Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Kat and Cat

Otway Odyssey Training Ride

Things have been pretty quiet for me on the riding/racing front the last 10 months, today was my first proper MTB ride in a while, started with Andrew and I heading off from Port Melbourne at 7.45am en-route to the wonderful trails that behold the Forrest Mountain Bike Park, we arrived there at 10.30am after a couple of pit stops along the way, we met up with a few others and headed off on the to the trails at about 11am, it was smiles all round for the first section of the ride which included Marriners run and Foxtail, it became a struggle for me as soon as the climbing started, not that it overly steep out there but I wasn't handling the climbs too well, it has been a while since I have ridden my mountain bike, apart from the odd thrash around Lysterfield I haven't done much at all on it this year and add at least high 20's temperature in to the mix and I was struggling very early on.

So after all the fun was over it was on to the Yo Yo track, one of my least favourite tracks from today, so we are riding along and have nearly made it to the end of the track when before I knew it I was on the ground, my helmet broken and almost off my head and in a world of pain, I don't know what happened it was fast flat section and I didn't hit the brakes or a tree for that matter and I wasn't going around a corner, just a straight stretch of track and bam I was out, I hit my head pretty hard and immediately got a headache either from hitting my head or knocking the wind out of me, I think luckily my ample rear copped the brunt of the fall first cushioning the blow for the rest of my body, so it is 7 hours later and I am feeling very sore and sorry for myself (nobody else will) I have a ripper bruise on my butt already, some skin off my elbow, hip and back and some bumps and bruises all over. All up not a bad end to the day.

So we headed back to the car park, I assumed it was just around the corner so I called out that I would lead the way, also because I wasn't feeling good at all after the hit to the head so I figured it was better I wasn't at the back of the group, riding, riding, riding, no sign of the car park so I figured it wouldn't be much further, went around a corner and came up to a log, one that I knew I wouldn't get over, tried anyway and crashed again in front of everyone, that one hurt a bit too but couldn't show it in front of the others, so I cruised back at a snails pace to the car park and told the guys to head off to the Southern Loop without me and I would do some road riding on my own, I rode back in to town with the others and then headed back to the rail trail for a cruise along there, then headed back to Yaugher car park for some food and top up my water then off along the dirt roads alongside the tracks there, I didn't want to risk riding singletrack on my own, not only in case I had another fall but in case I came across any snakes I may not be able to get away from, anyway about 1klm in to my ride and I was thinking about snakes at the time when all of a sudden a snake took off in front of me, I was looking out for them but this one was in the shade, I couldn't see it until it moved, and good thing it did, I would have ridden straight over the top of it, I locked on the brakes and came to skidding stop about 6 feet from it, it was clearly a tiger snake and it sounds silly and maybe it was the aforementioned knock to the head but it looked like a happy snake, it sort of looked at me as it slithered off but didn't flatten itself out and look angry like the majority of snakes I have some across on my rides, perhaps it was lulling me in to a false sense of security so I would keep riding past it and then get me on the way, yep I am strange one I know but these are the thought I have when I am riding on my own, clearly not rational thinking, I didn't get sucked in to whatever it had in store for me so I headed back to the car to call it a day, it was only about half an hour before the guys got back and I heard some stories of the carnage on their ride, packed up and headed for home.

So that was my day today, doubt I will be making it out on the roadie tomorrow but will probably make it out for a paddle down the beach.

So the countdown is on now, I have 14 days to lose 7 kilos and get fit enough for my comeback race at first round of the state xc in Bendigo. Can I do it? well unless I can lose half a kilo a day and ride consistently then no I wont, I am coming in to the last month of my semester at uni and have a heap of work due so my focus has to be on that for now.

14 more sleeps until I get to see my favourite band Pearl Jam play!

Until next time, Happy Biking!

Kat

Completely off the track

Some of you may or may not know that I am a huge animal lover and as all decent people are. I am totally against cruelty to animals, something was brought to my attention on a recent photography job at the RSPCA in east Burwood, as we had unlimited access to the site and staff there we were able see the true extent of this cruelty and negligent behaviour by despicable human beings. I wont go in to great detail of what I saw and found out from the staff there but let me tell you both myself and my colleague there struggled not to get emotional but to no avail, since then I have been scouring the net to educate myself further on this matter, there is not a lot we can do but we can make other people aware of what is going on and how to prevent it, I am not one force my opinions and thoughts on to others so you can take this or leave it as you wish, I have attached a link to a website that has a petition you can sign, they need 10,000 signatures and are a long way off it so every one counts, these are my thoughts as signed in the petition.

