Apprehension – or who’s silly idea was it anyway...

To enter for the Taupo Enduro (2 laps around Lake Taupo)? I’m sure it can’t have been mine… anyways I’m into the final week of preparation and feeling distinctly apprehensive. I had a 4 hour road ride on Saturday – admittedly this included 2 hours of reasonably hard tempo riding – but I was fair knackered afterwards and I have to ride for at least 3 times that duration on Saturday! Gulp! Am I ready? – well, that remains to be seen. I had a good chat with my coach (Robyn Wong) which reminded me that I just have to trust that I’ve done the training and that my body is ready for this. I’ve sorted out my plans for support/feeding etc – Hammer Perpetuem is my fuel of choice. It’s an acquired taste – but has gone well in testing, so I hope it will work as well on the day. Shane will be supporting me from the van (accompanied by solo Tigger) (Picture to come) for the first lap, but driving to set points and waiting, rather than ‘shadowing’ at <30kph! He may end up riding with me for some time if I don’t manage to stay with the group – but no drafting!

During the week I got an e-mail from my good friend Catherine in the form of a fantastically funny job application for ‘team Jude’. She has volunteered to ride my second lap with me, pretty much forfeiting any chance of posting a respectable time and potentially suffering several hours of me describing just exactly how sore my butt is!! This is an amazing thing for her to do – and reminds me just how lucky I am to have some pretty awesome people in my life. We’ll be easy to pick out of the crowd – just listen for the badly sung (by me anyway) kiddies songs!!

Fingers crossed for a warm and calm weekend in Taupo!!

Thanks to Shane, Robyn & Gav for their help in preparation for this event.