My Support Team

Over the last few years I've realised that you never have time to do everything but you always have time to do the important things.

Getting advice and support from Martin of VeloVeritas.co.uk at the National TT Champs. 

Ed also put me up in Edinburgh for a few nights: what a top bloke!

Every good manager knows that you can’t do everything yourself; the old adage ‘If you want something done right you have to do it yourself’ is nonsense. (This is going somewhere, I promise!) If you want something done right then you have to find the person who is most qualified to do that job, and ask them nicely to help you. I have no shame in asking for help, and I’ve needed a lot of help from a lot of people this year. I am the manager of my own career (and life, deep stufffff) and because of this I’ve been doing all the important things right.

Getting a helping hand from Chris at SC Vital Fitness

I push the pedals, and that’s about it. I am the machine and my support team are the brains, the mechanics, the fuellers, the strategists. All I've done is found the best group of supporters I can, to help me be the best I can.

Something that I really pushed on with this winter was the gym work and for this I owe Chris Peden a huge amount. He took me on as my personal trainer, analysed where I was and where I wanted to go, worked around my training schedule and didn't judge me once for my dreadful physique!! What a legend. He also gave me loads of nutritional advice to aid fuelling and recovery which, when I’m training up to ten times a week, is so so vital. I would thoroughly recommend talking to him if you have questions about nutrition or want to do some gym work yourself. Check out his page: Chris knows his stuff! Also a big thank you to Sean at SC Vital Fitness in Portsmouth for letting me use undoubtedly the best gym in the world.

Dave Rayner: representing GB abroad and looking supremely cool in the process.

Everyone working for The Dave Rayner Fund has been behind me 100% for quite some time and this year I am going to give them some return with results and media coverage. For those who don’t know about the fund, it’s a charitable organisation set up in honour of Dave Rayner, a rider who was pursuing a career abroad just like me, before his life was sadly cut short. A huge number of riders have and do get supported by the fund and it gives people not on the British Cycling academy a pathway to pursue an exciting professional career. Please follow and support The Dave Rayner Fund everyone! 

@DaveRaynerFund

On Facebook

Sean and I, just lol-ing.

The TrainSharp Crew: my friends/councellors/coaches/advisors/inspirers since August 2010. There is no way that I’d be an ex-National Champion capable of winning French stage races and riding for a Division 1 team this year if I didn’t have them. I probably would have quit the sport (this is not an exaggeration). I cannot give enough thanks to JB for the regular phone calls, Paul and Chris Mac for the bike mechanical help and great chit-chat, Sean for the pep talks on how to deal with French directeurs…

Here's the kit for 2014... No more pink!

Finally, my family. I feel like they’ve been there for me my whole life! Oh wait…

Always positive, encouraging, putting me up/up with me for the whole winter when my washing is everywhere, I’m always tired, often messy. I won’t go on! Having nice people around you makes even the toughest situations good, fun and funny! I’ll end my Oscar acceptance speech there folks.

“I’m gonna make you guyz sooo prouddd *blinking back the tears*…”

A season summary

Without wanting to come across as a headstrong goon, this year has felt like a coming of age for me. Since hooking up with JB at TrainSharp for my coaching, (cycling and life!) everything I’ve done has felt more cohesive and more like a process. It’s become an exercise in following ‘the path’ of cycling – training right, racing right, eating right – the list is long and exhaustive, but it works. Jon has had belief in me from the start and has vocally said so which, for a sport so reliant on mental strength and confidence, is an incredible thing to do for me. I’ll try not to make this bit too boring, but I want to thank some of the people that have helped me this year, it’s only fair. 

High5 nutritional have been behind me for a couple of years now which is priceless as diet is so important for me. Between you and I, even if they didn’t sponsor me I’d buy their chocolate recovery drink because that stuff tastes divine!

The guys at the Dave Rayner Fund have been pretty pivotal in getting me where I am now too. Whatever I write here won’t really do them justice, but in summary they’ve backed me and a heck of a lot of other riders both financially and (maybe this is just me) emotionally. When you’re hacking away in a foreign country, feeling like you’re just treading water, it means a lot when someone sends a short email saying: ‘You’re doing good, stick at it’.

Some good memories.

