Head 1 : Heart 0

My head won and I’ve taken the tough decision to pull out of the Scottish Road Race Championships despite it being the first big race of my season. It is absolutely the right decision for the long term and the rest of my goals, but nonetheless the decision hurt my heart in doing so. I feel emotionally flat. But I think that’s normal when you pour so much of yourself into training / racing, and sacrifice so much “normal” stuff.

The Champs aren’t the be-all and end-all of my season, but with consistent top 10 placings in my races so far, there was the opportunity to do one better in this race going into it with some tapering. I’ve now re-focused my season, dropping some further races and adding a few more in.

The decision has kick started a huge determination to get my form back over the next two weeks and I’m ready to suffer to get there. I’m glad I can do this safely, monitoring my heart rate variability readings (HRV) which is more sophisticated than resting heart rate alone. The last two days have seen perfect readings so I can return to training safe in the knowledge that I’m over the cold, and that although training may hurt, its nothing to worry about. I had a similar pattern the last time I finished a course of antibiotics and rest, and went on to put in a 15 hour followed by 16 hour week of training with perfect HRV readings throughout, so I’m hopeful of the same this time.

So this weekend I’ll be focusing 100% on quality training and rest, but there will be no denying that there will be a pang of sadness on Sunday morning when I wake up…so hopefully my coach will have set me a suitable sufferfest training session to take my mind off it

Heart vs Head…

My 2 week course of antibiotics has finished, the cold is out of my system, my bite has almost (but not quite) gone, and I’m back on my bike. Progress! I’m feeling stronger each day, more like ‘me’ again, and thankfully, my legs feel like mine again too! My HRV readings are normal, even now that I’ve started the build up to training again. However, the antibiotics are still in my system and my immune system is still compromised – this isn’t great when you work in an office where people seem to be always ill!

After 5 days of Z1 on the rollers, I’ve had two slightly harder sessions with some threshold work thrown in. It was a huge shock to the system, both physically and mentally after almost a week off the bike, followed by Z1 on the rollers. The reality is, I only worked hard for a total of 15mins but my legs burned and screamed at me to stop. I’m good at suffering, I like to suffer, I never crack or give up but this took every inch of determination I had to finish each 5 min session. Its hard to tell how much I’ve lost, I feel unfit, slow and fat. The reality probably isn’t that, and once my body remembers that it likes to work hard, I’m sure I’ll be back to where I was in no time. My legs are complaining a little today, not sore or tired as such, but I can tell that I used them last night. Normally after such short intervals, they’d be feeling fine.

I’m in the midst of a debate with my head vs my heart about whether I should race the Scottish Road Race Championships on Sunday. To help move the decision along, I drew up a list of pros and cons. The cons sit at 9, the pros at 3. On paper then, it seems the decision is clear. Talking on the phone to Colin last night, we both share the same concerns about me racing on Sunday. The trouble is one of the three pros is something I strongly believe in with both heart and mind. But I am coming round to understanding that I’m ruled my by head and its highly likely that I won’t race. This is one time where I will have to put aside the “better to do it and regret it, than not do it and regret it” moto, simply because I would *never* forgive myself if I underperformed in this race having been ill and with antibiotics still in my system – underperforming once in Cheshire Classic was bad enough, but that was because the infection was at its peak so it doesn’t count. Secondly, I know that I could compromise my main goal of the season in September if I race when I’m (potentially) not ready for it. Whatever I decide, I have to get to a place where I’m a 100% happy and committed to that decision and I’m a little further forward on that journey than I was last night.

I miss racing a lot, despite not enjoying the last few races that I did, but that was down to being ill more than anything else. I’ve got lots to look forward to in June, including my first ever stage race (a 10mile TT and a 30mile road race) followed by a crit the next day, then I have the next 5 weekends packed full of racing before I get some down time. And as for the short term, tonight I am going to ride my bike (hopefully in the sun) and not think about anything but turning the pedals.

A fairly big bitey blip

Everything was going to plan in April, until a tick bite resulted in stage one Lyme Disease and a hefty dose of antibiotics. This played havoc with my immune system resulting in my first proper cold in ages; a week and counting off the bike and a few training races missed…but at least now I know why my form wasn’t as good as it should have been in my last two races. Sadly everyone else’s season has continued whilst mine has ground to a halt, and I’ve slipped from 13th in the National Cat 2 ranking to 18th.