On a recent trip to my local pet store in South Melbourne I asked the shop assistant why there are never any puppies and kittens there to pat which she advised me that they don't sell them due to fact it promotes 'backyard breeders' , I was a bit naive to this and think it was a huge issue but after a chat with her then a recent assignment at the RSPCA in East Burwood I am more aware of this and totally against this sort of promotion by pet shops and refuse to buy my pet food from pet shops that promote this practice, I now buy all my pet food from pet supplies stores or supermarkets vets etc. as opposed to pet shops like Pets Paradise. All of my animals have been purchased from pounds, my Boxer I rescued was sadly put to rest last year but was given a life he otherwise wouldn't have had, he had external tumors (non cancerous) so they palmed him off to the pound as he was not suitable for breeding or showing and they couldn't sell him for a large amount of money, please put measures in place to ensure the oversupply and euthanasia of healthy pets is greatly reduced, animal owners need to responsible and dedicated to their pets as they would be to a family member, laws need to be put in place to stop the mass production of of puppies and kittens on sold to pet shops etc. that essentially end up in rescue organisations and inadvertently disposed of , it is a privilege and not a luxury to own a pet that should have significant laws put in place to adhere to to provide a duty of care to these innocent animals. STOP THE CARELESSNESS OF THESE NEGLECTFUL BREEDERS PROFITING FROM THIS EXORBITANT AND UNNECESSARY PRACTICE.

I am not asking you to sign anything or do anything for that matter, if I make a few more people take notice of this then that's a good thing.

Quite simply over 250,000 animals are put to sleep every year for no good reason, there are backyard breeders, puppy farms etc. out there mistreating their animals with no idea of good animal management and profiting from the suffering of the animals they are breeding from, the pets have the litter, the litter is taken from the mother and the litter is sold for a tidy profit to the pet shop, then the whole cycle starts again, the dogs are sold to irresponsible owners who give up on the pets when it's time to go on holidays or they cant be bothered to clean up after them or take them for walks so the become disobedient and palmed off to the shelter to be someone else's problem which in actual fact the truth is they usually are not re-homed and put to sleep.

I have no doubt there are passionate registered breeders out there breeding animals for the love it and doing the best they can to find suitable homes for the offspring of well bred and well looked after animals, what we can do to stop some of the promotion of the puppy farms and backyard breeders is to stop buying animals from commercial pet stores, only buy from trusted registered breeders (for those of you after pure breeds) but most importantly check out your local animal shelters and save an animal from an imminent and unnecessary death, I did and had a wonderful 7 years with a beautiful pure bred Boxer

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope I have made you aware of something that I find to be a major problem in society and a worthy cause to support and make others aware of.

If you wish to sign the petition it can be found on the link below

http://www.deathrowpets.net/default.html

"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your pet.

You are his life, his love, his leader.

He will be yours faithful and true to the last beat of his heart

You owe it him to be worthy of such devotion"

Tightest Gluteus Maximus this side of Port Melbourne!

So the results are in, MRI is clear, all is good with the cartilage and knee itself, Doc has put it down to extremely tight glutes and hip flexors, so off to get some serious work done by the physio now to try and release the tightness and going to try some dry needling, best news is I am allowed to ride but in conjunction with the regular visits to the physio and some cross training so I am not just riding all the time, I have had a few rides now since I found out a coupe of weeks ago that I am allowed to ride and it's great to be back on the bike, I will look at doing the Rock Hop on the 21st of June but only as a cruisy ride as I am wont be right to do much more than that, so the plan is the same as last year when I wanted to complete at least the State XC series as well as a few rounds of the nationals so I am going to work hard to get fit for that but with pretty much 5 months off the bike I have a lot of work to do, I cant believe 5 months has passed and I have only got it sorted now, that's what happens when life gets in the way, I am at the pointy end of the semester at uni so I get a month off soon which will be great, also all the travel with work will finally come to a stop come 1st of July so I am looking forward to that too, I think I have had enough of Echuca for this year at least.

So that's all from me, looking forward to lining up on the start line again, actually I just recalled one of the CTS rounds at Lysty where it felt like it was about minus 14 degrees so perhaps not looking forward to that.

Until next time Happy Biking

Kat

Back on the Bike

I finally got in to see the Doc at Melbourne Olympic Park and I finally have a fair idea of what's wrong with my knee, so after my dodgy Dr I have been seeing for the last few months gave me the advice to just take anti inflammatories and ride as much as I like I realised I needed to see a 'proper' Dr and with work being so busy and uni on top of it I was struggling to find the time to see him, as these 'proper' Dr's only work Monday to Friday so anyway went and saw Will Craddock who very thoroughly diagnosed me, well almost a final diagnosis, I have to go and get an MRI next Saturday to make sure there is no Cartilage damage, if there is no damage or loss of cartilage it looks like what I already knew was that I have extremely tight glutes so the Doc's first thoughts when he saw or felt how tight they are was that it is referred pain from my glutes and or hip felxors, so I will get the results from the MRI and either way I will still be able to ride but I have to manage my body a lot better than I do now, and start with stretching and rolling, massage etc. so if I wasn't already a poor enough uni student I am even more so now, the money I was planning on putting towards a new camera will now go on Dr's and Physio bills for the next few months but it will get me back to full training and the plan of racing the Nationals this year, so I am off for a cruise down Beach Road with Andrew Liu and see how that goes.

