It’s been a rocky few months into the lead up to my next mountain bike race which I’ve been lucky enough to be able to enter through the AAA sponsorship program.

In February i will be travelling down to Jindabyne to compete in a 5 stage, 3 day mountain bike race. The format is XCO style racing. This means travelling at high speeds and high intensity over 5 different mountain bike courses. This means high technicality racing amongst hundreds of other competitors travelling no further than 35km per stage.

With the support of the sponsorship program I have been able to skill train and be coached by an expert level mountain bike coach and have the full support of the Ipswich Off Road Cycling Club. This is ensuring I am at peak fitness and skill level to potentially place highly in my age category for the Snowy Mountain Bike race held by In2adventure.

Due to top level coaching and my determination to be fit and showcase Alopecia Areata in order to increase awareness I was able to add in another race. This was self funded.

In November I travelled to Armidale to compete in the World 24hr mountain bike championships. This was an unexpected privilege to be able to represent Australia within my age category. The race went really well despite half way through stumbling over my own foot in the dark and shredding a ligament in my ankle which resulted in mass bone bruising with a possible hairline fracture on the Tibia. I didn’t know this until a week later. I finished the 24hr race with about 270km off mountain bike trail riding to become both second in my age group for both National and World 24hr mountain bike racing.

Following the discovery of the extent of my injury it resulted in wearing a moon boot for 10 days followed by a removable splint. It also resulted in 6 weeks of the bike and I thought my season of mountain biking was over.

I completed a comprehensive and challenging physiotherapy regime to strengthen the ankle. This included over an hour a day of exercises and stretching work and time on the indoor trainer.

After about 8 weeks I was able to get back onto the bike and start riding on the bitumen and on the Fire roads then return to mountain bike riding.

Back on the trails I found I had lost some confidence so worked closely with my coach and concentrated on the skills. I was then back to short distance racing. First at Walloon in Ipswich where I placed 3rd in B grade, then 2 races at Gordonbrook the first I placed 2nd and then another win. I resulted in coming 2nd in the mountain bike series despite missing 3 races in the series.

I now feel confident to doing well at the Snowy mountain bike festival which I wouldn’t have considered without the sponsorship program.

Work wise I have grown in confidence so much so that I applied for and was awarded my dream job as a Clinical Facilitator in Simulation at West Moreton Health which has bought me into contact with a wide variety of people and leading different workshops with differing numbers of participants.

So everything is looking positive and I have achieved many goals whilst living with Alopecia Areata.

Rebecca was a part of our sponsorship program – you can also participate! Go here to learn more https://aaaf.org.au/sponsorship-program