Rest, rest, rest…going a bit stir crazy with it, especially with the Scottish RR Champs rapidly approaching. I’m unsure if I will be well enough, and race fit enough to race. Thankfully either way, its not the be all and end all of my season as my big goal for the year is in September so there’s still 4 months to go, and tons of races before then.

Many thanks to my coach Colin for being super supportive and reassuring about the rest of my season since my diagnosis with regular texts, emails and phone calls to see how I’m getting on The current plan is to take each day as it comes for the next few days as I’m beginning to get over the cold and aim for several good weeks of training at the end of May / beginning of June, before I go into 3 races over 2 days in June.

A weekend of road racing

Apologies for the long post, you might want to get a coffee before you read on…

With a rare 3 week gap between races, I’ve been settling into my new training plan, and put in 20 hours of training over 4 days in Majorca in 30deg sunshine!

I came home to find that I’d got a start at the Cheshire Classic RR – over 120 riders entered and the field size is limited to 70. I’m not yet sure if I was more nervous or excited to get a start – it will be my first ever National Series race and I have butterflies already!

Last weekend I was racing at the Glasgow Wheelers RR and the 3rd CDNW RR in the series. Both were about as far apart as you could get, the first in Garelochhead, the other in Knutsford.

This is the first time I’ve done two road races back to back, and my coach was keen to get a benchmark of where I am after racing two days in a row with travel in between as we move towards my main goal of the season.

Saturday’s race kicked off with a 15% climb to reach the race briefing and a chance to see where the finish was at the top of this. Evil!! After a long delay, the field of 50 got going. The neutralised start (all uphill) blew the race apart, and the lead car stopped the race for everyone to come together again.

When we stopped, I started to feel really sick and was coughing lots, it like something was stuck in my lungs. At one point had to swap places with Alexa as I thought I was actually going to be sick standing waiting for the race to start again! Thankfully I wasn’t, and I later discovered this was down to my energy bars containing wheat (I’ve recently discovered that I have a wheat intolerance).

Eventually we got going again, and I was glad I wasn’t feeling as sick anymore. After the climbs, we went into a fast descent with a sharp left hander at the bottom and gravel on the side of the road. I think we were pretty much still together along the shore road which was interesting with pot holes and fairly big ruts in the road. The pace took its toil on some of the bunch, with people starting to go backwards.

After a while I decided to move into the middle of the bunch to shelter from the wind, but soon came to regret this move because as we turned a corner into a climb, someone attacked off the front and I couldn’t go with them as I was boxed in. I managed to move out of the bunch to begin chasing, getting to within 2 bike lengths of the 5 leaders (pretty good going given I was boxed in and lost a lot of time getting out of the bunch to chase) but I couldn’t close that gap. As we turned into the next descent, I hit 70kph trying to catch them, tucking myself into the most aero position I could get. But that 2 bike length gap may as well have been 10miles as I just couldn’t close down the gap, and eventually they got further away from me. Then I was on my own.

TT’ing my way round solo with the wind and the hills wasn’t part of the plan as I was keen to keep my legs fresh for Sunday’s race, so I was quite glad when a chasing rider caught me. We worked together for a while, before a chasing bunch of 6 – which included Evgenia – working well in a chaingang and caught us.

We worked well until we turned the corner into the 15% hill. I was feeling really strong and the pace was too easy for me, but I didn’t attack knowing it would be better to stay with the group and get some shelter rather than solo it round. We re-grouped and started to work until we reached the long climb, which again disrupted the chaingang, with only 3 or 4 of us working. I was still feeling good so took my fair share of work on the front. However when I tried to eat, I felt sick again so stopped eating in case I was actually sick but wasn’t overly happy with this decision as I knew I needed to fuel well today for tomorrow’s race.

We caught 3 other riders, but despite an increased group for the chaingang, we still didn’t manage to catch the lead group of 5. Coming into the last climb – the 15% – Laura attacked and got a gap, then Sarah went. I tried to go but went too hard too soon and had to recover, sitting on Fiona and Jay’s wheel. Ready to go again, I decided to go left at the same time as Jay wobbled left. There wasn’t enough room between her and the grass so I had to ease off, then drop back and go right….which eventually lead to 10th place.

So close – if only i’d gone right the first time.

Initially more annoyed than pleased with my result, I’ve slowly come round to being happy with my performance, and 10th in the company of 3 Breast Cancer Care riders, 1 MG Maxifuel rider and Fiona Duncan from the GB team is pretty good going. Its also driven home the fact that no matter what the course – a hard hilly course or a flat crit/road race, I can consistently produce top 10 results so I am on the right track for this years goals and happy with that. Well done to Evgenia for 15th, Alexa for 22nd, and Peggy for 24th.

