Things I've learned.

There are two things I know:

1. I should be studying right now for my upcoming exams
2. persistence and patience pay off

You know what, I have changed a lot since I moved to Adelaide. I have matured in so many ways.

In my teenage years, I buried myself in my triathlon training and in my school work and I loved it. But I was sick and injured very commonly. I think the longest amount of time I strung together consistently running without injury would've been about four months throughout those years. I had bicep/tricep tendonitis in both shoulders, achilles tendinitis at insertion and above in both feet, plantar fasciitis in both feet, shin splints..oh boy you name it, I probably had it.

But I never gave up, I would take the time off to heal then slowly get back into it, build build build just to get injured again.

I hope you never experience that, but let me assure you, that gets pretty frustrating and upsetting as I wasn't one to look at the bigger picture too much.

It took me until September 2011, the final few months of Year 12 for me to come to the conclusion I needed to give myself a break from running after once again re -aggravating my plantar fasciitis (the recurring injury I had for 2012). I cried when I came to this realisation. It hurt me a lot, as I was in the best form of my life just about to enter the tri season of 2011/12 and I was seriously pumped.

Throughout that tri season, I didn't even attempt to run even on the days it felt ok, I was serious about having a proper break. I was still swimming and riding in the races but would either pull out in T2 and have my brother or step-dad run for me (thanks guys). I didn't expect to have 2.5 years off running though.

On February 18, 2012 Dad, Luke and I arrived in Adelaide. A few weeks later, I was offered a spot in the cycling team now known as Specialized Securitor. 2.5 years later and a lot of experience and lessons learned, I rekindled my passion for triathlon when I spotted the Bike Society Moana Tri Series poster. Before I saw this poster, I had no intentions of going back to triathlon any time soon..it's funny how the location of a race can capture your imagination..

Now a much smarter person about listening to my body and not training the house down, four weeks after beginning training I raced in the first tri of the season and achieved my goal of having a blast! I also finished 4th and had one of the fastest runs I've ever had off the bike (also had one of the slowest rides ever which may have helped this haha). Now completely hooked I've entered a few other tris for the season with my goal race being the Asics Victor Harbor Olympic Distance Triathlon in March. I would love to win this.

Coming up I have the Alex Roberts 100 Mile Classic 23/11/13, the state kermesse champs on 24/11/13, the Victor Harbor SA Sprint Tri champs 01/12/13, the SA crit champs 07/12, the Bike Society Tri 15/12 and the Bridport Olympic Tri on the 29/12.

Today I had my first hit out at Torrens Park Run, a free 5 km timed run and I ran 21 mins flat, which is only 15 seconds off my PB. This is crazy considering it was only my 15th run in 2.5 years, having run 70 km in the 7 weeks I'd been back training. My first run was on the treadmill and I only managed 2 km and had to walk a couple of times..that was only 7 weeks ago..

Getting back into tri training has not been easy, it has been hard. I have never been so slow in the water. Why did I wait 18 months and let my upper body change so much before I decided to get back in?? It has been hard physically and also mentally but watching my progress each day is so exciting which makes it a lot easier and fun. I now appreciate things that I used to take for granted ! my progress has been a bit slow the last few weeks as the session times are increasing, despite dropping a ride, doing 4 bike, 2 run and 3 swim is a massive increase in frequency which was ok at first due to such short session times. Now the swims/runs are getting longer, and being in training for a 160 km handicap bike race is not easy to mix in either!

I have struggled with fatigue and some weight gain in the last couple of weeks but here's where I am now a different person..I LISTEN TO MY BODY. A couple of weeks there I only swam once. A couple of weeks there I dropped a ride. A couple of weeks there I only ran once. I have ONE COMPLETE DAY OF REST each week. This was completely unthinkable back in the day.. and you know what, despite the fact my swimming has a long way to go, my running is almost back where it left off and my riding is going really well and I train LESS.

I have a friend who has just been diagnosed with a stress fracture who is finding it difficult to think of the positives. There are positives, you have to find them. If I hadn't had so much trouble with injury, I would have remained a triathlete and never taken up cycling. I don't know if I would've been ballsy enough to move to Adelaide. I don't know that I would've got a spot on the Specialized team which means I may not have met my boyfriend Andrew Roe, along with many other amazing people.

There is a light to every issue, it may take years to eventuate but I am so grateful that I was an injury wreck as a junior. Because here I am today as a much more mature person who gets frustrated watching others train themselves through the ground and feel negative when things don't go right. Sometimes they don't go right for a REASON. Better things are on the way if you just let them.

