16 Days!

Hey guys,

Well I sit here writing to you all now in beautiful Europe. It very nice here and its a stark contrast from America in so many ways. Like for example the roads here are narrow and the cars are mostly small but in America the cars are huge as are the roads. The food here is also a nice change from the highly processed and sugary food in America. Although I was a little scarred when I was told horse is a regular meat choice on the menus in the country we are staying. My mum will not like that one bit, being a horse fan! My mum's horse also just last week had a foal. His name is Ziggy and he is so cute as you can see in the photo below and I can not wait to get home in a few weeks time and spend some time with my family and all the new baby animals.

Ziggy and Wow

The rest of the camp in America ended well and we were quite sad to leave the friends we had made and the atmosphere and training environment. We are now however with the rest of the team and I am so happy to be rooming with good friend and fellow Commonwealth Games team mate Ashlee Ankudinoff. Whilst our accommodation is pretty basic its nice to be around the “enduro's” and on a new track in a new country. The drive to our hotel was a beautiful one and I got some good photos.

Anna Meares and I on a break from our 4hour car trip to our hotel.

Our trip over was again not uneventful, with four countries in 24hours and lots of luggage. Before we left we said goodbye to some of the team who unfortunately didn’t make the Commonwealth Games in Peter Lewis, Alex Bird and two staff members in Nick Flyger and Scott Baker - who are sorely missed here in Europe. During the camp it was Nick's 30^th birthday and he conveniently didn’t tell us, but we have a way of finding things out so we surprised him with a 'birthday cookie' that we got made for him. As you can see there are sheep on the cookie because Nick is from New Zealand and there is a long standing joke that New Zealander's love their sheep! Happy Birthday Nick!

Nick's Birthday Cookie - YUM!

We were unable to finish the whole cookie so we dared our team mechanic Stewart Smith to eat a 'cookie sandwich' in one minute – he did it but he didn’t feel very well for some time! It was rather entertaining on our behalf!

Stewart Smith - 'Stu' attempting to eat his cookie sandwich in a minute.

Scott Baker - our Strength and Conditioning coach

Sorry Pete, couldn't resist putting this one up! Nice hat! Yeeeehah.

With Peter and Alex gone two new sprinter team mates joined us in Europe in Shane Perkins and Jason Niblett. The pair have come off a very successful racing stint in Japan in the Keirin series and it is great to have the two 'parrots' (a nickname we affectionately give the jokers or the silly ones in the group) back training with us. Shane conveniently brought over a projector and lots of movies so we are all enjoying having team movie sessions in the common room.

Shane Perkins - 'Perko'

Jason Niblett - 'Nibbo'. Nibbo has an insane ability to push out his belly - its rather gross!

With only 16 days to go until the opening ceremony of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in India we now begin the countdown and everyone in the team is getting very excited, yesterday we were given our tracksuits to travel in and it was like I was a kid at Christmas. I was so excited to try it on – and perhaps a little bit proud of myself! Even our coach Gary West was parading down the hallways in his nice new trackie.

We have had some great training sessions and the spirit in the team is growing everyday, despite some ordinary ones thrown in there to make life interesting. Whilst I have had some emotional ones with a few tears shed here and there its very easy this close to competition to get anxious and nervous. I am in great shape (despite a small injury to my TFL from the travel) and I am the fittest, strongest and most powerful I have ever been...I just need to be patient and let the speed come. This, as my coach will tell you, is not really my forte (patience) and I tend to be quite harsh on myself so its been a little bit of a roller-coaster ride the past few weeks at times...with some great ups to come I feel.

Not a bad job huh?

The area we are in is beautiful!

One of the female 'enduros' Belinda Goss.

And so I end with a big thanks and a mental high 5 to my coach Gary West who tends to cop the flack from the downs of that roller-coaster ride that I am on. Thank you Gary – a great coach, mentor and person.

Tomorrow it is my good friend and team mates Anna Meares' 27^th Birthday and so I wish her a very Happy Birthday!

Karls : )

P.S. I have already been told by a few people that they have sent me support messages for the Commonwealth Games. A special mention goes out to Miss Kenneally and her year 7 class at Cowra High School! Thanks for the support guys and I hope that you will be cheering for me as I go for gold. Also a shout out to Camden High School for you're messages of support and whilst I haven't received any of them yet (I suspect I will receive them once I get into the village) I am definitely feeling the Aussie spirit behind me already.