After that it was time to drive south to Knutsford for Sundays race. Alexa and I didn’t arrive until after 9pm, and I was starving. I knew I’d not eaten enough as I was struggling to find wheat free options for carbs. I was still wide awake at 1am, and woke up at 5.45am so hungry I had to get up to eat and then couldn’t get back to sleep.

Safe to say I was feeling pretty rubbish by warm up time, but my legs felt good and my HR was slow to rise during my warm up, so I knew despite the fatigue from lack of sleep, I was in (mostly) good shape.

Our race was delayed so there was a bit of hanging around in the hall after warming up. Alexa and I got a great position in the neutral start, both of us 2nd wheel back. It was fast enough to warm up again, but not fast enough to hurt.

My coach was watching the race, and we’d had a chat before I set off so his final words were ringing in my ears once the race began. I managed to never drop out of the top 10 for the first 50mins or so, opting to hold my line in the wind and suffer rather than drop back for shelter.

Annie Simpson (yes *the* Annie Simpson) attacked off the front and 4 riders re-acted and went with her. Typically this was the only time I wasn’t high enough up the bunch and by the time I realised the gap that they had got, combined with who was in the break, well…it was game over! I was gutted when I realised I’d missed the break again, especially having been so good in March at getting into breaks, but its impossible to be in the right place in the peloton at every single second.

The remaining bunch was quite small – maybe around 20 – after a nasty crash had splintered it and no-one was really wanting to work to chase the lead group. We chainganged a little but never enough to up the pace enough to cut down the time gap on the lead group.

On the front with my moves being covered by the Maxgear team

At about 1 hour 20 in I was in a bad way. My legs were great but every muscle in my body hurt (and I mean hurt) and my head went down. It was an odd feeling for my legs to feel great but to be so weary with fatigue from lack of sleep. I took on board more gels but realised what I actually needed was to fuel every 30mins as I was so tired from lack of sleep, but I didn’t have enough with me as I don’t usually need that much fuel.

Soon all my gels were gone and I was concerned but there was nothing I could do. It’s a good job I am happy to suffer because the last 20mins of the race was torture! I’ve never been so sore from head to toe coming into the finish, but worked hard to maintain (and not be squeezed out of) my position, second wheel from the front, despite thinking we were further ahead than we really were! So it was elbows out and bars ahead of the riders on either side of me, as I kept my focus. A maxgear girl went really early and got a gap, then I tried to go but it because i was running on empty, i wasn’t as mentally sharp as i needed to be to find my way through the riders in front of me and in the end, it wasn’t much of a sprint, crossing the line in 10th, with Alexa in 11th. If I’d have had more fuel, I’m sure I could have fought harder for 6th place from the remaining bunch. However, it was good enough to retain my 3rd place ranking in the series so I’m happy with that.

Another good days work, lots of lessons learned over the weekend, a few tactical mistakes, and lots of positives – with a very hilly race in my legs the day before, lack of sleep and despite running out of fuel, I can still be there for the sprint finish at the end, and place top 10.

A big thanks to my coach Colin from http://www.totalcyclecoach.com/ and to the race squad sponsors – Bolland and Burke, Field and Lawn, Tri Centre and Bicycle Works.

New coach on board for 2013

For 2013, I am being coached by Colin Batchelor of Total Cycle Coach – Total Cycle Coach Colin is based in England, and is manager of new women’s race team, Team 22.

Colin has already been a big support to me during my first races of the season down south, and I am confident that he can help me step up my training and racing. Colin is also a life coach, and I really like the way this interacts with racing and training.

My new training plan has just kicked off and I’ve found the transition to his style of coaching very smooth. He has put a plan in place for Majorca which I can’t wait to work on when I get out there, there’s good training sessions combined with new technique work. My sessions will be no more than 3 hours a day, and the rest of the time I’ll be putting my feet up in the sun (hopefully) and getting some quality R&R – something I really need just now.

More racing

It has been a busy few weeks and I’ve raced 5 times (two road races and 3 crits) so far with mostly top 10 placings. I’ve been pretty happy with all the races (except for one – top tip, don’t race deep section wheels in a crit that has a howling cross wind on the corner! Scary doesn’t describe it!). I’ve learnt loads (mostly that I’m being beaten by girls half my age and I’m beginning to feel old on the race scene!) and most importantly, I’ve been loving every minute of it.

