Coach
Lisa Tonello, “This is my fastest female master’s racer in India! What a
great race she had. Here is her report. Remember, there isn’t a
women’s only race, so she had to race with the men.”
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A
recap from Vicki Nicholson, “I did it!!!! Had a
fabulous race, managed to hang on with the front guys until about 1km from the
base of the hill. Fortunately for me they did not hit it too hard, for the
first 80km, then it picked up a bit but I just hung on, which took quite a bit
of effort. I was kind of cooked for the hill, so ended up taking 34 minutes on
Nandi but over all time for 102.5km which includes the 2km rolling start was 3
hours 12 minutes, that means my actual race time should be a bit quicker. So I
won the women's open and I should also have got the Queen of the Mountain (one
prize for the fastest women and fastest man on the actual hill) but they have
not announced those yet, and I will have won the Bangalore Bicycling
Championship Women's title for the season, which means I get a free entry into
the Tour of the Nilgiris in December.
I was very nervous this morning I have to confess,
I guess this was the one I really wanted and riding hard with the guys for the
93km to the hill was a scary prospect. It had its moments, I had a major skid
on sand turning off the highway on the Nandi approach road, about 80km in but
managed somehow to stay upright, and just concentrating in the pack for that
long was quite something. My team mates were amazing, keeping an eye on me the
whole way, one of them pulled me when I struggled just before the base, then he
was done by the time we hit the hill and another rode with me the first half of
the hill encouraging me the whole way before he started having chain trouble
and had to drop back.
Finally I think I could not have dreamt of riding
like this before we started at the beginning of July, yes not even four months
ago, your training plan, support, motivation and dedication has really paid off
for me. Lisa you are an AWESOME coach, thank you so much for this.”
Awesome job, Vicki!
