This year has been an unusual one for me. In mid february last year I was involved in a RTA with a car resulting in surgery and about 2 Months off the bike. I had just started training again when in May I made the decision to start full time work for the RNLI as Lifeguard resulting in up to 70 hour working weeks, this meant that from May to September I was doing an average of only 4-5 hours on the bike. So going from 12-15 hours on the bike before my accident down to barely anything at all I could really tell how much that affected my fitness and my mental heath as well.
Despite this, I still decided I would do all the national circuit rounds and to my surprise, I was still able to finish them all in the mid pack even on such little training. Personally I think this is what kept me going in the hard times, the fact I could still keep up with the pros in races such as Otley with no training left the question in my head of if I can keep up now imagine how good I will be next year when I'm back to my best. One of the times I proved this to myself this year was at Fort Vale circuit, the previous year I had got 2nd in this race in the 234s so going into the race I was confident even with the no training and racing in the E12 race instead as well. In this race on the 2nd lap, I hit one of the grids on the home straight and bent my saddle but despite that I still raced this race really well have a couple goes off the front with some others and riding it all from the front, as the race was coming to a close and the last 5 ish laps remaining that same grid struck again but this time giving me a rear flat ending my race with 5 to go, as you can imagine it was a bittersweet finish to this race with the DNF but at the same time I looked at my training leading up to this race and I had 2 weeks off before and had done only a 4 hour of training that week of the race.
In September-october when the lifeguard season had finished and I was back to full health and started back with my coach we decided to start working towards track nationals in February. In the time that I started riding again I entered a few track races with one of them being a UCI class 2 race call the Cymru Velo Track Cup, i entered the race as a bit of a joke not telling anyone, and even using my own name as my manager and as the rider so I could even get an entry in. 2 weeks before the race I was catching up on my emails when it turns out I got an email confirming I had gotten into the race. I then let the coach and my parents know so we could start planning the race and by the time I had gotten to the race I was at an ok level of fitness but only 2-3 weeks of training in me after a 2 week off season. But I set out to prove to myself and others that I could keep up and I think I achieved that. I was really happy to qualify for all the finals and finish in some good positions, on the second day though I was really happy to get a top 10 in the final scratch race beating some big names in the process and proving that I can battle with the big boys on the track as well as on the road.
Most recently I had the infamous Newport GP and having done this race the year before and getting my legs ripped off I wanted to try get myself up there and get at least a top 5 but I realised in the first race I should have had more confidence when I won the first scratch race by over 2 bike lengths in the sprint, I then used the rest of the races to try new things then in the last 100 lap race I came away with a 2nd place in a very reduced sprint after breaking it all apart and leading out the sprint.
I think to conclude, this year has been the definition of a rollercoaster. From having great fitness off the back of juniors to being in a hospital bed. Then getting back to fitness and lots of physio and hard work to going back downhill and working 70 hour weeks and stopping riding. To then finish it off with a top 10 at UCI level and a win at Newport. With 2 months to go until the national champs I'm hoping the only way is up from here.