Kelly Cycle Coaching athletes, Hannah Macdougall and Carol Cooke competed in the Para Cycling Road Championships in Caloundra, Queensland last week.  Here is how they performed.

Australian Para-cycling Championships: Report by Carol Cooke

Well last weekend was the “True Test” of the last 6 months of all the hard work I have put in.  It was Nationals time again, only my 2nd Nationals as a Cyclist.  The Australia Para-cycling Championships were being held once again on the Sunshine Coast, just outside of Caloundra.    I arrived at the Maroochydore Airport to beautiful warm weather, jumped into the van I had hired and headed to the apartment on the beach I had rented!  Helen and Bob were joining me in a couple of days and Hannah the day after that, but I had the place to myself for the first couple of days.

We had a magnificent 4 days of beautiful weather and then it hit, just in time to race.  The weather app on my phone said that there would be a few showers!  I would hate to see what a torrential downpour looked like if that was only a few showers!

The Time Trial course is a great one, very flat, out and back for a total of 8km, but very open so the head wind going out the first 4km can be brutal.  Combine that with the rain and it was a lot of fun!  But at the turn around you get a fantastic tailwind that helps push you to speeds that you would love to be able to do without the wind.  In the end I was very happy with my time and speed.  As it was the same course as last year I could look at the improvement, although the distance was changed, but I averaged 5km/hr faster than last year.  Crowned National Champion in the Women’s T2 category was just a bonus.

The Road Race was the next day around the Glasshouse Mountains the exact same course and distance as last year.  I was sent off with the hand cyclists and the one thing I didn’t count on was the amount of dirt and water that those hand cycles kick up off the back of them.  I hadn’t even gone 200m and I was wet!  At least the weather helped up by absolutely bucketing down around the back of the course which washed off the dirt!  The course itself has a few hills with a couple of 90 degree corners!  Thank goodness a couple of weeks ago we had some bike handling skills at the Kelly Camp I went to.  They certainly came in handy along with the practice I had in the underground at the apartment I was staying at.  Helen had me practising a figure 8 down there and it certainly helped!

In the end I completed the course almost 3 minutes faster than I had last year.  I felt pretty good at the end of it although my legs (if they could talk) might have been thinking differently.  But again crowed National Road Champion!

Hannah also had extremely good races at these Nationals.  After dealing with a major injury, surgery and recovery over the last 8-9 months we can now say that “SHE IS BACK!” and she can only improve from here!  She is brought home 2 bronze medals, so congratulations Hannah, I am so proud of you!

I am pumped now for our European Tour which we leave for on the 31st of May.  We are only heading to the 2nd World Cup in Spain in June and then get a chance to have a ride on the course for London, then home.  Hopefully by then I will know for sure if I am on the team for London, I may have been nominated but it isn’t official.

Just one last note about Nationals, I had embarked on a fitness regime in October, aiming to be the fittest I had ever been for these nationals and I feel pretty good that I achieved it.  Having lost 12 kilos and my power to weight ratio improving, I had stopped drinking alcohol (yes no red wine with dinner), I made a pact with myself that I would have a drink after nationals.  So along with Coaches Helen and Bob and roommate Hannah we all headed out to a beautiful dinner Sunday night and yes I had some red wine!  (Actually a couple of glasses!) It was a lovely night and we definitely had a lot of fun, but now it is back to the training regime.

I have learned that the best opportunities require effort, commitment and persistence.  The best thing now is that I know I am absolutely capable of making that commitment…I’ve done it for the last 6 months, and I will continue to put forth the effort that I need to for as long as necessary!