ever.

After rolling ourselves out of the restaurant, we jumped back on the train to Castronno and dinkied the townies back home where the girls had bought me a delicious chocolate cake and card to celebrate my birthday which was unexpected and very sweet of them :)

So not a bad way to spend my birthday. Nice weather, good ride, yummy food and probably some of the nicest company you could ever ask to spend your day with. I just wish my sister was here to enjoy it all with me!

Tomorrow we have an easy ride and our first Italian lesson! I’ll be fluent before you know it :p

Until next time,

Ciao
xx

What dreams are made of :)

23hrs of flying and 7 plane meals later, and I’ve finally arrived in Italy! The flight was anything but cruisey but it all quickly became worth it as we began our decent into Milan airport. I was greeted by the stunning view of the sun beaming down on the glistening snow capped muntains which surrounded us. See it doesn’t have to be minus a thousand degrees and miserable to have snow! Pretty sure someone should have told Canberra this.

So I was great at the airport by soigny extraordinaire Beth Duryea in the unmistakeable AIS team van and it was only a short drive to Castronno, Varese which I will be calling home for the next 6 weeks!

Pulling up to the house, it was nothing like I had expected! It is a 4 story ‘complex’ with self contained apartments varying in size on each level. I’m staying in room 6 which I will be sharing with Belinda Goss when she arrives on the 26th and Tiffany Cromwell who arrives on the 2nd of July but for now I’m in here all by myself! Lauren Kitchen is sharing with Amber Halliday and Carlee Taylor, Shara Gillow and Chloe Hosking are bunking together. We are each responsible for cooking/preparing our own meals for the length of the stay which is good as it teaches us to still become independent whilst away racing and gives us the challenge of trying to fend for ourselves in a country where we have no idea what is going on! But fear not, I have come equipped with my Italian phrasebook and dictionary on my Ipod touch and have been informed that we will be having Italian lessons twice a week for the duration of our stay!

After unloading all of my gear, I was faced with my first challenge of a trip to the supermarket to buy some essentials for lunch (so I could eat something which actually resembled real food!). I only had a couple of minutes in the shop but I was quite impressed with my efforts and came out with all the essentials to make probably one of the tastyest sandwiches to date. I would give myself an A for effort in this challenge :)

In the afternoon, I went out with the girls for their second session of the day to spin out the legs. It was about 28 degrees and you couldn’t have wiped the smile off my face! I think it was just after we’d ridden through the middle of Varese and then out pass the Lindt factory onto the windy undulating roads when I said to myself “yeah, I could get use to this :)”

The day was capped off by a trip to the Gelati store which is literally just across the street! The owner hand makes it fresh every morning and it’s safe to say that he will be seeing a hell of a lot more of me whilst I’m here!! Equipped with my Italian dictionary, I was able to decipher all of the flavours and settled for a mixture of stracciatella, banana and coconut. Oh my. I’m pretty sure I’m never going to eat gelati in Canberra ever again! The taste in your mouth as the ice slowly melts on your tongue and the refreshing feeling it gives you as it slides its way down your throat…Jealous yet? :P

So that pretty much sums up my first day in Italia :) It is everything I could have imagined and o so much more! I will upload photos shortly of the house and where we are staying so until then stay tuned!!


Take care
xx

..And we're back!

So I have to admit, it has been a while since I have last updated my blog but now it’s time to dust off the virtual cobwebs as my bicycle and I are about to embark on yet another overseas adventure. Last year I was off to the land of drive-thrus and fried chicken and this year I’m escaping the harsh Canberra winter and heading to the home of the Godfather, gelato and Ferragamo shoes. That’s right people, I’m off to Italia :D


I recently got the unexpected pleasure of being invited to ride with the Australian National team in a 6 week stint over in Europe competing in some of the biggest races on the Women’s calendar including the Giro Donne in Italy and the Tour of Limousin in France. This certainly did come as a surprise! Let me paint the scene for you. I’d just finished having coffee with my coach after discussing plans for the rest of the year, dreading the thought of having to endure the cold months where you ask yourself ‘what the hell am I doing in this sport?’, when 20min into my ride home I received a text message from my coach saying to ‘please ring, it’s urgent’. I quickly rung him back desperate to find out what was wrong when he said ‘Barras (Martin Barras the Australian Women’s Head Coach) wants to know if you want to ride the Giro.’ My initial reaction is probably not suitable to publish on the net but it was quickly followed by a ‘HELL YES!!’ and ever since then it’s been a snow ball effect of activity getting myself prepared for my first stint donning the Aussie green and gold against the best women racers the world has to offer!!

