Menzies to Kalgoolie Handicap – 132km June 4^th – 6^th overall (first woman)

Conditions: 25°C Strong tail winds (doesn’t happen often)

Bob and I headed out of Kalgoorlie towards Menzies.  I was a little bruised from my fall and wanted to have a good warmup.  Bob let me out with 30km to go so I could spin the legs over.  So many riders on their way to the race, thought I had ridden all the way from Kalgoorlie! (I wish).

I was graded into C grade, which started 55min behind E grade and 25min behind D grade.  There were 50 riders in my grade.  B grade started 8 mins behind us and A grade another 6min behind them.

Our grade settled into a steady pace with everyone pulling turns.  There were several weaker riders in the bunch, which kept slowing the pace but I didn’t want to attack too early.  With a strong tailwind our speed hovered around 50km/hr, slowing to 40km/hr over the hills.  They weren’t really hills but gentle rises in the terrain.  My major mistake was not getting out of the seat enough because when I decided to attack at about the 90km mark, I stood up and my hamstrings (right up near the insertion with my gluteals) screamed with pain.  They felt unbelievably tight and I sat down wondering whether I had actually strained them.  I hadn’t experienced such a sharp pain before.  With more experience I would have realized that I had only stiffened up and needed to get out of the seat more, but I thought I had strained them, and tried not to get out of the seat, thus worsening the problem.

Slowly the time gap to D grade was being reduced and with only 5km to go we caught them.  Now the attacks were going one after another, and I managed to stay in the top 20.  The final corner only 200m from the finish, was a dangerous off camber right hand turn with a medium strip to dodge.  I came around the corner in 10^th wheel and managed to finish 6^th overall, but was first woman to finish giving me a handy $500 prize.