Its Wednesday, 1st October and we have now had officially 3 days without rain.  I am pretty stoked and all training has gone to plan for this week.  Amazing what a bit of sunshine can do the ones motivation!

Well, the weekend just gone would have to be the hardest I have worked, yet still managed to have fun.

Norm and I ran our first WOMENS MTB Skills Camp in Forrest. 
10 eager women braved the cold and I am telling you it was cold and wet!
We even got a night ride in on Saturday, with only 2 people out of the entire group opting out.

What a wonderful group of people, it always amazes me that we somehow are lucky enough to have enthusiastic and happy people attend our courses.

With the weekend being a great success despite the weather, Monday was a day of recovery and relaxation...and a tonne of washing.

But it was also the start of an awesome week of training - which has been lacking a bit of late.

A fun ride to Lorne, a great ride with Norm around Colac, a night ride with the crew and I am yet to do the 33km You Yangs Yowie for a bit of training and fun.

Its been a few weeks since my last entry.
Have been struggling with training, motivation and tiredness for sometime since returning home from the World Solo Champs in late July. 

It has now been 2 months since that weekend and finally things are starting to pick up again.

On return from Canada, we were confronted with some gloomy Victorian weather, some of the longest bouts of rain and wind I can remember in some time. Cold, wet and windy. I was sleeping lots and training less.  Training was hurting, sleeping was like a drug, whilst I was in bed, I had no responsibilities and time would go by without having to think or do anything.
Living in Forrest, with 200 residents and only a handful of cyclists, its hard to get out and train when you are in this situation.
I was starting to have second thoughts about where I was heading next with my racing.
A bit of a perfectionist, I was probably overanalysing everything and not taking the proper mental and physical break from my cycling.

I am now feeling much better and starting slowly to pick up my power on the bike and eagerness to train.  It will be at least another 8 weeks before I will feel 100% again, but I am going to be patient and cant wait to experience fresh and fast legs again!

Since the Worlds, I have been busy and have had loads of fun doing the following:

1. Female Pairs at Castlemaine Enduro with Helen Newman - we came 1st.  Thanks Helen
2. Australian MTB Marathon Champs at Bendigo. Awecome course, strong competition and great weather...and I came 5th!   

Here are some great pics of what I have been doing.

Liz and I have been here since Thursday night.
Riding, running, swimming, paddling, sleeping, eating and more riding.
The weather has been around 25 degrees each day!

However...the drivers here are the biggest rednecks. 95% of them are out to kill you, seriously, its like they make a beeline for you.  So I have become quite an aggresive rider on the roads, no wonder a lot of cyclists get killed on the roads here.

We have met some great people though, a guy Grant, who we met on the Currumbin Ck outlet, loaned us his ski and sea kayak to use for a paddling session and he did not know us from a bar of soap, nice that there are still human kinds out there!

Matt Binney has been extremely gracious and picking us up here and taking us to the airport and riding with us etc...bet we have been better for him than he is for us!

We go home tonight, so last day in the sun...for quite some time by the sounds of it.  Victoria weather has been stupid windy, rain and hail and we still have 1/2 of August to go!  BBBrrrrrrr....See you soon Normie boy, miss you and love you long time - $5!