April Races

On the 7th April I made the long trip down to Yeovil, Somerset for the Ham Hill Road Race. I was finally starting to feel like myself again in training and thoroughly looking forward to this race. The 2.5 hour journey was a good laugh with my team mate James but by the time we got there we were psyched and ready to go. I was right at the front before the start and set off right behind the lead car... for all of 1 mile. Punctured out before the race had even started, thanks to the organisers not bothering with a neutral service car, despite having 3 cars following the bunch nobody thought to put wheels in them. Fuming doesn't describe how I was feeling after that, waste of time and money. It wasn't an entirely wasted day for the team though as James rode strongly to make the break and bag a top 10!

The weekend after was a 2-day race down in Kent, the Toachim House GP, which consisted of a TT, a criterium, and a long, hilly road race. I borrowed a TT bike for the weekend and despite having not ridden the bike before rode fairly well to bag a top 20 on stage 1 less than a minute down on the stage winner over an 8 mile course, possibly lost some time through the corners but happy enough with that result.

For stage 2 the weather changed and the rain came down heavily making the course extremely wet. Due to recent accidents I seem to have lost my old confidence through corners (which I am working on again), so kept dropping the wheel in front on corners, and after 1 hour I got fed up of chasing the wheel in front after every bend so I sat up and rolled around at recovery pace saving myself for day 2 and accepting that the GC had gone. I ended up 12 minutes down on the stage winner.

Cornering badly in the Criterium

So after a lonely night in a travelodge I was ready to smash up the opposition on stage 3, a hilly 90 mile stage ending on a 1.5 mile climb to the finish. A few attacks came and went early on, but nothing looked like staying away. At 30miles there was a group at 1m30 and a quartet chasing these guys just in front of the bunch, with most teams represented it looked like a strong move to go with so I soloed across to the chasers and we rode up to form the winning break of the day. I rode as tactically as I could trying to make the stronger teams work harder to stay away, but did more than my fair share of work in the break and after 60 miles off the front I had very little left for the final climb and rolled in 11th on the stage. A good result and I was happy to spend a day in the break after my early season bad luck, things are finally looking up. The time gaps back to the remaining riders were large but not large enough to offset my deficit from the previous stage so my final GC placing was a mediocre 29th.

Attacking up to the break

Riding in the chase group

 

My last road race in April was to be my biggest race of the year, the Rutland-Melton International CiCle Classic, a UCI 1.2 race with 12 continental teams and a field of almost 200 riders. I was feeling comfortable in the bunch for the first 50 miles until I hit a large pothole just before the feed zone and my bars twisted down in my stem making it impossible to ride. I stopped to get it fixed by the service car but couldn't chase back on through the off road sectors and was eventually pulled out. A disappointing way to drop out but as the race went on it became clear I wasn't the only one with problems, lots of mechanicals and punctures, along with the nature of the course meant that about 40 riders finished the race out of a starting field of almost 200. The race was a great experience and a taste of a higher level of racing, it has definitely shown me where I need to be in terms of ability. Time to get there!

My next race is the Stockbridge Down Road Race near Southampton on 5th May, hoping to put on a good showing in this race and kickstart the rest of my season with a strong result. Then the next big race is the Lincoln GP, part of the UK Premier Calendar series.

Ciao.

Winter & Early Season

Over the winter I had a lot of ups and downs, two different knee injuries put paid to over 3 weeks worth of winter training, but by the beginning of 2013 I was starting to get to where I needed to be. I had put in ~3,000 miles of winter base training and my knee injuries were being well treated with massage and stretching sessions. A solid two week training camp in the canary islands saw me move closer to race fitness and make big gains in the build up to the season, I was losing my winter puppy fat and getting towards race weight, and I felt more powerful than ever before. Two weeks back in the UK continuing with steady miles saw me continue to build towards the season, I did a small race in Essex and felt very strong coming in 2nd place, a good start to my racing in 2013.

In mid february I was once again boarding a plane and getting ready to spend 2 weeks in Spain to fine tune my top end speed ready to hit the early season at full speed. I did a huge first week riding for 32 hours in 8 days, and in hindsight this was too much. On the 9th day I began to feel rough and couldn't finish the long ride we had planned and was struggling to breathe on the climb up the Col de Rates, I took an early loop home and that was my last ride in Spain. I couldn't ride for the next week and felt very ill, this was incredibly disappointing in the build up to my first race. On return to the UK I saw the doctor and got diagnosed with a Chest Infection, got put on antibiotics. Next week diagnosed with Tonsillitis, put on antibiotics... then had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics! It seemed like this wasn't going away and finally the doctor took some blood tests and it transpired that I had Glandular Fever the whole time. By now I hadn't trained for 3 weeks and was still feeling tired, but beginning to see improvements in my throat and the swelling was going down.

After a whole month off the bike I finally began to ease back into training, and my first race back was a complete disaster... I lasted 20 minutes and it was clear to see the fitness I had lost. Nevertheless I have been training hard for the last two weeks and my fitness is improving quickly, I can see the gains being made and I am looking to be competing at the sharp end of races by the end of April, hopefully in time for the Rutland-Melton CiCle Classic on the 21st.

I am now back on track, looking forward to hitting the races hard and showing people the gains I've made over the winter.

I am proud to be representing AW Cycles Road Team for the 2013 season, we are a small elite team looking to score highly in the national rankings and surprise a few people with some big results in national b races. I will be riding a brand new Wilier Zero 7 for the year, a fantastic race bike and by far the best bike I have ever ridden. The team are supported by High 5 nutrition, exactly what we need to fuel us for the big races this year!

I am also very happy to be personally supported by BDL Group and Houston Cox Central, these guys are supporting me through my race calendar and I am very grateful for this. I am keen to repay the support from these businesses and will be promoting them throughout the season. Check out my sponsor page for full details.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to keeping you regularly updated throughout the season!

Ciao.