Follow me on my training journey...
The Challenges: Taupo Cycle Challenge solo road (160 km) event and The Taniwha mountain bike (42 km) event
The Target: Taupo in 5:45 h, Taniwha in 3:15 h
The Way to Get There: Personalised 16 week coaching plan with Trail & Tarmac
The Starting Point: Functional Threshold Power (FTP) 173
Current Status: FTP 185
So the first of my two target events is happily in the bag. I completed the Taniwha 42km mountain bike event last saturday. Very happy with my result finishing 2 hours 42 minutes, the first woman overall! It was a small field with only 16 women competing in the 42 km distance - but it is still very exciting for me as it is my first win in any event (and first time higher than 4th overall woman). I was racing for the entire event and really felt the benefit of my training to be able to give it hell from start to finish.
Thinking about it afterwards, the two main benefits of my training programme were being able to climb quickly and consistently (which is how I got ahead near the start of the course) and being able to sustain a very hard effort over a long period.
So Taupo here I come .... with my sights firmly set on bettering my target time and my fingers crossed for good weather.