Tour de Femme

Event - Tour de Femme, women only cycle race
Distance - 20km
No. of entrants - 528
Weather - beautiful; blue sky; no wind; not too hot nor too cold

I rode down to the start of the bike race this morning. I could hear a vehicle driving slowly behind me on Springvale Dve - it was MsH on her way to the yacht club. I felt a bit tired as a result of yesterday's run but wasn't too worried as I wasn't planning on racing this morning.

Warm-up ride
Distance - 16.68km
Time taken - 40.41min
Av pace - 24.6kph
AHR - 149
Calories - 354

A comfortable ride - not too much traffic on the road at that time of the morning. Quite a few vehicles that passed me had bikes either on the back or on the roof - they probably thought I was mad riding to the start. Once I got closer to the yacht club (the start of the race) there were lots of women on bikes warming up - one advantage of riding down was that I was already warmed up. MrB and Strewth arrived about the same time as me. Met up with Flash Duck and we kept an eye out for familiar faces. Tried ringing MsH but she wasn't answering her phone - obviously focusing on the race ahead! We managed to find Strewth and MrsH in the mass of lycra-clad women and worked our way through to where they were standing. Was feeling very nervous about the start of the race as there are so many cyclists in such a confined space and many of the women are once-a-year cyclists and therefore not very confident on their bikes.

Tour de Femme race
Distance - 20km
Time - 40.10min (official results)
Max speed - 50.5kph
Av speed - 30.2kph
AHR - 162
Calories - 498
Place - 121st (of 528 competitors); 26th in 40-49yr age group (of 155 entrants)

After what seemed like ages we were finally away and I nearly came to grief - had clipped both shoes into my pedals when the woman in front of me decided to swerve my way and I felt myself toppling over. Uh oh this is it - I am going to land on the koppers log barriers - this is not going to be pretty......when somehow I managed to straighten up and veer to the right and around the cyclists in front of me. I still don't know how I managed not to go over - adrenaline can come in handy!

We headed off down the road and it initially felt like a comfortable Sunday ride. It occurred to me that maybe I was taking it just a little too easy and should probably make more of an effort to go faster (my first km was 20.9kph and my 2nd km was 30.9kph!) Flash Duck had shot off and was nowhere to be seen and MsH had also done a disappearing act. I gradually got into a rhythm and started passing other cyclists - many were all over the place; there was definitely no pacelines happening.

I would move from one bunch of cyclists to the next bunch up ahead, hoping that as a bunch we could work together but many had decided they were out there for themselves and weren't interested or didn't understand about drafting, etc. Still I thoroughly enjoyed the race. I managed to stick with a Women on Wheels (WOW) cyclist from Kangaroo Valley called Sandra, for the latter part of the race. We passed Flash Duck on Adelaide Avenue, not too far from the finish. I took off down Flynn Dve (probably where my maximum speed of 50kph happened) and then there was the Finish line. Passed the timing chip, that we had to wear on our left wrist, over the sensor and then it was off for watermelon, banana, an iced finger bun, and 2 cups of plunger coffee. MrsH was the only one from our group to win a barrel draw prize - sunnies. We also decided that next year we would enter as a team.

Other results:
1st - Oenone Wood - 32.01min
74th - MsH - 36.47min (10th in age group)
121st - CJ - 40.10min (26th in age group)
125th - Flash Duck - 40.42min (29th in age group)
201st - MrsH - 46.22min (56th in age group)
224th - Strewth - 48min (20th in age group)

Tomorrow:
(am) Swim
(pm) Run session at Parliament House