Ups and Downs

The thing with a blogging cyclist is that there is often a desire to tell everyone how well you are doing and all of the good things that are happening to you at the current time. This season I will be reporting every race that I do however badly or well I go. Unfortunately the first race of the season on Saturday at Hog Hill went as bad as a race could possibly go. Me, Drew, Matt and Henry rode in the Elites at the circuit. The weather was the worst I had ever raced in as far as I can remember. Starting the race cold even though I had followed my normal warm up procedures left me dropped after 5 laps. The reasons for this I have been told by my coach are that my body is simply not ready for the strain when a lot of pressure is being put down. This all makes sense to me now even though the race was frustrating as still recovering from the Spanish training camp and changing my training style from long endurance rides to power and speed work. You can see from the picture how bad the weather was. This was the attack that pushed me over the limit just before I was dropped as you can see from the gap.

Sunday was the last of the squad training rides of the winter calendar. We was on the hill reps course we used last winter and the whole ride I felt strong fighting hard to make every pedal turn count. I blew up with about 1 mile to go as my legs had nothing left in them what so ever.

Finally, Today I started the first session on power and speed. It was a hill repeat session which involved me going up and down a hill I use in the Hatch End area. The session was very hard as at the minute every pedal stroke is counting to my future in the sport. There was plenty of pain going through my legs especially in my quads!

I’m racing in the first of the SERRL’s summer series events on Sunday on the Lamberhurst/Frant circuit. It’s an E/1/2/3 race and is 125KMS. Alongside me racing will be; Tom Laker, Brock Duncumb-Rogers, Drew Holmes and Will Kemp.