My Steering Wheel.

Last Wednesday my Grandma died, so I didn't go to the gym that night. The next day I went out to my coach's place and did a mock-time trial on this compu-trainer thing, which meant about an hour at 92% of my maximum possible effort. The next day was a day off, so I had no real idea how much either event had taken out of me. The answer was, apparently, a lot.

The Victorian Madison Championships were in Ballarat on Sunday, so The Man and I stacked our gear in the car and headed out on Highway 8. We were, as per usual, late. I managed a win in B grade and Sean didn't disgrace himself in D. But come the Madison we were both spent. Before racing we'd both agreed - without hesitation - that once we went three laps down we'd pull out. With former World Cup Madison winners racing that occurred in the first fifty laps. After about eighty had gone by I told Sean I was done. After about eighty five he was too, so we pulled out. Other teams went ten laps down, eight laps down, ridiculous numbers down, but we were the only ones to call it quits. When asked why we had pulled out, Sean simply explained that, "We just didn't want to get it pregnant."

On Monday I went back to the gym and totally destroyed myself. Tuesday I packed the bike and Casey into the car and drove up to my parents' house, heading out towards the Grampians for an hour and a half of tempo. Wednesday I crawled out of bed early and did a session on the trainer, then slid into a borrowed suit (thanks McKenny!), packed up Casey and hit the road for another couple of hours, heading into the depths of the Mallee. We reacquainted ourselves with my lost cousins, shook hands, kissed cheeks, reminisced and tried not to cry. We rustled up some hommus and rice crackers for lunch, ignoring the multitude of temptations offered by the CWA ladies of Woomelang. We convinced my sister to feed us dinner at her house in Bendigo on our way home and my youngest brother to drive the rest of the way from there. We pulled back into the house, finally, at eleven, so I missed the gym again that night.

Then today I went back to work.