I have just left the NZ winter behind and arrived in sunny Kutztown, Pennsylvania on the east coast of America to join the rest of the NZ track girls.
Kutztown is our base for the NZ winter, where we will lay down many road kilometres, or ‘miles’ as they say over here. The country roads roll on forever, and you can go for a 5hr ride and not have to stop at one set of traffic lights. A cyclist’s paradise.
Coupled with the training are also heading away to some road racing, first in Altoona next week and then up to Oregon for the Cascade Classic 6day tour 19th – 24th July.
I always find there’s a tinge of sadness packing up and leaving home, but on arrival the sun and warmth makes it easy to spend copious hours in the lycra, building the engine and strengthening the pins. Life on the road, away from home is all part of our commitment to that Olympic dream. But being together as a team here makes it that much easier to push yourself every day, challenge each other and find our limits.
As Olympic Day rolled by and with less than 400 days till London the locals in Kutztown could be forgiven for thinking we are students attending Kutztown University summer school and just have an obsession with bike riding? We could even pass as the Golden Bears cheerleading team? But the reality is inside our apartments, subtle reminders hang on the wall, appear on desktop screen savers and sit in the forefront of our minds everyday as we hop on our bikes for another training session, that London is looming closer. And a small group of ‘Kutztown Kiwi’s’ know it. Everyday counts and right now we are smashing out those hard yards, creating a solid base, so come next year we can add the final touches to piece together our ultimate Olympic performance.