Early starts and burnt toast

Yesterday offered up a rather noisy start to the morning with everyone being greeted by the not so dulcit tones of the fire alarm throughout the apartments at 6.40. It turned out that it was just someone not paying enough attention to the toaster. Some guests actually stayed in their apartments despite the ear piercing siren. Amazing!

Training for most included a recovery ride - here's some of the crew setting off in brilliant sunshine for a leisurely stroll through the 'burbs', or down to the beach for a coffee :)

In the evening we had a trial run for Italy, with our team dinner at Sportivo pizzeria & cafe at West Lakes. The restaurant is owned by the family of Andrew, one of the lads in the team. I'm not sure how many pizzas and huge bowls of pasta disappeared into a dozen cycling bellies, but obviously they're training well because there wasn't a bowl that came out full that didn't go back empty!

Only three more days of training before we take off for Italy and with slightly lower temperatures forecast for Adelaide, the city is helping us prepare for the sub 10 degree temperatures we're flying into. OK, perhaps low 20s won't make that much difference, but it's better than temps in the 30s when you have to change gears and wheels in the middle of a training session...

How to ride faster than the world record!

The weekend's as good as over and it's hard to believe we left home four days ago. After some solid road kms yesterday to make sure everyone stayed in touch with their slow twitch fibres, today was a double track session. So, how do you ride faster than the world record? You sit behind a motor bike of course, and practise spinning your legs as fast as possible. After an unassisted warm up session this morning, the girls took to the track this afternoon to experience what it feels like to ride faster than anyone in their respective categories has ever ridden before by sitting behind the motor bike for the full pursuit distance.

Everyone enjoyed the speed and they're fully committed to riding that fast without any motorised assistance! For the uninitiated, sitting behind the motor bike means you can go faster because there's no wind resistance and the motor bike drags you along. The idea is that if your legs get used to going faster behind the motor bike, when you're riding under your own steam, your legs will still want to go that fast, hence you ride quicker times.

After a quick session in the recovery centre (ice baths etc), everyone headed back to the apartments for a well earned dinner and relaxing evening.

More tomorrow...

Madhouse at the Track!

We had our first velodrome training session last night on Adelaide's state of the art indoor board track. As you walk into the centre it's very much like walking into Dunc Gray in Sydney, until you see the netted enclosure that takes up all of the infield. Later, when the small, round, very hard balls started crashing into the wooden goals at who knows how many kilometres per hour, we realised it's an indoor hockey field. Lucky the nets do a good job! It doesn't seem to bother the locals and everyone else got used to it pretty quickly after the initial shock!

It was a good training session although lengthy - when you have 10 bikes all doing different things and when four of those bikes are twice as long as the others (well nearly, the tandems that is), a lot of coordination goes into making sure everyone is safe and gets through their sessions in as close to time as possible.

We knew it was time to finish when they started turning the infield lights out right on the dot of 8pm! I guess that's a subtle hint that time's up.

Day 1 in Camp

Everyone made it to Adelaide on time and we were all picked up from the airport in a couple of mini vans and a large Avis truck.  Fortunately none of us had to travel back to the apartments in the truck!  The rest of the day was taken up with stocking up on food supplies for the week and a team meeting to outline the rest of the week leading up to departure for Italy.

This morning it was grease monkey time at the velodrome as everyone put their bikes together ready for the training to come. The interstaters were definitely a bit envious of the locals, who already had their bikes ready to go. Everything will be equal next week when we hit Montichiari though!

The obvious difference between the para team and the other National teams that are also training here this week is the highly individualised training that each member does, so after bike build everyone headed out to do their scheduled training in slightly overcast, almost drizzling warm Adelaide weather.

As I write, I think most are now enjoying their post ride coffees at the various cafes in the precinct. Must be time for me have one too.....

How we train in Canberra

Here's World Record Holder Sue Powell training for her recent record breaking Nationals ride at the 'Bundah Dome' - the local name for the Canberra Velodrome.

For the uninitiated, we have special training partners in Canberra. They're called brown snakes and they like to sunbake on the duckboard of the velodrome on warm summer's days. No wonder Canberra produces so many world class cyclists - how could we not go fast!

Still, it's nice to know we have pretty flowers to look at in between training efforts and maybe it makes it a little more difficult for the snakes to find the track??

The Canberra crew is in Sydney today for a final pre-camp indoor track training session on the boards at Dunc Gray Velodrome.

Welcome to the Firefly Para Blog

Well it's only a few days before the Canberra contingent leaves for our pre Worlds Training Camp in Adelaide.

I've created this blog so that everyone who wants to keep track of our progress can do so easily. Hopefully the internet access in Adelaide and Italy will make it easy to add regular updates.

We're keeping our fingers crossed that the unseasonable Canberra summer weather will stay fine sufficiently for Sue, Brandie and Kerry to complete their pre departure training effectively.

A session on Dunc Gray Velodrome in Sydney this Friday will at least be a sure thing thanks to the virtues of indoor velodromes. Not so for the poor old Bundah dome!

Stay tuned.