South West Academy of Sports

SWAS Learn in Ararat

SWAS Cyclists enjoyed a fun, exciting and educational weekend at the Ararat Junior Tour held at the Moyston Recreation Reserve on the 11th and 12th of May.

 This is what Program Manager Cam McFarlane had to say about the weekend:

Our first night went well, we ate as soon as we had unpacked and after a brief meeting about Saturday we were all in bed either sleeping or at least relaxing.
Here are the highlights.

• It was agreed that if anyone wanted to muck around and stay up late that they do it over in the games room so they did not interfere with those who wanted to do their best. 
• There were 3 riders who took the time to think of what they thought they would like assistance with over the weekend.
• After dinner was a good time to have a shower and give yourself a light leg massage and stretch to help relieve the effects of the drive up.
• Have your kit laid out ready before going to bed to save you time and stress in the morning.
• We set out a time table based on the start time of the first race (9.30) and worked back from that to set the time to leave, eat, get dressed and wake up.
• One person was going to get all the numbers.

Saturday morning went well,

• We left close to our nominated time (10 mins late)
• The weather was good so the 8km ride in to Moyston served as a great wake up ride.
• Using the Grandstand and it's bitumen area kept everyone sheltered from the wind and rain as well as giving you somewhere without stones, mud etc to warm up and sit and relax.
• Writing your start time somewhere so you could remember without asking relieved some nerves.
• Writing a speed or a word on some tape and putting where you could see it on the handle bars to help you through the Time Trial.
•  After the time trial as you rolled down you kept warm, drank and ate something to help refuel and recover for the afternoons race.

Saturday night we reviewed how the day went and it seemed everyone was positive, we did acknowlege that,

• We all need to make sure when we finish eating or drinking that we put the containers / bottles in a bin.
• We need to take the time to check we have everything from the bus before getting out so we don't leave a glove etc behind.
• And take our rubbish with us.

The plan for after dinner was to,

• Be careful not to go too far / avoid the last night excitement and mess around.
• Shower
• Relax
• Get Sundays kit ready, pin your numbers onto the clean jersey if you are using one.
• Think of what went well and what you weren't happy with.
• Think of what time to turn phones off
• Think of what time to turn the lights off

That was the plan, however, can some of us honestly say we followed it?
Remember the first thing we discussed on Friday night about being noisey?
 
Sunday morning we woke up as per the plan but we were a bit slower to get things done, this saw us leave 20mins late.
Lucky we weren't catching a train or plane.

• Some of us were a bit more "distracted" compared to Saturday, losing track of time etc.
• Some of us used the things that we learned on Saturday to prepare for Sundays race.
• Everyone had a red hot go!!

a Big Thankyou to all the parents who helped out with everything and a Big congratulations to Mikayla McLaren who scored 2nd overall in the General Classification.

See you all at the ACCe Day on Sunday as wekl look forward to Harcourt on the 27th of May!

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