Sunday 26 December 2010

Mistletoe & Wine...

Merry Christmas bloggers!
Hope everyone had a great christmas, and wishing you all the best for the new year.

My training has been on and off in the last 2 weeks due to a few things, weather, christmas, work and college mainly! However I have discovered the joys of my local gym! The spinning bike is almost exactly the same as the turbo, but I find myself more motivated seeing others working out aswell, and can remain concentrated for longer. The result being that in the last week before christmas I did 4 sessions of an hour on the spinning bike, just to start to bring a pattern back to my winter training schedule. I've also decided to give weight training a go! 4x25 reps @ 80kg after each spin session is a good follow up and tough on the legs, hopefully this will give me a 'kick' in the sprints next season!

Anyway, wishing everyone a happy new year and best wishes for 2011!!

Ciao.

Saturday 18 December 2010

Imperial Winter Series @ Hillingdon - 18th December

Unfortunately huge overnight snow meant that the race has to be cancelled today, shame because I wanted to build on last weeks effort and go for the win today!!

Nevertheless the training will continue and hopefully I can go for the win next time!

Ciao.

Saturday 11 December 2010

Imperial Winter Series @ Hillingdon - 11th December

Today was my first ever bunch race and my main aim was to get round in one piece and finish in the main bunch.

I managed to get 6-7 laps in for a warm-up andat 1 o'clock we all lined up on the start line, the 3rd cats went off around a minute before us (4th cat race). We set off and immediately the pace was set quite high and after about 1 lap someone tried to launch themself off the front, but didn't last more than 2 laps. I took the front twice and tried to keep the pace high, but for most of the time I stayed in the bunch. As we got the signal for 3 laps to go I positioned myself behind the guy at the front of the bunch and stayed there all the way onto the final straight of the final lap. What we had failed to notice was that we had rapidly gained on the 3rd cats and actually caught them halfway up the climb on the home straight! This led to a very confusing sprint finish! I jumped off the front with about 200 metres to go and had to weave left and right through 3rd cat riders (negotiating a grass patch to get past one rider), and finally pushed one last time, unfortunately I saw #21, through a sea of 3rd cats, on the opposite side of the track about a bike length in front of, so I crossed the line in 2nd place.

Overall, very happy with my first circuit race and very much looking forward to the next one!! Also a quick thanks to Imperial Racing Team for running the race very smoothly!

Ciao.

Introduction, 2010, & 2011 goals

I'm Henry and I ride my bike for Team Zappi, recently moved from my old club Didcot Phoenix so I can race with more juniors, and do more road racing aswell as time trials. Started riding competitively at the start of 2009 and have loved it since.

To give you a view of my 2010 season I will just summarise it briefly.

In the 2010 season I was purely a time-triallist, and competed at both the National 10 & 25 mile championships. My best time for a 10 mile tt was 22.36 and my best 25 mile time was 58.21, a junior record for my old club Didcot Phoenix.

2011 Goals

  • Top 20 at National 10 and 25 mile time trials
  • Top 15 at British Time Trial Championships
  • Compete in road races and win at least one during the 2011 season
  • Complete at least one stage race

Over the winter I am going to be training extremely hard in order to achieve my goals for 2011.

I will keep you posted.

Ciao!