It is almost midnight before new world champion Alison Shanks sits down to a modest meal of sweet and sour chicken with rice.
It is freezing outside the Pruskow velodrome, in Poland, and it has been a long day.
Bed beckons, but the 26-year-old Dunedin cyclist probably will not get a wink of sleep.
Her legs should feel like lead, but instead she feels light as a feather and giggles down the phone to the Otago Daily Times.
Her victory in the women's 3000m individual pursuit at the world track cycling championships is just starting to sink in.
"It was a weird feeling when I crossed the line," Shanks said yesterday.
"I thought to myself, `Did that just happen? Did I just win that race?"'The former New Zealand A netballer clocked a personal best time of 3min 29.807sec to beat Beijing Olympics silver medallist Wendy Houvenaghel of Britain.
"Standing on the podium was pretty special. You come to the world champs with the aim of winning, but to actually go out and do it is pretty . . . I don't know. I'm just pretty stoked," she said.
"It is quite surreal . . . It just has not sunk in yet."
The victory capped off a remarkable four years for the former Otago Rebels midcourter.
Shanks switched from netball to cycling in 2005, after missing selection for the Otago national championship team, and had immediate success.
She made the New Zealand road team late in 2005 before switching to the track and finishing fourth in the individual pursuit at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
Two years later, she finished fourth at the Beijing Olympics.
Shanks said it was too soon to start talking up her favouritism for a gold medal at the Olympic Games in London in 2012.
"The Olympics are still a long, long way away. There are a lot of hard training sessions to be done between now and then.
"While London is definitely a goal of mine, it is not really at the forefront of my mind. It is a long time to focus on one race, which is why we take little steps along the way."
Shanks returns to the track today, competing in the women's team pursuit.