I’ve been discovering how I perform racing two days in a row, and delighted that my legs have been feeling better in the second race of the weekend so my nutrition and recovery is spot on.

I went into last weekends races – a crit race on Saturday and a road race on Sunday – with a fair amount of training in my legs. The crit race was quite aggressive this week, plenty of attacks and the average speed was faster than the week before. I’ve been pleased to discover that I feel very relaxed and confident riding in a bunch this year, and happy cornering at speed with riders on both sides of me too – big improvement since last year!

Despite the attacks, it came down to a sprint finish, and I narrowly missed coming down in a crash about 1/4 of a lap before the finish line, going on to take 9th.

The next day was a road race which I was really looking forward to after so the last 3 crit races – road racing is what I love the most.

With a new improved warm up thanks to cycling coach, Colin Batchelor, I got on with the task of warming up in a muddy barn, amongst the rubble and straw. But my warm up was pretty much a waste of time as we then stood around in the cold for about 20mins. It was a rolling start but quite brisk and having gone into cool down mode, I pretty much hated the first 10mins of the race until I warmed up again. Then all of the sudden, I was loving it and feeling good.

The race had plenty of attacks, and was made interesting by the narrow lanes and number of parked and oncoming cars that meant the bunch had to squeeze in many times. During the briefing we were told not to go off the side of the road, as if we did, we’d not been seen again due to the deep ditches at either side! It was a pretty fast race – at one point I was sitting on the front and looked down to see we were doing 45kph! None of the attacks were sticking, but it didn’t stop people from trying.

One of the Maxgear girls went off the front and as I moved onto the front of the bunch, I saw the chance to go with her. I sprinted off the front, managing again not to take any riders with me and caught her.

Two other riders subsquently bridged the gap, including another Maxgear girl. I knew there was another 3 Maxgear girls in the bunch, and Alexa had been on my wheel before i left the bunch, so hoped they’d control the race for a while. We got ourselves organised eventually and began to chaingang. We had a reasonable gap on the bunch, but then 1 girl stopped coming through, followed by another. That left me working with one Maxgear girl, towing the other 2 along. I knew this wouldn’t be enough to make it stick, and we eventually got caught. We stayed away for a while though, and from this I learnt that I’m much stronger now than I was at the beginning of March – form is coming!

Towards the end of the race, a horse box ended up between the bunch and the lead car which was interesting…the pace slowed as we sat behind it. Eventually the NEG bikes asked the horse box to pull over but as we were about 1/4 of the way past it, it set off again and there was much yelling and shouting. One of things I like about racing down south is how much the girls talk to each other – people let you know they are coming past/what side etc. Whereas up here, that doesn’t happen and riders often don’t even look before changing lines.

The final 3 miles were a bit mad in narrow lanes with both oncoming and parked cars. The pace ramped up and everytime we passed a car, the bunch squeezed together. I was managing to hold 15-20th place in the bunch but couldn’t move up as there wasn’t space anywhere to move (unless I wanted to ride in the ditches at the side of the roads!) and the continued squeezing / opening out of the bunch wasn’t helping matters. I had a girl’s bars touching my hip and someones tyre was buzzing my back wheel at one point! I knew where I wanted to be, but I just couldn’t get there!

When those on the front started sprinting, i thought gaps might open up and i’d have a chance to move, but i was only able to squeeze through a few places before finding a row of riders in front of me, none of who were properly sprinting for 8-15th place… it might only be 8-15th, but top 10 is better than 15+! Very frustrating to be not able to sprint across the line and cruise comfortably over for 15th place when I know I could have finished top 10 again. Its all good experience and learning though and I loved todays race, it goes down as my favourite race to date, not for placings, but just how much I loved racing. Well done to Louise for 3rd place, and Alexa for 7th place.

With the league sheet now out, I’m pleased to be sitting in 3rd place in the CDNW league overall, and 6th in prime league! Delighted.

My 1st RR of 2013

Since my last post, I’ve managed to get back on top of my stress levels, my RHR returned to normal, I passed track accreditation 4 at the velodrome, and I had 3 weeks of good training in sunny weather. It seems that good quality sleep is key for my recovery, as I could pile on the training during this time and recovered excellently after each session.

Suddenly March arrived, and despite having waited impatiently for my season to start, I wished I could pause time for another few weeks to fit in some more training!