I am such a happy and healthy person these days and I owe that to so many things. But it didn't just happen, I had to learn. Some of these things took me years to learn, some of these things were painful. I can cope now that my family split to pieces..because I learnt so much. Because I had the strength to get through, I had the strength to move to Adelaide where endless opportunities have arisen.

I now learn pain science and believe in concepts such as the secret. If you don't think positively and confidently, you won't get it. Or it will take so much longer to eventuate. Life can be as hard as you make it for yourself. I had all those injuries when I was younger and didn't really enjoy running, because I expected it to hurt. I expected to get injured because that was what I was used to. So injuries are what I got. Now, after my extended break, I expect to feel good and strong. I don't even consider getting injured.

Just had to get that out.

Cheers, and hope I've helped you to think about things.

Hannah :)

Reflections on 2012 and National Road Championships

The past 9 months since I took up cycling racing has been an enormous roller coaster. Being chosen to join the Specialized Womens SA cycling team brought me an amazing Specialized bike that seemingly accelerated itself, sweet kit, awesome team mates, endless opportunities for racing and training and a need to overcome my fear of cornering and bunches. All of this put me on such a high and at first I was achieving very strong results and continued to improve in all my races.

However, as much as I was racing strongly, I was so fatigued from it that I had trouble actually training in between the races, and was left soft pedaling the majority of the time. Racing became my only quality sessions. By the time uni exams came around in June/July, I found myself in a hole which I was having a difficult time climbing out of.  Every race my performance seemed to get worse and I was quickly losing confidence and self-belief. Sometimes motivation to prove yourself can cloud your head and I just kept training every day in the hope I’d start to feel better soon. For a few months my training was so interrupted by sickness and then injury that by September I was probably in the worst shape I can ever remember being in.

Although I didn’t appreciate it at the time, having 3 weeks off for a heel injury turned into the break I believe my body desperately needed. I hadn’t had a break from training in 18 months, and usually I’d have 3 weeks in April off following tri season, but having taken up cycling, I couldn’t have time off then and just forgot about it. I raced the NRS Goldfields Tour in October off 3 weeks of structured training, and 5 back on my bike, and can barely say that I raced. I was dropped in the criterium after 2 laps and after 5 km in the first road stage after a critical error which I was unable to recover from. I rode a much smarter race in the last road race but still only stayed with the bunch for 23 km. I finished the tour and was the last of all finishers with a time of GC+an hour.. Although I was very disappointed with this tour, realistically it wasn’t that bad given so many months of poor and interrupted training, despite my best efforts. Coming out of this tour, I knew I had to start being a lot smarter, and really listen to what my body can handle and when it’s time to rest. I had to stop worrying about what everyone expected of me because if I can’t even listen to myself, how will I ever get anywhere. I realized I really needed to slow myself down. I also needed to lose the 4 kgs I'd managed to put on to be at a more ideal race weight.

I came out of the tour so much stronger than I went in, and began to see positive signs. I then set my aim for the Australian road championships to be held on the 12^th of January. This gave me 3 months of solid hard work, and my coach Dave Gomer started my program from the start as we tried to build up my strength again.  I raced in a number of criteriums with my team including Noosa which gave me confidence that one day I might be able to ride a decent criterium race, and the realization I could turn corners just as well as the other girls. I dropped off the bunch with only a few minutes remaining which is an amazing effort from me, particularly given the training phase I was in which had very little emphasis on speed. Unfortunately, I was a little bit too excited the week after I finished my first year of Uni as I had so much time on my hands and spent almost 200 km more on my bike than the previous week, with quite a high intensity too. I was still paying for this the next week when I was on the start line in Cronulla for the NSW Grand Prix criteriums in December. I felt awful warming up and as soon as my heart rate went anywhere near threshold, I felt dizzy. Needless to say, between my bad positioning and feeling faint, I didn’t last long at all. The next day I started to feel much better but lasted even less than the previous day. Racing professional women is rather difficult at the best of times! I was very disappointed but as I always do, I found many positives and new things to work on as well as the same old.

Coming into January, I was feeling amazing. I’d lost 4-5 kg since the Goldfields Tour and knew I was pretty close to being back in the training form that I was in from before I started racing minus some speed perhaps. In the week before nationals, I was flying (for me) and felt so strong and was climbing really well. I came into nationals with a goal of top 5 in the U/23 womens category in the road race, which was always going to be a tough ask but I knew I had to believe that was possible, for me to do well. The power of self belief is astonishing and is something I’d lost over the year that I knew I needed back.

