Endurance cyclist back on track

After all, there’s a trail in the Sedgwick State Forest named after the former elite cross country and endurance cyclist – the thin timber post marking Leahy Track can be found among the gum trees just past the end of Claremont Place.

“I worked for DSE at Epsom some years back and I’d ride to work through that section of bush as part of my training,” explains the 41-year-old who represented Australia at the 2010 world 24-hour solo mountain bike championships.

“There was a trail the depot guys had done up and I had a whinge initially that they’d made it all soft and slow and hard to climb, but it’s all bedded down nicely now. 

“The depot guys who did the works said they’d name the trail after me and, when I came back to Bendigo in 2013 after being gone four years, they’d done just that.”

If anyone deserves such a tribute, it is Justine. Especially given the multitude of mountains she has conquered, both on and off her bike.

In 24-hour races, she’s pedalled all day and night, pushing herself to the point of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion despite her muscles screaming at her to stop; her mind tricking her into thinking tree stumps beside the track are spectators; and her body doing its best to reject every mouthful of solid food she eats.

“Why am I doing this? I can’t do this. I’m not good enough. Why am I even bothering? These are the negatives that can pop into your head,” says Justine, who lives in Spring Gully and works for the CFA in fire management and biodiversity.

“I’ve had a lot of adversity in my life, which is probably the driver for negative thoughts.

“It took years to get them out of my head as the automatic response to difficulty. It’s mentally draining every day to turn the negatives into thoughts of affirmation that you really can do it.”

So what drives her to keep going amid extreme fatigue, hallucinations and fits of vomiting?

“It’s the personal challenge of seeing how far I can mush myself physically and mentally,” says Justine. “And then there’s the feeling you get afterwards... 

“I am completely exhausted to the point I don’t let myself drive for a week after a 24-hour event because I don’t have the concentration or alertness, but then I am on a high for two weeks straight because of what I have done, even though my body aches with every move.”

Justine grew up in the Blue Mountains and was introduced to cycling in 1994 by her brother Gavin, who worked in a bike shop.

She borrowed one of his spare bikes to take on a weekend away – and returned hooked.

“There was no one thing that hit me on that trip that was the turning point, other than the sheer love of being on the bike, and on the dirt,” she recalls. 

Justine started racing after two years of riding for pleasure and quickly discovered she was extremely competitive in what was then a male-dominated environment. 

“I always rode and raced with the guys because there wasn’t any separation between male and females until you got to state and national events. It wasn’t until I started downhill in about 1998 that I even came across another couple of females.”

In six years of elite cross country competition, Justine regularly finished on the podium at the NSW state titles and her best result was 8th at nationals.

But her race strategy – start slow and get faster so you don’t blow up before the finish line – meant she was better suited to the endurance events.

“Endurance riding was starting to gain momentum around 2002 and I wanted a change after getting a bit bored racing and training for XC, so decided to give this new style a shot. My first was a six-hour ride in Beechworth. 

“I did a bit of both for a while, but became fully focused on endurance in 2006.”

Her most significant cycling achievement was coming fourth in the national 24-hour solo race in Canberra in 2009, qualifying for the world titles at the same venue the following year.

But what should have been her crowning glory ended up contributing to a long, slow slide into the darkness of severe depression.

Justine says she “lost my head” 21.5 hours into the event, succumbing to fatigue and slipping from 10th to 18th place. Not long after, she quit racing.

“I suffered from severe depression in the lead-up to worlds and also post. My coach Tory Thomas said she didn’t think I’d ever get to the start line... but I was going to do worlds, whatever it took.

“There was another massive letdown afterwards though – the fact I lost my head at 21.5 hours was the hardest thing for me to accept. I’d been so tough for so long, but when it all came down to it, all I needed was another 2.5 hours and I didn’t have it.”

As her mental health deteriorated and she developed a gluten intolerance thought to be linked to her physical and emotional stress, Justine decided to overhaul her life.

She stopped competing, moved interstate, altered her diet and adopted a new attitude.

“You can sit back and complain and be miserable and unhappy, but in the end the only person who can fix things is yourself, by making changes.” 

After shifting from Coffs Harbour to Melbourne and accepting a job with CFA, Justine completed post-graduate studies in bushfire management, leaving little time for cycling.

It remains one of her proudest achievements, coming from what she describes as a dysfunctional middle-class family in an area of Western Sydney where drug and alcohol problems were rife.

“For me to have had the strength to get out and achieve what I have done is huge – especially compared to what my life could have become if I had gone down another path, which was quite common in that part of Sydney. I feel like I have come a long way.”

Now she is back in Bendigo, Justine is also back on the mountain bike and back in race mode – albeit with a new outlook and adjusted expectations.  

“Life is different to how it was when I was competing up until four years ago. It’s not possible now to do two hours training a day and six or seven-hour rides on weekends in preparation. 

“It’s hard trying to push my body again and the last few races I have done have made me realise I am not as tough mentally and physically as I was before.

“I have to prepare myself for the enjoyment of the events and realise my results are purely a reflection of how much riding I have been able to do. And it’s hard to turn your brain around to that way of thinking, after competing to get results for such a long time.”

Justine - a long-time member of the Castlemaine-based Rocky Riders club – has nonetheless made a successful comeback in the past six months.

She won the women’s division of the Bendigo six-hour race and her three-hour event at the Police and Emergency Service Games, and finished second in the 40-49 years category of the Wombat 50km ride.

She also hopes to one day complete one more 24-hour solo competition to erase the feeling of “unfinished business” that lingers from her world titles experience. 

Justine loves Bendigo, sharing her home with Staffordshire terriers Beep and Buzz.

“My lifestyle and social life revolves around my bikes and has done for the last 20 years,” she says. “That might seem quite narrow to some people, but my time is valuable to me and if I not working I am either on my bike, or with my dogs. 

“It’s quite a simple life but considering the complexities of life, I really enjoy the simplicity of bikes and dogs.

“Every day I’m thankful that I have a nice, safe place to live, good neighbours, it’s perfect for walking the dogs… and you can’t get a better place for riding the bike.”