Marina Duvnjak

Hi everyone! Man how slack am I, haven’t been on this thing almost a month!! And reading back mate how depressing was I!!! oops sorry…. 

Righto long story short-ish, after the last post things took a major turn!(for the better) I moved into my own flat, the tooth thing was over  and I pretty much became my old happy self!!! yaaayy!!
So I started riding again, this time no programme,no efforts no racing… no plan, just start my base in prep for Europe and so I did on the 18 Dec!!  basically I rode almost every day for as long & slow as I felt like (between 3-5 hrs) nothing too exciting! I spent a week away between christmas and new years and had a wicked time!! Just riding, swimming and lying on the beach!! It was mint.

The NZ elite champs were on this weekend and not quite sure what I was thinking but I had entered and I was going to treat it like another fun road trip! So 3 weeks of mega miles, and 4 days of easy rides I did the ITT… basically theres not much to say, this is not my fave event but I have to get better at these things to help my road!! Think I got 14th, and it was a good blow out before the road race

Sunday rolled round, I was still in pain from the TT but oh well was going to smash myself in the RR and see what happens. Nothing to lose….
So it was 4 laps = 104 km

plan A was to sit in, hang on and sprint at finish (not the best as right now I could only climb my pace…
plan B was to get in small break as this would keep it tempo as thats all I knew I could only handle steady
plan C …… go with the flow have fun, do something, see how much I can hurt myself..

So basically neutralized flag went down and we were sitll going 20km/hr along the flat so about 2 km later I thought bugger this, Plan A&B out the windon…. I was on the front anyway and decided to pick the pace up so just put a bit of pressure on the pedals and kinda just rode off…. 2.5 laps later I was still out there by myself.. apparently I had almost 5 min at one point, I had no idea, I only got a couple of time calls and all I heard was 3 min, then on the 3rd climb the bunch obviously decided to do something and pulled me in about 5 km before the start of the last lap… man it was so goood sitting in a bunch, I had started to cramp and needed a break…
 
10 min later the pace dropped again and we were back to riding 20km/hr… I dont know what was up with me, but I was pretty smashed and I knew cause of my build up to the event there was no way I was going to handle the pace up the hill the last time so I attacked again along the flat just before the climb, and Yvette (akl) bridged to me and we were off, think we might have had a 25 sec gap… I was so surprized that we managed that,so then the two of us got caught right at the top of the hill by Rosara and Serena who had a slight gap on the field so Yvette dropped back slightly and I jumped on to those two.. so now the 3 of us had a wee gap….    

I was feeling pretty good I actually started to believe that I had a good chance of  winning this, I was tired from the first 3 laps, but the fact I was able to mix it up with the front riders at the end of the last climb kinda got me thinking I was doing ok! and was handling it better then a few others..   Unfortunately the bunch caught us just after the down hill, and there was a few solo attacks but nothing that stuck so it was gonna be a sprint finish, and I was backing myself… this was my last effort and dammit I was gonna make it a good one!! 

About 1.5km to go my right hamstring and calf completely cramped, as I was trying to stretch that out my quad cramped soooooo bad I almost fell off the bike, my leg completely seized up…. and thats when I completely lost it (how soft am I)  there was absolutely nothing I could do but watch the race go up the road…. I was sooooooooo gutted, so pissed off actually, If I had a chance to sprint and get my ass kicked no worries I tried all I could, but that something so freaking annoying happened so close to the finish and I couldnt give it a nudge or finish it off…. grrrrrr…

Anyway, for the first time in a long time I can say that I am proud of what I did… I guess it made the race and its cool maybe next year I will have better form and actually get a win….

It was a cool weekend away and i had fun, we drove home straight after the race and it was back to reality had to work couple of hours Sunday night, stink one!!!!  The recovery ride this morning hurt pretty bad too!! my legs were still cramping or something as i couldnt really turn the pedals in cicrles…… oh well…