This was a race I’d been looking forward to for a long time. Why might you ask? Well there are a few reasons. Firstly, because it was part of the Amy Gillett Cup, a foundation of which I am a proud supporter because of the work they do for raising road safety awareness for cyclists and secondly, it gave me the opportunity to race up a much talked hill in the Sun Herald Tour, Mt Buller. The Amy Gillett Cup was a support race to the men’s Jayco Sun Herald Tour which meant that we got the opportunity to see the pros battle it out on the climb at the end of our race!
So the race went like this, it was a 46km race with a 16km climb up Mt Buller at the end. 26 or so girls lined up at Mansfield and we cruised at a constant pace and the girls were all having a catch up chat up until we reached the bottom of the climb. The race was going to be a 16km hill climb with the person with the most strength and determination to take final honours. From the entrance gates to the slopes, the pressure was on with a rider from Albury Wodonga setting the pace (I later found out that she was riding in B grade and she doesn’t actually race competitively) and started to cause havoc behind her. I sat in the top 3-4 the whole way up the climb not wanting to miss any decisive moves. That’s the thing I like about racing interstate, it’s that I am not familiar with the ability or racing style with the majority of the girls and so as far as I’m concerned, we are all on a level playing field when it comes to our abilities as cyclists. So the rider from Albury Wodonga was doing a fair bit of damage but there was still a group of about 6-8 of us by the time we reached the half way point. Among the group were riders such as Sarah Kent, Peta Mullens , Tory Thomas and Lisa Jacobs (a strong hill climber with whom I raced against at Wangaratta). With about 3km to go, some of the stronger girls in the lead bunch decided to have a bit of a dig and so there were a few attacks being launched and one made by Lisa saw her, Rebecca Locke (the eventual winner), Sarah and myself go clear. It was hard work bridging across to Lisa and but with around 2km to go and the quality of those riders sent alarm bells ringing, it was definitely going to be the race decider. And so the race was on from there and it was basically a case of who could ride the other people off their wheel. With about 1km to go, Lisa and Sarah had just dropped off the back which left myself and Rebecca to battle it out however unfortunately for me, I popped with less than 500m to go and ended up finishing 2nd about 20sec off the pace.
All in all it was a good race. Although I was pretty annoyed that I didn’t win overall, looking back on the race now I realised that I’d given it everything and gave myself the best chance possible. Unfortunately for me I just didn’t have the legs when it came down to it! But I chased down every attack on the climb when I thought I was slaughtered and I surprised myself, I found that I could take myself to a whole new world of pain and mental strength I never knew I had. I believed in myself, and I didn’t give up. Something which I learnt from a very well respected coach when I was in the States. Its thanks to them that I rode how I did today.
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