No More 'Real Coke!!!!'

Well another good weekend with the team has nowcome to an end and I won’t be seeing them for a few weeks now (apart from Drew as we’re going Spain). Saturdays race at Hillingdon seemed to Pan out well with LEWNOZ getting 2^nd in his event and Northern Start Matt Pilkzzz getting 2^nd to Lewis Atkins by half a wheel. I thought that I rode the race well considering how long I haven’t raced for. I was more just sitting in and blocking once the break of 8 riders (including Northern Star) had got away. For the bunch sprint there was still some minor points up for grabs so I thought I’d try my luck. Sitting about 7^th wheel behind a 4 man (and I use the word ‘man’ very loosely there) Welwyn ‘lead-out’ (once again using the word lead-out loosely) and then they just completely got in the way and that’s why children shouldn’t be riding elite races! The positioning then went mashed up and it turned into a bit of a free for all and I followed the Irish Legend Felix English through a gap where he provided his Cyclo-X skills... I probably came in the top 20 at least possibly top 15 but I will have to wait for the results to come out for that to be clarified. Sunday’s team ride and Photo Shoot was a good ride which totalled at a little over 130K and the team seemed to be strong. So with all that mileage done and a tad over 900 shots taken I was well up for a bottle of coke... but there was none left... as you can sense my devastation and sheer loss I’m going to have to cut this post there...

Adios Peoples

Catch Up Session

It's been a few days since I wrote anything on here so I decided to write something seeing as today I am having a much needed rest day! I'm on my second hard week since coming back from some rest. It's taking some time to shake my legs up but they seem to be coming along nicely. I am doing a lot of endurance work with efforts incorporated which isn't always fun seeing as both legs are screaming at me. One of the main reasons for writing this post is to talk about the weekend. This weekend the Team are doing a Hillingdon Winter Series race as part of our winter training calender just to see how everyone is doing and whereabouts are legs our at the moment so I'm looking forward to having the whole team at my home circuit and if everyone is feeling as strong as they seem then it should be a good race especially with the amount of us being there it should be easy to control the race. Although my season is still about a month away I thought I would thrown in some information about the first National Series of the year which is the Cadence Junior Road Race 2011. I did the race last year and i took quite a beating but i'm now a year stronger and I have brilliant stack of winter training behind me as well as a new frame of mind and a different support group. The Team riders doing this event are Tom Laker, Brock Duncumb-Rogers, Jack Oliver- Blaney, Lewis Norris and Tom Moore. Out of the 6 man squad only me and Brock have ridden the race before so hopefully we will be able to help those who haven't done the event not to make the mistakes that we did. The profile for the race is bellow. Sunday is also another big day for the team as we have a Cycling Weekly photo shoot for their 'ride of the week' section which is usually a double page spread so keep an eye out for us in there...

Ill post an update of the weekends activities/banter next week! Adios

Weekend of Pain?

So another weekend has come and gone now, and a hard one was yet again on the schedule with 9 hours of riding with some sweet spots. The ride time for Saturday was supposed to be 4 hours and Sunday with 5 hours. Instead the Saturday’s ride turned out to be 6 hours long and just over 100 very hilly miles! Fortunately I was not alone during the whole process starting my ride into surrey with Tanveer Mann and Lawrence Carpenter before meeting Tom Laker and Dante Carpenter in the cafe at the foot of Box Hill where myself, Tanveer and Lawrence enjoyed a quick break after riding two hours to meet the boys. Once the coffee had been chugged down the 5 of us set of into surrey with Dante taking us on a nice loop and it was tremendously hilly. With me having next to no knowledge of surreys roads apart from the route to Box it was nice to be on different roads and with a good sized bunch of people for a good speed. In true style sprinting for every place sign it was definitely challenging on the legs. After about an hour and three quarters with Lakerman and Dazza they left us at the bottom of White-down and me and Lawrence managed to get up it fine but by this time Tanveer ‘s legs were fatigued. Once we hit the top I got home in about 2 hours taking me up to 6 hours of riding and a quality training session with some good lads. Sunday came and this meant I only had to do 3 hours but other people weren’t about so I did it on my own in Richmond Park. It takes me about an hour to get there and then an hour home so I fit in 3 laps and surprisingly my legs didn’t feel too bad until about 10k from my house!

Night Rider

Well it’s been a hard couple of days with a 3 and a 4 hour ride back to back with some pretty hard efforts in. I spent the majority of yesterday with Jake Martin and in the ride included two 15 minute efforts which I did on my own before meeting him. Once with him we met some Kingston Riders and they were about to start 10 sets of 40 seconds on 40 seconds off which we also did and they burnt me big time. Today’s ride was 4 hours or so and the weather was very nice to be out in. I was with Lawrence Carpenter and we rode out into the outskirts of Surrey which was pleasant with a few little climbs before finishing the ride off in the dark at Richmond Park. The pictures on this post are from today. I’m happy to say

I have a rest day tomorrow and it has came at the perfect time because right now my legs feel pretty bad!

