Week 23 Training and Fundraising Update
A week of tapering is now behind us, only 206kms for the week and not too many hills either. Today’s ride of a couple of hours was refreshing and certainly showed the benefits of taper, the legs felt very strong and my pace was quite good despite riding solo.
This week also involved getting the bike and body ready for the start of tour. Thanks to a birthday gift I was able to squeeze in a couple of massages. I won’t say they were relaxing and refreshing at the time, in fact at times they were nothing short of painful. I’m hoping that today’s massage does the job after a good night sleep in compression tights. That will then leave only hair removal as the final piece of the puzzle which is scheduled for Thursday 🙂
The bike has been a similar story. It was always the intention to replace the chain and cassette for tour after having ridden them into the ground over the last 23 weeks (they were due let’s say!). However a few other issues have been identified that required return visits to the bike shop. Unfortunately the rear derailleur is also showing signs of wear, mainly caused by a fall a while back in a criterium race at Muralan. So the bike is back to the shop on Tuesday for a new derailleur and a final tune of the gears.
The photo of my mother in law has been printed and will be the final adjustment to the bike. It will be great to have Margaret on the bike with me. She would be incredibly supportive of my participation in Tour de Cure and it will give me great strength when needed to look down to the stem of the bike and see her smiling face. We all miss her so much.
My fundraising progress was a little slow this week, but not due to a lack of effort or activity. There will be a good donation to my total on Monday which will be the result of a four week campaign supported by Vittoria which, fingers crossed, will result in my total passing $40,000. I have said it many times before, but to have achieved this total is mind boggling and very humbling.
There are now only 5 days to the start of tour. Before that though we have registration and a community dinner on Thursday which will be a great opportunity to meet the team and get amongst like-minded people before we start our journey over three states and one territory of Australia.
Stay tuned for a final update during the week before we head off.
Cheers
Woody
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