Fionas Update
6th - 12th August, Fiona Southorn
6th Aug
Today i made a huge batch of date scones and had the team over, good recovery food after the gym training. We said goodby to Davie who was here looking after a couple of riders gym programmes. The scones were a great hit, i have orders. I picked the perfect day for it, the house keeping was done and they cleaned up the mess, good planning!
I purchased the Potato factory book series and had a couple of hours relaxing and reading, makes a change from old magazines.
7th Aug
Another cool morning with clear skies, great day for a recovery ride and a bit of walking, Simon and i are going to take to the roads later today, so it’s just e-mail’s, housework and try not to catch the bug that is going around the team.
E-mails have to be done in the cafe, only place to get wireless, there is always the temptaion of a coffee and a piece of nougart.
8th Aug
Yeeha, Gym again, this recovery week is hard, looking forward to track again after lunch, another cool morning and nice day, forcast is rain but it didn’t happen.
Track was an easyish session, 3x 10 min behind the motorbike, first one was at 47km, was too slow so upped the pace for the next two to 50km, that’s better. I rode home from the track today, few extra miles, goota watch out for those trucks, bit larger than in NZ, and they get real close sometimes.
I stayed up to watch the opening ceremony, was dead tired but wanted to see the NZ team all 3 seconds of it. The coverage here is good, just the wrong colour team.
9th Aug
Gosh it’s really blowy today, forcast is rain, didn’t see any, i have a complete rest day which went quite fast. I went for a walk and caught up on domestics, Annaliisa and i went shopping, more walking, that’s the plan to get used to it. In Beijing i will be walking lots, mostly to and from the busses and dining hall. I watched more Olympics and read more of my book.
10th Aug
The day for my big race to see where i’m at against the Australian girl who i haven’t beaten in 6 years on the road. I had a perfect warmup and got to the start with 1 minute to spare. Claire was in front of me by 1 minute, well to my surprise i caught her at the 5km mark, gosh i thought was that really her, am i finally going to beat her this time. Just to make sure i kept the pressure on, now she was behind me and i didn’t know where she was. The slight downhill section of the 10km circuit was into a very strong head/cross wind, that ended up being the hardest part of the course, harder than the uphill! Simon and mal were going to give me split times but they didn’t need to i stayed out front and beat her by 3:51, 3rd fastest time overall. It was a relief to know i am on track for Beijing and we are doing all the right things. We had a nice lunch in the city before heading back to the Vines to chill out and get ready for an early track session tomorrow. After exercises and stretching of course ......
11th Aug
Another 5:30am start ready to start track at 8am, gosh it’s cold in the Veledrome at that time of the day., brrrr, we had a sad start to our day after finding out Jane one of the tandem riders father died back in NZ, she was sent home last week to say goodbye. Simon has us really organised at the track, i did my usual warmup of 20min easy then a 10min tempo. We were to try something new today, in a 98” gear i had to swing down off the track onto the motorbike below, chase it for 30sec’s then off it for 90sec’s and swing down again. I had 2 sets of 5 of these they didn’t feel that taxing at the time but on my ride home i definately felt it swalling my Peak fuel all the way. I had a vegemite craving so it was Vegemite with chese on toast when i got back. That wasn’t it for the day, a road ride for the afternoon with efforts. Later on we went out to the airport to pick up Jane who we know is very strong and chatted all the way back to the Vines.
12th Aug
I had a chance to sleep in today but work up at 5:30, buggar, oh well why waste the day. I went for a walk, blimmin cold morning again. After brekie i hit the gym then came back to my room to make scones for the team meeting at 11, there is a cool windy today so i dressed up warm to head out for an hour easy on the bike. I spent a bit of time catching up on internet stuff and trying to find out about how the kiwi’s are doing in Beijing.
Until next time
Fi
About Fiona Southorn
I am very proud and honored to be sponsored by Avanti Plus Whangarei, Tracey and Paul have been a tremendous help during my campaign to get my bikes up to speed for the Beijing Olympics. I’m riding the Avanti Crono on the road and Avanti Pista on the track. Their generosity has been the best I have ever encounted, staff are friendly and happy to help and are always interested in my racing and results.
Read more
Next entry: Fionas update
Previous entry: Update from Fiona