So it has been a while since I’ve blogged and what’s happened? Well life has full of ups and downs of course but that’s all part of the character building and what makes you tougher, I guess. Some of the prominent events have been my involvement in an Altitude Study at the AIS where I was locked up with 12 other girls for 6 weeks during which we underwent various testing and gruelling training sessions which were designed to ‘bring us back on our knees’ all whilst sleeping at altitude to determine if haemoglobin mass had any impact on performance. The study was a huge success and I would do it again in a heartbeat. We were luckily enough to undergo a training program set by Martin Barras and the whole study was organised by Laura Garvican who was assisted by sports science extraordinaire Dave ‘you animal!’ Martin and Torben our very own German doctor :P. I learnt a lot about myself both as a bike rider and as a person during that camp and started to prove to myself that I might actually have what it takes to make something out of this sport! I am also learning more about my body and how it adapts to certain training and most importantly, when it’s telling me that enough is enough and I need to recover. During the last few months I have also had the honour of becoming a of the ACT Academy of Sport and wear now my state’s colours with pride in competition. It was a bittersweet transition as it involved me leaving my old coach with whom I have a bond which could not compare to any other. But I’m not afraid to try new things and am a firm believer in change. My ultimate goal is to make it as a professional cyclist in an international team as well as compete for my country in the Olympic and Commonwealth games and being part of the State Institute seemed like the next logical step to achieving my goals. I am now coached by Glenn Doney and have enjoyed the challenge of the training and have formed a close bond with my big yellow ergo who I have nicknamed ‘Moose’ (I spend a lot of time on there, so it’s good to have a good relationship!!). I’m now doing some more time trial style training (shock horror :O) because to be a good tour rider you need to be able to climb hills fast and have a strong time trial in you. I’ve come to terms that in time trialling, pain is the key. You just have to swallow the hard cold fact that it is going to hurt, bad.

Canberra Tour has also been and gone and overall I was happy with my performances on the Saturday (getting 3rd in both stages) albeit a little disappointed with my efforts in the Sunday race. I was part of the decisive break on the road and at one point was virtual race leader but I got too preoccupied with the race and as a consequence my nutrition suffered and there is no worse feeling then seeing the race ride away from you 100m from the top of the last climb…I was left to ride the last 7km to the finish line with a big mushroom cloud over my head praying that I wasn’t going to get swallowed and spat out by the rapidly approaching pack. I managed to hold on and pick up 5th, making me 5th on GC. I learnt a lot from that tour and I think I’m a better rider having had experienced that. It has highlighted an issue that I have tried to overlook for too long and I am now more determined then ever to settle the issue once and for all. Unfortunately I didn’t have the legs but maybe with a bit more work I’ll get there and crack a podium finish!

Off the bike, I’ve been working up a storm at Aerofit gym owned by Commonwealth and Olympic Games representative in the 20km walk (now if that isn’t a tough sport…)Nick A’Hern and his wife Jen and have recently completed my Cert III in Fitness. I also started my degree of a Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Laws at the University of Canberra but chose to defer it until next year when I am in a better mindset to give it 100%, even though it means I’ll still be at Uni when I’m old and wrinkly….

So that’s pretty much all that’s been happening in my bubble over the last few months since coming back from the Women’s Tour of New Zealand. I depart for the AIS base in Varese on Saturday the 20th June where I’m told I will be greeted with close to 30 degree weather and sunshine (thank goodness!!!) and I’ll be arriving on my Birthday, the 22nd June. Last year I arrived in the US on my 18th Birthday and this year I will be celebrating my 19th in Italy…Boy life’s tough :P

I’ll be racing the Giro with a relatively young team comprising of Shara Gillow, Carlee Taylor, Amber Halliday, Lauren Kitchen, Tiffany Cromwell and fellow Canberran Chloe Hosking who has definitely making a name for herself riding with the Dutch Moving Ladies team!!! It’ll be great to catch up and be able to share this experience with her! Under the watchful eye of Martin Barras and with the support of Beth Duryea and Dave McPartland it’s going to be a tremendous experience. I can’t believe that I’m one step closer to living the dream…I’m super motivated and can’t wait for it all to come about!

And so another chapter in my life as a cyclist is about to begin, and something tells me it’s going to be a long but invaluable one :)

Stay tuned
xx



The new kit out in action at Canberra Tour

looking hardcore at a photoshoot