Reflection
So with 1 week to go and actually having a few hours to spare in Brisbane on Saturday morning whereby I could lay beside the hotel pool in the sunshine (ha ha take that rainy Sydney) and have some Tina time, I’ve had a chance to reflect and have read over some of the updates that I’ve posted throughout this journey.
I was not initially selected to participate in the Westpac 200 Tour De Cure, nor did I make the cut for the ‘wait list’ this was based on how much you need to learn in order to learn how to ride a bike properly, get the required fitness and meet the requirements of riding in a peloton. Having absolutely no bike experience apart from childhood riding I now understand why and how much I’ve had to learn.
I was finally selected after a constant barrage of emails to Ben and a few people dropping out but what this meant was that I didn’t start training until a couple of weeks after everyone else and it also meant that I was behind everyone else on getting the right gear, they even sold out of the women specialised bikes and so I had to go and find another one and to be honest, I’m kinda glad, I really like my princess and the touch of pink 🙂
So I’ve been pretty hard on myself throughout my training, I set myself high expectations, not only the training but also how much money I would raise and after putting all my eggs in one basket for the fundraising which ultimately fell through, I’ve had to regroup and pick myself back up and try to catch up to everyone’s fundraising efforts. The key issue for me is that I don’t like asking people for money which is why I wanted to do an event but at this moment in time, it’s not happening so now I’m dependent upon family/friends/colleagues to help raise the money which I’m sure I’ll do, it’s just not how I thought I would do it.
So back to the training, we were provided an awesome training plan from TdC and I used this as inspiration however I felt I needed to do more than what was in the plan just to catch up to the others but I totally underestimated how hard and how tiring the training would be and with my previously planned trips getting in the way such as Haylie’s memorial in NZ, I had to adapt the plan some more and I got to the point where I had over trained and I was absolutely physically exhausted. A great learning curve to listen to the body, not so great to go through…..
So during my reflective poolside sunbathing I have decided that I need to stop being so hard on myself and think about how far I’ve come, from being the newest rider to now feeling so much more confident about my riding, my fitness and my super improved peloton skills, I’ve still lots to learn (gears @Geoff) but I think I’ll be good on the Tour and will even get to enjoy it.
Thanks or ‘kudos’ as we know say to Kristeen McCarthy for the prompt to “stop and smell the roses” as she wrote about this in her blog – check it out as she’s much better at this than me 😉 https://eyesuptoday.com/.
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