![\"Jamie](\"http:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/photos\/2004\/may04\/WTC04\/day3\/SGdsc_2466.jpg\")
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If it was an 8-10am sprint training session, why was I rolling home at 4pm?<\/p>\n
I’d finally managed to wake early enough to arrive on time for the aboc<\/a> session at Blackburn<\/a>‘s velodrome and was ever so happy to walk outside.. into the rain! <\/p>\n I love<\/i> Melbourne’s SUMMER weather but I didn’t get up this damn early for nothing though, so continued on to Blackburn. It seems quite a few other riders appreciate Melbourne’s weather as we had one of the larger groups that I’ve seen in attendance.<\/p>\n We had a good session with all those cool drills that I forget how to do every week. Basically sprint tactics you would use in a race – leadout sprints, 2 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2, etc. <\/p>\n To even up the different rider abilities, restricted gearing is applied (pick a cog any cog). Spinning like a maniac until your heart explodes is a common activity (170+ rpm\/190+ HR anyone?).<\/p>\n After today’s session, I think I’m getting the hang of counting to three – just a few more months and I’ll be perfect! Really guys!<\/p>\n Unusually we hung around afterwards, some of us until the State Pursuit Titles started.. and then stopped due to rain and then two hours later started again..<\/p>\n One of us was even silly enough to volunteer to be a “holder” for the riders. “Volunteer” in this case means I wasn’t quick enough running away and feel too guilty saying no when asked for help by the club. So I spent the day learning how many ways to mess up the job of holding riders for standing starts! <\/p>\n I also got to chat with a cool bloke – Kevin Atkins(?) – a race official during the day. He was choc-o-block with race knowledge and knew bloody everyone!! Funny bugger too \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n At 4pm I was busting for a piss (but dehydrated – love the combo!), hungry and needed to get that load of washing out of the machine and the cat out of the house! I’d racked up a full tank of Karma It was now bail time! <\/p>\n For those about to tattoo:<\/p>\n Jamie Staff’s tattoo – the one I was talking about:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/photos\/2004\/may04\/WTC04\/?id=day3\/SGdsc_2466<\/a><\/p>\n Lance Tattoo:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/photos\/2000\/jul00\/sigtat.shtml<\/a><\/p>\n Need bigger goatee!!<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/photos\/2004\/may04\/WTC04\/?id=day4\/img_4640<\/a><\/p>\n Now to swap my holy tyres… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If it was an 8-10am sprint training session, why was I rolling home at 4pm? I’d finally managed to wake early enough to arrive on time for the aboc session at Blackburn‘s velodrome and was ever so happy to walk … Continue reading