Post training goodness - Bacon, Egg and Spinach Fried Rice

Whipped up a choice fried rice after a solid 4 hours this morning. Thought it deserved to be on here. It's the ideal post training meal. Easy as. Doooo it.

Ready to go

• Crushed garlic and ginger
• 1/2 red onion
• 2 eggs
• 2-3 cups cooked rice
• 1 cup bacon
• Sweet soy sauce
• Sweet chilli sauce
• Salt and Pepper
• HEAPS of Spinach
• Can add whatever other meats or veges you want.

Oil and heat a big pan and add the ginger, onion, garlic, bacon, salt and pepper. Fry til crispy. Crank the heat and add the rice and stir. Add the sauces. Let the rice stick to the pan then scrape it off every now and then to get little crispy/chewy bits. After a few minutes add the whisked eggs an mix through the rice. Then whack the spinach in and cover for a few minutes so the leaves wilt. Eat.

Get stuck in. Mix it up, add whatever, take out whatever. Choice!

W

That's Bike Racing!

Got back last night from a solid weekend of racing right up the top of the South Island so thought I would write a wee report! 

The usually pleasantly warm and sunny region of Marlborough hosted two races over Saturday and Sunday, kicking off with the Forrest Estate Graperide on Saturday morning. 

The Forrest Estate Graperide

The Benchmark Homes cycling team were fired up from the get go to make sure we were aggressive and represented in every dangerous move. As always the race started at a rapid pace and a move stuck straight away. As planned we were represented in this move with Anthony Chapman. The first 40km of the race is relatively flat with nothing of note to cause serious damage to the race so the main group stayed intact before the hill out of Picton. The pace increased when we hit the hill with a few of us keen to get rid of some people to create a more 'select' group of riders for the run back down in to the finish. We were successful in doing this and the group was almost halved by the top of the hill. The road through Linkwater and Havelock with it's rolling terrain and out-if-sight out-of-mind feel was where we expected the winning move to form. And as expected, it did...A group got away with most teams represented, in which we had Anthony Chapman and Hamish Schruers. Then disaster struck! Down a slippery descent two of the riders in the break away crashed including our own Hamish Schruers. This put and end to the move almost straight away which was unfortunate as we would have had a very good chance of winning from that move. 

Luckily we still had Anthony Chapman and me at the pointy end of the race. I followed a wee dig from Sam Horgan just out of Havelock and we managed to get a gap. We were soon joined by Rob Reid, Nick Lovegrove and Tayla Harrison. I wasn't really happy with the composition of the group ,which included 3 Subway Team riders, so didn't do any work in the hope that we would be caught by the chasing group and I would have some support coming into the finish from Anthony Chapman. This never happened however so Rob Reid and I were forced to follow the inevitable attacks from the Subway riders in the last 10km. We did well not to let any of them get away solo and Rob entered the narrow and twisty finishing chute first with Nick, Sam, myself then Tayla on his wheel. You need to be in the top 2 or 3 positions heading into this chute to have a chance at winning so I was already on the back foot by being in 4th position which wasn't ideal. Into the last bend about 50m before the finish I saw a small gap between the grass and Sam Horgan which I decided to take...turns out the gap was not really there and I should have tried to undercut him 50m earlier. I ended up hitting some gravel and hitting the deck nice and hard. Very disappointing, especially so close to the finish. However I managed to get up and roll over the line 5th albeit in an uncomfortable state. Luckily I just lost skin and didn't break anything. I wasn't wearing gloves and ripped a nice patch of skin off my palm...learnt my lesson the hard way I guess. 

So the day went far from how we planned it but the encouraging thing was that we rode very well as a team and put the right people in the right moves all day. We just didn't have luck on our side! Congratulations to Nick Lovegrove on the win. I enjoy racing with him, always a good honest rider....with obscene amounts of go-go juice!

Benchmark Homes Elite Cycling Series #1

After the debacle of the day before the team was steaming at the ears and fired up to rip into some hard racing! The plan was simple. Have at least two riders in each move and deliver Dan Barry to the line with his wheel in front of everyone else's. (Dan was drafted back into the team for the first round of the series. It is awesome to be racing with him again!) 

