Rob Doyle - Professional Fun Haver

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    Monday, August 16, 2010

    112 days

    I often wonder to myself what the person who came up with eggs Benedict was thinking, the concept is simple, poached eggs drizzled in a sauce that is made mainly with eggs, so essentially its eggs with eggs sauce. There isn’t too many other ingredients I can think of doing that with, it’s double dosing, steak with a minced beef sauce just doesn’t sound appealing, even if mix with vinegar in a double boiler.

    Maybe this was just a product of rationing, “no tomato sauce this week, but we have 100 eggs, let make some sauce”. Don’t get me wrong, I love Eggs Benedict, there are days I lay in bed dreaming of Hollandaise sauce. Without it the last few months would have been more painful.

    If you wondering why I’ve chosen to start this post with that spiel, it’s that in the last few months I’ve been lucky enough to have access to some of the Best Benedict around, on the weekends it live at Outpost in South Yarra. Unfortunately, they only serve it on weekends, but it is truly amazing. I also rediscovered Picnic this morning, I used to frequent picnic alot, they had Padre beans and a good friend from high school was the barista there, and I’ll be honest, he is a cracking barista. Around the time I was in Asia Nick finished up there to go work with his Dad on a new Spanish restaurant in Windsor, Last time I checked in they were due to open late August or early September, knowing Nicks skills and standards I cannot wait to go check it out.

    So long story short, without Nick, picnic became crap, and Jono introduced me to Outpost. Anyway I’d heard rumours that picnic had new owners, so this morning I thought I’d check them out, seeing it was only about 100 metres from my house, and it was good. Didn’t go anything fancy, just Benedict and a latte, and I was happy. Best Benedict south of the Yarra during the week....

    So apart from me cruising the streets of Stonington “Protein Loading”, I’ve started doing a little bit of riding again, it’s not at the point where I can ride more than 2 consecutive days without a shoulder implosion, but it’s getting close. The medical opinion is still looking like surgery, as I have no upper range movement, stability or strength in my right arm. My sports med doctor said, If you feel good enough to ride then ride, but don’t crash or hit potholes, and if you don’t feel good enough then don’t. Pretty simple instructions, at the moment its about 3 to 4 days a week it feels good enough to pedal with, unfortunately living in Ballarat with its “challenging climate” to say the least, that gets to be about 1 or 2 days a week, and that in the rain. Luckily I still have frequent appointments in Melbourne so I can sneak a cheeky ride in there.

    As always it would only be a matter of time before I pushed the bounds of medical advice, and this came in the form of a Coburg Cycling Club Criterium. It had been 112 days since I last raced at the Chris Cashin Memorial in Ballarat, and within those 112 days the first 91 had been spent with absolutely no riding, just walking, coffee, eggs Benedict and watching Nitro Circus over and over. So my expectations weren’t very high, I opted to run my zipp wheels instead of my powertap, as I valued finishing higher than data. It soon became clear that I had picked one of the windiest days of the century to make my return to racing, with the wind at Essendon airport around the time the crit started gusting to 74kph. I was lucky enough to have the Company of Cam Hudson, who I think decided to race A out of sympathy for me after him not racing for 2 years, and Harry Bade who’s last road race was also the Cashin, his break was mainly weather induced, amongst other distracting things at “almost 18”. After a good pre-race coffee session with Nic Hamely and his mate Michael, I was wired enough to suffer.

    Before the race began it was clear how much hurt I was going to be in, Team Kosdown which is a Northern Combine Based Team (Hawthorn, Coburg etc) had a small army racing, and if there’s one thing they are good at its being aggressive and forging breakaways, and halfway around the first lap it was on, I knew deep down that I wanted it to be a bunch kick at the end and hopefully I’d be able to get into a good spot to do something. But this was going to be hard, with about 8 guys there riding together and then more hawthorn and dudes trying to sort something out. I made the plan of letting single kosdown and no kosdown riders go, hoping that kosdown would chase them back, or the wind would get them if they went solo, and trying to go with everything that had 2 of more kosdown riders in it, and if I missed it I’d try to bring it back. This proved very hard, and I think I was seeing spots at one point. As it just kept happening, and the honourable mention has to go to Kos, he hurt me pretty bad, I seem to be always chasing him, praying he wouldn’t go again.

    With about 3 laps to go the bunch was back together, I was on the front snaking with all of kosdown sitting on me as I tried to shut down the road. It was fair to say they had all the cards at this point, and I knew I was screwed, as my body was screaming at me. With a lap and a half to go an attack went and I had nothing, I sort of watched it go. 3 up the front, then 1, then 2, then the bunch as we came through with 1 to go, with kosdown have a rider in every group ahead of me I knew I had to try something, so with about 800 metres to go I emptied the tank and got to the front guys, found a wheel for the sprint, and just sat on it to roll over 4th, happy with how much I had just destroyed myself. Luckily 4th had some prize money to offset the amount of coffee and food I had to consume to feel alive again.

    All in all it was a great race, it was aggressive the whole time, and I was really happy to be able to do something apart from just sitting on, trying to survive, the messages I’ve had from some of the guys out there have been really encouraging over the last few months, and I’m really thankful for them. I’m looking forward to getting my body sorted and getting back to some consistent training. All going to plan I’m going to try to race the Ross bush in Geelong in 3 weeks, after suffering with the flu in it last year, I’m hoping I can at least get to the finish, I think Reece Treloar and Cam Hudson will be there to punch me in the ribs if I go soft.

    Thanks has to go to my team Plan B racing, sponsors and supporters Plan B Wealth Management, Highbury Homes, Matrix, Cyclemania, Giant Bikes, Scody, YouandI-ride, UB sports and events, Rhys Gillett (for the helmet loan), Oakley, and also to Coburg Cycling Club for another well run race.

    To everyone who’s towed me round, and taken me out and about, even when I sometimes I didn’t want to, thanks

    It’s good to be back

    Rob

    1 comment:

    hamley001 said...

    good to see you back in the bunch, mate, 4th is pretty good for sitting on the front the entire race