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.

Crash. Bang. Whimper

So my grand scheme to go out with a bang this season isn’t really going to happen, or perhaps it already has. Since my sit-down during the time trial at Agglo Tour I’ve been descending down the ‘form’ slope i.e. getting worse and worse-erer.

Looking supremely fresh and prepped for action.

What I thought was initially a motivation based problem has materialised into my body gradually refusing to do exactly what I want of it, until we arrive at yesterday – the end of the road. I seem to have been enduring disproportionate amounts of suffering for the results I’ve claimed in the last month and I’ve been searching pragmatically for solid reasons why. Hay-fever, low iron, illness: perhaps all of the above?

Riding like a tool and then pulling out made me loads of friends yesterday!

Well I’ve had various tests and they’ve given me more or less no answers other than I’m “run down”, which is no doubt true but also pretty disappointing for an analyst like me. Basically I think my immune system is so low that I’m constantly fighting minor illnesses and the body cannot recover adequately, which just means that I get a kicking in races as I’m at 80%.

The moment when I cracked. Decision made!

So yesterday, after riding like an idiot for 45 minutes at SportBreizh one day, I decided to pull the plug and finish my season. Yes it’s quite early, yes I might be overreacting, soft, cracking, but when the legs aren’t there and I’m riding for 10^th place at best every race I get turned off pretty quickly. Not winning is quite un-fun for me, particularly when I know I should be better.

Cursing the sun and the moon (whilst being soigneur in the afternoon). Or dancing. I'm unsure.

I’m honestly pretty upbeat about it though as I’ve achieved what I wanted this season: I’ve won six races, I’ve made my mark, and I’ve got a great offer from a awesome team! I’ll talk about that in the next post but for now I’m enjoying staying up a bit later and eating less carbs!!

À bientôt.