Busy Busy Busy

Okay so it’s been a good few days since i have wrote anything on here but I was saving a post to be as epic as the likes of Tom Lakerman’s and Brocks... hopefully it will be! The team and I have had a busy few days with a hectic Newport session on Saturday night which was a three hour leg mashing session. As there were no more than 15 of us on the track the session had no time wasted as we was on the track for 90% of the three hours. The session was taken by Scott again who is a top track coach and gave us all a quality work-out. During the session we had a good half hour warm up which then followed by some standing starts. Then we went on to doing some individual efforts up at the top of the track (where it’s dusty and all of the spiders and cobwebs are according to Drew) which was hard as the bunch was controlling your speed and I was lucky enough to have Brock beneath me on one occasion and he managed to give me a cheeky smile before ripping my legs to bits. After a quick 10 minutes rest which gave us enough time for a ‘wicked yes’. The team then got back onto the track for the final efforts with a lower group on the black and the higher group on the blue at high speed. Obviously in Progressive Cycle Coaching Development Squad Style everything we did turned out to be a race. So every time Scott gave us 10 to go it was game on. I felt pretty strong and I feel that the juniors came out on top over the under 23’s with Brock and Myself managing to shred it in the last 10 laps or so! We still have another session yet which has been promised to be even harder still so I’m looking forward to that a lot. Another thing some of the team will be looking forward to is racing on the track this year as one of the targets will be the track nationals for the juniors! I’m now going into another block of training after my recovery week so that will be hard. There are a few key dates coming up in this block. We have the first race as a team of the season coming up on the 29^th January at Hillingdon which should be a good one providing everyone rides as well as they did at the track! We also have a Cycling Weekly photo shoot for their ‘ride of the week’ section in the magazine on the 20^th January. That should be pretty fun although we are doing our ride on the hardest circuit we use! And then looking further ahead I’m off to Spain on a training camp on February 12^th. There’s also another Newport Session which is to be confirmed so it’s a busy few weeks with plenty of hard hours on the bike!

Christmas Again

In true blog fashion I will be starting the blog in SOOOOO, my wheels literally have just came about 15 minutes ago which is strange because its nearly 8 o'clock. It really does feel like my new bike is starting to all come together. I'm yet to ride them obviously but they look good and the reviews for them are fantastic. unfortunately Brock's haven't been delivered yet so he will have to stare at the photo for one more day :)

Rain, Wind & Mud

So the weather seems to of timed itself pretty well this week as lets be honest its been pretty terrible! I'm currently on a a recovery week which me and my legs are happy about because last week finished quite an intensive block of high mileage and efforts with a great deal of turbo work! It's now Wednesday and i'm due my first outing of the week on the road. Nothing overly stressful on my legs in terms of mileage but with 15 telecoms involved it still had some pretty high intensity intervals! I came home soaked and ridiculously muddy my white oversocks had turned grey and my legs were soaked due to going through a deep puddle despite of un-clipping and lifting them up. It was pretty windy in the more exposed parts of the route i went on today and windy in general at the best of times but it's all good... not long till i'm in Spain on some good dry roads.

New Season, New Look

So the season is getting close now and as well as changing the bike i wanted a slight change of image, so I opted to get myself some Oakley Jawbones. They came this morning and I think that they look really nice and they have such a comfy fit which is good! I'm currently saving money to take out to Spain but after the training camp I'm looking to get some money for new shoes!

9 Hours

So this weekend resulted in me riding a total of 9 hours... It was pretty hard with a good ride on the Saturday out to box hill then back again into London before returning home which was 5 hours dead funnily enough. Sunday was a team ride with loads of banter... Quote of The Day was ''I just broke my cleat...Thats what she said'' you probably had to be there. Also the new phrase L.A.D Positive was created my Tizzle Hizzle also known as Laker man also known as Tom Laker. The ride was just a fraction short of four hours with us being joined 2 and a half hours in by Josh, Doug and Tom Copeland who are all strong riders and with pretty knackered legs already having Tom (Sigma Sport) smashing it up the climbs, well it felt like smashing it at the time but for him was probably taking it easy but as a full time pro it was good for him to come out with us, it was also good to catch up with josh because I haven't seen him in person for quite a while. Comoros I plan to sleep and eat a lot and then a half hour or so spin on the roller...

Thats about it? As The Irish Legend Felix English would say, Ciao ;)

The Weekend

So the first proper weekend of 2011 for training and it should be pretty hard, with a good 85 - 90 miles tomorrow morning with Lawrence Carpenter (Rapha Condor). Sunday we have yet again another squad ride which i'm looking forward to a lot because its another chance for everyone to be together ,and its great getting to know the new riders more. So it's another 4 hours on the menu for Sunday!

Weathers Killing Me Again

So the weather has once again got me onto the turbo for a 2 hour session. With it pouring down with rain and some sleet around its only sensible to stay in the garage to avoid being ill, which would be so bad at this time of the year as it would kill at least a week of training! The session i did was really hard with a 20 minute effort and Telekom 40's 15 of them. A proper burn out but after 2 hours I was dead!!! I cant wait to get to Spain, not long now though.

Wednesday

So Wednesdays actions resulted in a early turbo session. well i had to get up at 5:45 which by my standards and with my current sleeping pattern was horrible. It was telekom forties 40 seconds on 20 seconds off and 15 of them which killed me. After school i headed down to the gym for 2 hours or so to work on some last minute core and upper body strength before going to Spain in a few weeks and before the racing starts!

New Year

Okay just bringing to attention that I have my first race with the Team at Hillingdon in 25 days time! this is quite a scary thought when i come to think of it. Ive still got a good 3 weeks of training before this though which is quality and during the three weeks there is another team training ride and a team session at Newport which will be good for all the lads to train together to see where we are plus its fun and will be a hard session. Also before then i will be putting my bike together which is going to be really good and should get me a few placings over. Until then the training is more on my mind before i jet off to Spain to ride the climbs in some heat hopefully for a week with Drew Holmes which i'm looking forward to and having my coach on hand for a whole week will really help too. Also it's back to sixth form tomorrow but before that happens i have a morning turbo session before a full set of lessons followed by a savage gym session!