Journey to the Croc – motivation and support

Concentrating on Stage 3 of the Port to Port

I thought tonight was a good time for me to reflect and update on my Journey to the Croc.  As is usually the case with such things, I all of a sudden find myself with only 32 days to go and I know it’s going to be upon me before I realise.

 The prompt for my current reflection came from my reluctance to get on the bike today. Since the start of my training for this beast, today was the hardest day yet to find motivation to ride. I ditched my early morning plans (6am-er Hurtbox) with a view to jumping on an ergo tonight. I got home from work and nearly ditched the ergo plans in a cloud of can’t-be-bothered-ness.

Also as is often the case with such things, I finally forced myself onto the bike and had quite a good session, feeling strong and motivated to go hard despite being in the garage. Such is the power of the mind… and it’s often a tricky guide.

From the physical and training perspective, I couldn’t be happier with my journey so far. I commenced training with Adz (of Hero Dirt Coaching) on 1st February and what a very good decision that was! My improvement since then has amazed me as Adz has taught me to make every session count, to treat my recovery as a good training session, to learn what it feels like to hurt and to visualise achieving my goals. The accountability has also helped me trim down a little and it gets me on the bike on nights such as tonight when I’m feeling flat.

The things that keep me awake at night have not been related to the racing but the logistics of this big race. What do we need to take? Do we have enough spares? Have I prepared the car and the bike as needed? What support do we need and have we got it sorted? What can I do about more support?

I’m keen to give a shout-out to those who have signed up to help us so far:

• Cycle Works Box Hill – My main support over many years and the best LBS going around. If you’re in the east of Melbourne and looking for good service and advice, do yourself a favour and get in there.
• Enduro Magazine – Travel edition out soon with my story on the Port 2 Port and a feature Croc story to appear later in the year.
• Crocodile Trophy – Partnered with Enduro Magazine with daily social media updates from us throughout the race and a feature article in Enduro later in the year.
• Curve Cycling – seriously fast mountain bike wheels… these ones specifically are on my bike and just looking at them makes me go faster, although I try not to look at them whilst going fast (no more helicopters for me!).
• And I can’t forget JOHN (he doesn’t have a website I can link).  Rod’s father-in-law who will be coming with us, driving my car from stage-to-stage and generally keeping us comfortable and healthy with everything we need to keep us rolling.

More to follow on the detail of our sponsors and supporters.  Oh my God, the logistics.  Bring on this beast of a race.