The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: My Year So Far
Having successfully neglected my blog for the best part of seven months, I’ve decided it’s about time I pulled my finger out and showed it a bit of TLC, so I’ve bashed out a few (hundred) words on what I’ve been up to and how my 2016 season has gone so far …
As the title eludes to, it’s been a mixed year for me and one in which I’ve experienced both a number of set backs and disappointments, but also a healthy dose of success. After a few rounds of the Newport Winter Track League at the start of the year to fire up the engines, my racing began in earnest back in mid-March with the British University (BUCS) Track Championships, for which I’d worked really hard to prepare for over the winter. Despite being in great shape physically thanks to the expertise of both my coach Borut and the High Performance Team back at University in Birmingham, I left Manchester somewhat disappointed after falling just short in my quest to win a medal over the course of the weekend, though not for the want of trying. In the elimination race, my 10th place was the result of poor officiating by the race commissaires (referees), who managed to make a mess of the entire race, and then a slight tactical miscalculation on my part in the hotly contested points race resulted in me finishing in a slightly frustrating, yet credible, 5th place.
With the track champs behind me, my attention switched to the road and to an April packed with exciting races. Unfortunately though, I was struck down by a nasty virus which sapped me of all of my strength and completely wiped away the form I’d worked hard to build up over the winter. Having eventually gotten over the illness, I was then brought down in a crash in my first road race at the start of April, so all-in-all it was far from the kind of preparation I’d hoped for prior to my first national series race of the year; the infamous Tour of the Reservoir.
Still feeling below par as the race got underway, I battled through the worst of the Northumbria weather (sleet, snow and temperatures loitering around freezing) to make it ’round the first stage whilst many others bailed and threw in the towel – albeit at the price of vomiting into a carrier bag in the back of the team car at the finish. Satisfied with the commitment I’d shown on day one, I dug in during the first 50 km of a very lumpy stage 2, only for my race to come to an abrupt end when my front wheel collapsed (for no apparent reason) as I descended at close to 50 mph off the top of the moors that I’d just spent the last few miles dragging my sorry carcass over. Needless to say I hit the road very, very hard indeed but, in a perverse kind of way, the cycling gods must have been smiling on me that day as miraculously – and to this day I honestly still don’t know how – I escaped with relatively minor injuries. Sure, I suffered some rather large and nasty cuts and I smashed my arms and hips up a fair bit but, at the end of the day, I was able to get up and walk away from the incident with my face still in tact and all my limbs still just about in working order – a much better fate than others I’ve known to have crashed in similar circumstances.
The arrival of May finally brought about a change in my fortunes and I began the month by recording my first win of the season in the varsity race at the Loughborough University Campus Criteriums. At Castle Combe a week-and-a-half later I saw off some stellar competition to take win number two, a victory I’m really pleased with as it was the perfect combination of racing with both my head and my legs. A second place from a breakaway on stage 2 of the Tour of the Milburys was also enough to see me finish runner-up overall on GC at the race, a result I swiftly backed up with another second place at the Nottingham University GP.
Naturally, I enjoyed my victory on enemy turf in Loughborough
The BUCS Road and Criterium Championships back-ended the month and it proved to be a brutal weekend on multiple fronts. The road race took place on one of the hardest courses, if not the hardest, that I’ve ever has the displeasure to ride and after making a couple of breaks early on, I was happy to just to make it to the finish! I had high hopes for the Criterium the following day however as I looked to regain my title from 2014. Unfortunately though, two crashes (one minor, one not so minor) in the hour-long race somewhat hampered my bid for victory and I ended up finishing in 10th place with far less of my shorts, skin and modesty than when I first started the race. My efforts weren’t in vain however as I was subsequently awarded a ‘wattage bazooka’ by the race organisers from the University of York and, as everyone knows, days of bleeding through your clothing, sleepless nights and being unable to sit down for the best part of a week is but a small price to pay in exchange for a bit of street cred …
BUCS round-up, well worth a watch! My five seconds of fame come around the 7 min mark, and a great shout-out for UoB at the end!
With the BUCS championships out of the way and the first half of the season behind me, I took a step back from racing in June due to other University commitments (boring stuff like exams etc.) and I chose to focus more on my training throughout both this time and July. Now that August is here, I’ll be pinning on a number again in the very near future and I’m hoping that I’ll be able recapture the kind of form I had throughout May and go on to finish the season strongly.
Hopefully I’ll have added to my collection of bubbly by the end of the year …
Next up for me is the Leicester Castle Classic, the final round of the National Road Series, in just over a weeks time. After that, I’m planning on squeezing in a couple more national B road races and crits before I head back to Uni in mid-September, at which point I’ll switch my focus to the BUCS Track Championships once again which will take place in November for the 16-17 academic year (as opposed to the conventional date in March).
It may/may not please some of you to know that I have a couple of announcements to follow in the days to come, so if you find yourself with nothing to do please check back and waste fifteen minutes of your lives reading my waffley garbage. Someone’s got to … haven’t they?