My focus this year is again on road races, then crit races, and probably some TTs thrown in for training. I feel about 6 weeks behind where I’d like to be, but that’s maybe no bad thing as I’ve got a long season ahead, with 8 races in March alone. I will finish my season in mid September with an international women’s stage race (6 stages over 5 days). My season is focused around gaining experience of stage races and racing two days or more in a row. I am also going to be trying the British National series too.

Over the winter I’ve been spending a lot of time in the gym, working on my core and building strength. On the bike, all intensity was dropped and replaced with lots of Z2 on the rollers, along with a bit of time at the velodrome. I’ve enjoyed my time on the track but there’s sacrifices to be made when it comes to racing and training, and I am now giving up the track until the winter to focus on the road. I’ve lost 2.5kgs of weight so far, and along with my new (warranty replacement) race bike, the combined weight loss from me and the bike is around 4kgs.

I’d had some early indications that I was coping well with training when the intensity increased, and I survived sitting in with the fast 9.40s early in the year having not done any high intensity work until that point (thanks guys, i promise next time you see me i’ll be working! ) An (unplanned) one off epic 5 hour ride with Alexa with over 6,000ft of ascent showed I’ve still endurance too.

The week running up to the race didn’t go as well as I’d have liked with a really bad nights sleep impacting on my ability to recover and a raised RHR. I managed one good session on the bike which gave me some confidence for Sunday, and then chose to rest up. Better to be under trained but rested and keen, than have a high RHR and not be able to perform well.

My first race was on Sunday, down past Wigan. I went into the race with no expectations of placings. I wanted to see how my legs were, what I needed to work on, get back into the swing of racing again and sort out my nutrition. I also wanted to get to know the girls and teams I’d be racing against this season as the majority of my races are in England this year.

After signing on, I realised I was missing familiar faces, friends and other ERC riders. Thankfully Andy had come with me, and I had additional support from Colin Batchelor, team manager of Team 22 – a new women’s race team based in England.

After warming up (in the sun!) on the rollers, we set off from HQ behind the NEG motorbikes, arriving at the start line 15mins early. I had a good place on the start line and faced the decision of keeping that place but being cold by the time the race started, or heading off to keep warm. I choose to keep riding and went to ride the course. When the time came to start the race, I was 3rd row back but I wasn’t overly worried.

About 3 laps in, a girl from Maxgear went off the front. With no immediate chase forming, the bunch stayed together. I started to move around the bunch, keeping an eye on the teams and trying to learn as much as I could about them.

A few riders had some digs off the front, but they were chased down quickly. After about 50mins, a few girls attacked but this time they gained a gap and there didn’t seem to be a chase forming. The lone rider was still off the front too. I had a clear view of those who had just attacked and could see both were from separate teams and thought there might be a chance that break would stick so I attacked from my position and making sure I didn’t take riders with me by giving it a max effort sprint. I eventually bridged the gap, but realised (to my dismay) that it was far too early in the year for me to be strong enough to cope with working in a break to make it stick (I’m not looking to peak until May). Aerobically I was fine with the effort, but my legs were not happy! We tried for about a lap before getting caught and I sat in to rest.

As the race progressed, I found I was feeling stronger. The pace went up for the sprint primes and although I hadn’t intended to go for these (opting to save my energy for when it counted the most), I found myself feeling good enough to move up the bunch, coping well with the faster pace.

After 13 laps, we finally caught the Maxgear girl and I knew it would come down to a sprint finish. With 2 laps to go, the bunch was still together. With 1 lap to go, I gave myself a talking to and followed a wheel I trusted, getting into a good position. But I got intimidated out of my line as riders basically squeezed me out of it and I started going backwards in the bunch, dropping out of the top 10 to maybe 15th. Not ideal, but I saw a space emerge and although I had no wheel to sit on for a sprint, I knew I could hold it to the finish line, and sprinted past riders to cross the line in 6th place.

Really happy with this start to my season, especially in a sprint finish up against some very strong riders and teams.

Special thanks to all those who have encouraged and supported me over winter, including my bf Andy, Gareth George, my mentor Genevieve Whitson, Alexa Mair, Stu Davies, Craig Hardie and Colin Batchelor, manager of Team 22 WRT, who went above and beyond to support me and the bf during our races.

The race squad is grateful for the continued support of its sponsors, Alpine Bikes, Field and Lawn, The Bicycle Works and the Tri Centre