Woke to a miserable, wet, cold day with a tough race ahead. 3 laps of a 33km circuit with a 2.5km 10% climb each lap; undulations make up the rest of the course to the start finish before the steep descent and back to the climb again.
A field of 25 starters. I went to the front straight away and hit the hill setting a solid pace. The pace was then taken up by the others, but the field was shattered and there were only 11 riders in contention by the end of the first lap. By the second lap it was really raining hard, so much so, that on the decent the rain felt like pins hitting my face making it pretty scary aquaplaning downhill at about 75km/h and I could hardly keep my eyes open due to the pain. After the climb there were 8 and we were all evenly matched. A few attempts at breakaways came to no avail as they were chased down straight away. By the end of the second lap I was freezing and couldn’t feel my fingers but the push was still on for the last climb, each of us having a go at upping the ante, no break though, so efforts turned to preparing for a sprint finish. I had the sprinters tagged but at 1km to go I was boxed in, with the speed girls heading to the line; a jump out and around had me chasing but only third, a bike length behind Leonie Aisbett and Renne Fortunato; my first individual state medal.