Bec off the front in the crit

In the criterium race on Thursday evening, I wore my first ever skinsuit in the colours of Specialized Securitor, with my new awesome Adidas eyewear and matching Specialized Prevail helmet. After riding a few laps of the circuit in warm up, I was confident I could corner the bottom fast corner just as well as everyone else. Unfortunately I had trouble getting away from the wheel of one girl in particular who continually went too wide which led us both astray and constantly chasing up the long slightly uphill drag. By 10 km my legs just exploded but I was happy to have felt as strong as I did and the difference in my state of mind re criteriums is incredible and I was constantly focusing on trying to move up. Unfortunately at times, this was to no avail as I still seem intent on overtaking on the outside, but there often wasn’t a lot of room on the outside. I told myself to have a go at moving up on the inside but almost cooked the corner and lost a lot of confidence. At least I tried! I actually quite like criteriums now and am pumped for the Santos Womens Crits at the Tour Down Under. This is something I never thought I’d say!

Even though I hadn’t lasted long in the criterium, my legs were aching rather badly. My training really hadn’t been focused on this race and I hadn’t lasted more than 10 km in a high level criterium ever, other than Noosa at the beginning of November.  By Saturday morning they still felt a bit achey but I knew I couldn’t over focus on this. I had hot-cold showers, stretched, used a foam roller, spun out my legs on the rollers and knew I’d done everything I could to feel better including drinking protein soon after my criterium.

Roey and I enjoying some Ballarat cafe time

My race was 107 km and included 2 x 27 km laps followed by 5 x 10 km laps. This meant 7 climbs of the Mt Buninyong ascent which didn’t seem overly difficult when I rode over the course on Wednesday but was much different come race day! Fortunately for me a break went early which included my team mate Bec Werner and so our team had no obligation to work to bring it back and I was able to focus on positioning. I was feeling ok but everytime there was an attack, I was generally losing wheels. I was hoping by the time we finished the two big laps that my legs would feel better but it wasn’t to be. I suffered up the climb and just lost contact on the first of the small laps and was unable to get back on. It was like a bomb had exploded and just shattered me to pieces. My whole body was aching even on the descent. A bunch caught me on the climb the next lap and we worked well together for the lap but we were 7 minutes behind at this stage and were pulled out of the race at the 76 km mark. I was bitterly disappointed as more than anything, regardless of the result, I wanted to finish the race and not be pulled out. I also didn’t understand why I had felt so average and climbed so weakly, when just the week before I had felt awesome climbing much tougher climbs.

National Road Race

After enjoying a rather humorous dinner with my boyfriend and his parents that night, I was feeling worlds better and was able to see my race in a different light other than just one of disappointment and failure. There were so many things I did well in the race. I positioned myself and rode confidently in the bunch, I coped with the bodily contact and managed to avoid so many near accidents in the bunch. I also ended up off road a few times in the section with a cross wind, and although it scared me, I maintained focus. I was very grateful for my team mate Amy Bradley for reminding me to relax though, I didn’t realize how tense I had been!

After looking at the positives, I analysed what factors might have lead me to blowing up like I did in a point of the race that shouldn’t have been that difficult for me. I believe it really came down to a lack of racing since June and potentially hunger flatting. Racing kms are crucial, trying to replicate that sort of intensity in training for a long period of time is difficult. In the nutrition area, unusually for me I was eating enough out on the bike with gels and GU chomps but with our race starting at 1 30, I think I was lacking a main meal pretty badly by 3 30 when I blew up. I had thought about that prior to the race obviously, and knew I needed to eat about 1.5-2 hrs before the start, but in hindsight I should have eaten a meal like a small bowl of plain pasta rather than 2 pieces of toast.

All in all, I am excited with where my form and mind is at now and know with some more racing kms, I should start seeing myself improve in racing again. As a cyclist, I’ve come an exceptionally long way, even if the results don’t show that. Results are just that, it’s the process and all the little things that go into it that other people can’t see that at the end of the day bring about results in the end.

Celebrating Kimbers' win. 

I couldn’t have asked for more amazing team mates. They’re awesome people who are so much fun to be around. They provided me with so much entertainment on my birthday (the night I arrived at Ballarat) and it was one of the best days I’ve had in a long time, especially because I finally saw Roey for the first time in almost 5 weeks. Being at the national elite championships was a great experience to say the least and has provided me with so much motivation and drive. Watching Kimbers stand on the top dais of the podium with her national champion jersey on while the national anthem played was something that will remain with me. I know I’m in a sport I want to be in for the long term with the ultimate aim of being able to stand where Kimbers was one day.

Kimbers, 2013 Australian Elite Womens Criterium Champion!

Thank you so much to all my friends and family, Roey; the Roe Family; all my team mates Kimbers, CJ, Trudy, Amy, Bec, Stacey; my team manager Liz Phillipou; team mechanic Paul and everyone else who inspires me, encourages me and supports me. I appreciate it so much.  Bring on the 2013 NRS and local racing!