As soon as the race started the usual burners off the front came and were quickly shut down by an antsy peloton. However about 5km into the race a large group of about 18 riders managed to sneak off the front and quickly build a solid advantage over the rest of the field. Every team was represented in the move so there was no organised chase from behind which meant the break went out to a 2min lead before we knew it. We were lucky enough to get three riders in this move with Dan, Hamish and Anthony. The group built a huge advantage of about 6mins in the first 30km of the race as we were dawdling along with no urgency at all. So from my point of view the race was over as there was nothing I could do to help the boys up front apart from covering moves to make sure nothing got across without me in it. While doing this a few of us ended up riding off the front of the group and essentially just had a good 'training session' out in the wind. Bridging a 6 minute gap in those conditions would have been somewhat futile and unnecessary as we had 3 riders in the move. As I rolled across the finish line I was ecstatic when I was told Dan got the WIN! In style as well, a solo break away for the last 20km to take it by 15 seconds. Love it when a plan comes together!!!

Dan celebrating his win! ©Bruce Wilson

So all was not lost from the weekend and the team was happy again after the performance on Sunday. 

Next up is Le Race this Saturday. It is the annual 'mountain classic' down here in the South Island and never fails to deliver some very testing racing. Hopefully I can recover as best as possible from my wee tumble before then and be 100%!

Thank you to everyone for the support this weekend, especially Benchmark Homes, Brendan and Jodi Hart, Vic Chapman for dressing my wounds and Mum for giving me lots of nice food for the weekend. Oh and Sam Horgan for closing the gap on me which lead me to crash... :) 

Cheers!

W

Road to recovery

Well, this is my first post in almost a year. Purely because there has been nothing to post about in that time! I have been injured. Last year was a tough one on the cycling front due to a series of issues that arose from the one big injury in late 2010 which was breaking my leg. I started 2011 off well with some good form leading into the European season with the BikeNZ U23 track squad and thought everything was well on track, not only with my form but with my injury. I thought I was past it all. I wasn't! I learned the hard way, very soon after getting to Europe that not completing the whole rehab program prescribed to me was idiotic. I did what I was sure I wasn't going to do...I got excited and rushed back into training far too fast and far too hard. My knee flared up within the first month. I was home after 6 weeks. It was pretty tough but  my knee was obviously not ready! I struggled for the rest of 2011 to get things sorted. I was constantly uncomfortable on the bike and no matter what I did off the bike I couldn't seem to get rid of my knee pain. I had patches here and there with no pain and a little bit of form which was refreshing but nothing like what I had before my accident. It was bloody frustrating!

Towards the end of the year it seemed to be getting better and better so I was training harder and harder over the summer for races like the NZ Cycle Classic and Track Nationals. I was having to cut training rides short at least once a week because of my knee so I knew in the back of my head things were nowhere near perfect, but I kept on training hard anyway. Everything came to a peak at NZ Cycle Classic. On the third stage it got to a point where I couldn't ride anymore. I was gutted. And it was the people who had put the support behind me for the year and for this race that I was gutted for, not myself. This was also turning point from bad to good however! Luckily Chappy (Anthony Chapman) was racing as well and he had a look at me after the stage and straight away found some pretty serious issues with my body that were all contributing to my knee pain.

Literally straight away, thanks to Chappy, things started to improve. My bike set up was far from desirable so we worked hard to get that perfect and went straight to work with getting my body back to normal! This was 4 weeks ago and since then every week I have been taking huge leaps forward in rehab and pain has been getting less and less to the point now where it is almost gone.

I have just begun to start racing again as well which is a breath of fresh air. Good to be able to focus on hurting myself while racing as opposed to blocking out knee pain! Great success!! This time I am making sure I am doing everything right, down to the smallest detail and the hard work seems to be paying off.

I am not going overseas to race for the season this year as I am determined to have my body 100% fixed before I dive back into the big kids racing. But I will get there and I am motivated to get there in bloody good shape.

Next up is Oceania Road Champs in Queenstown this week where I will race the 40km Time Trial and 150km Road Race. Obviously I am entering the race to get the best result and best performance I can on the day but I know I won't have devastatingly good form by any means so will try and focus on getting through the racing with good technique on the bike and no knee pain!

Thanks to everyone that has helped over the last year with trying to get me sorted! Especially Anthony Chapman, Hamish Ferguson, Mark Hollands and of course Mum and Dad! Chappy's website is http://www.bikefitter.co.nz/ Check him out if you have any niggles or need a scientifically backed bike fit. Also a big thanks to Mark Morrison who has been very generous and provided me with both a disc and a set of race wheels as well as many other things!

Here is a picture of me racing this past weekend in the Tour of Canterbury. Managed to finish up second on GC behind a FLYING Sam Horgan. Was really happy with how I got through the racing with no pain and with very limited training. Onwards and upwards!

Cheers Cathy Adair for the shot!

Cheers for reading!

W