Update on knee

Well the diagnosis is in, I have fluid in the suprapatella bursa, for those of you who are not in the know it is the top part of the knee, anyway from what I always thought is that bursa's contained fluid naturally but apparently not, or perhaps just not the fluid I have in mine, so in short I have to spend time off the bike and see a pricey Dr at Melbourne Olympic Park who specialises in these sorts of injuries, hopefully will have a better update once I have been to see him. That shiny new Trek of mine is gathering dust in the spare room and the food intake has not changed from when I was training so dont be surprised if I am not back out on the race track some time soon but keep your eyes peeled on the Biggest Loser to see if I am a suprise intruder giving Sam and Cam a run for thier money.

Until next Happy Biking!

If I eat equal amounts of dark chocolate and white chocolate, is that a balanced diet?

Kat

Anaconda Otway Odyssey

After nearly 2 months off the bike I lined up for what was to 49.9klms of pain, the first 100 metres was pretty easy going but it was all uphill from there, well for the most part anyway, it was about a 4klm ride from the start line to the start of the hill on Wild Dog road followed by about 40 klms of hills, the last few klms before the finish line was downhill. I left the start line thinking I would be happy if I could just make it to the top of the hill, when I had made it there I was thinking I would be happy if I could just make it to the 20klm mark, then once I had made it there it was the next checkpoint and so on and so on, so anyway I did managed to make it the whole 50klms and crossed the finish line in 5hours 48minutes, 1 hour and 18 minutes after Chris Jongewaard finished the 100klm race, oh well the knee held up for it, started hurting at the 40 klm mark but was pretty much down hill for a lot of the last 10 klms, I enjoyed the race in that I didn't go there with the intention of racing, all I wanted to do was finish the race, I went at a fairly relaxed pace (obviously looking at my results) and chatted to the few stragglers that were at the back of the field along with me, plenty of climbing resulting in a walking race to the top, although if I wasn't so worried about my knee I would have ridden a lot more than I did, the descents were fast and furious, with a few close calls on a couple of them, not too sure how fast I was going but I definitely wasn't holding back on the descents and can only assume I was going well over 50 klms an hour which wouldn't be pretty coming off at that speed, I heard that one descent in particular claimed 5 collarbones! Plenty of carnage along the way and one crazy dude Andrew and I had seen on the Friday night riding back from Registration at Forrest to Apollo Bay (I can only assume he rode there in the first place too) his bike was an old heavy metal thing chock full with panier rack and saddle bags, when we saw him on the way to Forrest he was stopped on the side of the road about 20 klms out of Apollo Bay then on the way back he was stoped in Apollo Bay, he definitely didnt look like he was doing it easy, anyway the last thought on our minds was that he would be a competitor the next day, turns out he was, heavy bike in tow and still complete with saddle bags! He had a 100klm plate on but I saw him before the 30klm mark and he was not in a good way, other riders had stopped to help but he wouldnt talk to them, anyway I can only assume his race ended prematurely, congrats to him if he did actually finish the 100.

So all up it was an interesting weekend indeed, with a house full of 7 and a wedding proposal thrown in to the mix, James McArdle proposed to his beautiful bride to be Sharon Marston at the finish line of the 100klm race, Sandy finished a very respectable 15th place in the womens out of 49 and 318th out of over 800 riders more than 750 of them being male, Andrew Liu and Andrew Nurse both finished in the top quarted of the field in the 50klm race.

If you asked me if I would do it again I would probably say no, if I can this knee sorted and things back on track I will have a crack at the 100 next year but otherwise I wont be riding the 50k race again, the new Trek bike handled beautifully with no mechanicals to mention.

Until next time happy biking!

Kat

VSS XC Rd3 Forrest

Well my first DNS for me, woke up this morning at 6am and after nearly a month off the bike with another niggling knee problem I decided that it wasnt worth risking further damage to my knee, so more painfull than the physical pain in my knee was the decision not to go to the race today but it is more important to get my knee sorted especially with Otway Odyssey coming up and a big training ride for that coming up in 2 weeks, so I will do a light ride from my place in Port Melbourne now to the SKCC Crits down the road, what better way to cheer a girl up than watching 60 male A grade cyclists getting all hot and sweaty!