National Road Race Championships – 20^th August 2000 – 7^th

Woke up and did a warm up on the rollers for half an hour at 7am.  My heartrate lifted quite well, however I hadn’t slept well and felt tired and groggy.  I had a good breakfast, 3 weetbix and 2 pieces of toast as well as a banana about half an hour before the start.  My stomach was churning all morning, I felt really nervous.  The course was at Glenrowan and was a 28km loop that we did 4 times.  It had quite a tough climb of 3km which tested the legs.  In lap 1 I positioned well and didn’t do any work.  The bunch split over the climb but regrouped by the corner following the descent.  Towards the end of the lap, Fjelda Lee attacked and Jessica Amy, Jaci Lo and I crossed to her.  No-one else followed.  We started working well together and increased our lead to 1min30sec.   Jaci waited on the climb for Fjelda and I, while Jessica dropped off.

By the end of lap 2, a chasing bunch of 5 had caught us and we headed into lap 3 as a group of 8.  Kathy attacked up the climb and we stayed together for the first attack but she attacked again and the bunch splintered.  Five made it over with Kathy, whilst I was 40m back with Jennifer Manefeld and Fjelda Lee.  We chased hard but couldn’t get back on.  Fjelda dropped out and Jennifer and I worked together but knew we couldn’t catch the bunch.  Kathy attacked the bunch at the start of the last lap and went on to win comfortably on her own.  I beat Jennifer to finish 7^th.  I was happy with this result after only 8 months of racing, given many of the other girls were not in their first season.