This year when I first came out to France I had nowhere to stay, no team bike, minimal kit, but what I did have was The Mills Family. These guys are the nicest family I’ve ever met. Tony (Senior), Babs, Tony (Junior), Nick, Tim, Caroline, Seb, Amelie and Ellie are all legends! I’ve had so much help from them in different ways - Tony Senior’s pro experience, Tim’s motivational chats - I could go on.

And so to next year, when I’ll be riding for… Union Cycliste Nantes Atlantique! They are a Division 1, generally pretty bad-ass, French outfit. I am psyched!! Some positives include: No more pink kit (blue with a bit of yellow), team bike, somewhere to live, an awesome calendar, pre-race team tactics, living in a city, a training camp, wheel sponsor, team gloves and socks…….

Thanks to everyone who's followed me this year and sent nice messages of support. I'm going to let my hair down for a bit now, so you might not hear from me for a while, but I'll be back! Ciaociao.

On my back

I've had a week off since my win and it’s not been spent getting boozed and taking champagne showers; it’s mostly been in bed. And before any of you naughty people turn that into something good, I was mostly just lying on my back sweating a lot… Okay this is coming out all wrong! Basically I got some kind of stomach virus which completely knocked me out. To say it was horrendous would be exaggerating. Let’s just say it was really really awful.

Spent a fair amount of time watching this boil.

I've clearly been going pretty well on the bike over the last month and that’s what makes it even more of a ball-ache. I went from feeling like a bulletproof thoroughbred stallion to a limp overworked mule in the space of less than 24 hours. It’s a long way to fall when you’re at the top of your game, and I performed a pretty good double-pike back flip to face plant.

This was my week.

It feels like I've been holding my breath for the entire week, waiting and wishing, and today was the first time I've been able to open my mouth and breathe in the sweet taste of oxygen again. Hopefully that’s the end of the illness and I can crack on again. A huge shout out must go to Jon at TrainSharp for massaging my ego on Skype when I needed it the most; what a top bloke!

South Downs Bikes time trial

First race done, and hopefully the first win of many! Here I am warming up in the car park before the start. It took me about 15 minutes to actually get any feeling in my legs as there was a pretty cold wind. (I'm afraid that same wind forced me to race in leg warmers so negative man points to me!)

I felt a little bit awkward on the bike, as apart from the spin I went for the day before it was the first time I’d ridden a time trial machine in four months. Coupled with the fact that the legs are always a bit iffy in the first few races of the season I was a little nervous about how I’d get on. I really felt like I was crawling up the hills on the course but I guess I must have been going better than I thought!

Thanks to Clive Jarman (@CliveJarman) for this picture

I shaved 47seconds off the old course record in the process of winning the event and it definitely made it worth dragging my girlfriend Emily out of bed at 7:30 on a Sunday morning (at least I think so)! Thanks to the guys at South Down Bikes for a great event and a great prize fund! I will be back next year.

Check out these links yo!
www.velouk.net
http://blog.sportsmassagebournemouth.co.uk/2013/02/larry-hickmott-held-this-morning-on.html?m=1

A pre-season update

I know I have been rubbish recently with posting anything; I’m sorry! My excuses are that I’ve been training pretty hard, playing in the snow and getting distracted by this little chap (Alfie).

Yeah that's right, snow dog!

Snow dog with a tasty head (Alf is a cannibal apparently).

The good news is that I’ve finally finished Sheddy! I put the final few slats on the other day so other than paint, of which she definitely needs a lick, she’s good to go. She’s already functioning pretty well as a turbo training dungeon (and has been for a while now!) as well as a tool and bike store. I’m a seriously proud Daddy, so below are some snaps of her growing up (so fast, sob).

The path is the next job on the list, as a muddy track isn't a garden design choice! The snow did get in the way a bit though...

In other news, I went down to see the big boss man JB at TrainSharp for a catch up, to set season targets and to discuss some ideas. It was a good day out with Paul and Sean there too. I got out on the bike for a little ride to do a hill test for Sean and he seemed pretty pleased with how it went. Nothing like having Sean Yates following in a team car to make you go deep in a max test!

Once the torture was over we headed back and checked over my TT position, before my first test on Sunday in the Southdowns 34k TT. We discussed what we did right last year, what we can learn and what my goals are for this year. It was a very busy and constructive day all round. Now I can't wait to get stuck into my targets!

I've booked my Ferry to St Malo for Monday the 11th so that's when I'm off to race again: very exciting times! I will definitely do another post before I leave to share a few of my targets for the year and what I'm really looking forward to. 

Until then...