The next week was a
taper week before the main event of September the Sainsbury’s School Games,
which is like a mini Olympics for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland (Ulster),
England and Brazil, unfortunately there is no Brazilian cycling team so was the
usual 1 team from Scotland, Wales and Ulster and 11 different English teams as
England is split into regions. The
School Games was based from Sheffield University Campus and all 1600+ athletes
from all the sports were in the same campus so was a great atmosphere and you
sometimes got random cheers from other Scottish athletes as we were all in the
same Scotland leisure kit which was actually really lovely. The only done side to everyone being on
the same campus was the shortage of buses and early breakfast, and as a result
it was up at 5am everyday to be at the buses for 6.15am, but that’s just want
you’ve got to and it didn’t matter to me as I struggled to sleep with
excitement on the first night so getting up at 5 makes you sleep easier.
The first day was 250m
street sprints in the morning and 8km crit races in the afternoon. The morning
was just very stop start as you had a qualifying tt, then a quarter, semi and
final all in the space of 3ish hours so it was I total I think I spend about
triple the time I was racing on my rollers just trying to get the legs going
before the sprints. I wasn’t holding out much hope of a high
finish so finishing
26th wasn’t really a let down.
The real excitement was in the boys
final as Jack Carlin had made it through to the A final so was fighting it out
for 1st-4th position. This being Jacks aim for the
weekend we were all pretty excited about the idea of a medal as Scotland has
never won a medal at the Road Inter Regionals before. So naturally we won our
first medal in style with Jack finishing at least a bike length clear to take
the gold! And we were finished there! Rhona and I had both qualified for the A
final of the girls crit race with 26 qualifying and on the tight circuit 26 was
a lot. We’d been given team orders to stay at the front and I was to act as lead out women for Rhona in the final laps. It was a high paced race and
staying near the front was a struggle but we both managed, with 2 to go I had
Rhona on my wheel and was sitting on at the front next thing I’m boxed in and
people are attacking us, so its guns out to try and get back in control.
Unfortunately just as I was about to get back to the front the girl in front of
me over cooks the corner and we both end up on the grass, adrenaline pumping I
hope back onto the track and nail it causing the back of the string of the
line. With one to go all I could think was I’ve got to get to Rhona!! And the
last lap was a flat out effort to try and catch as many people as possible and
to help in some way with Rhona’s sprint. Luckily Rhona is a class rider and
managed to get 3rd in the sprint and I finished 10th so a
strong team ride and another medal! It was by far the best race either of us
had ever had against the British girls and I think we were happier with 3rd
and 10th than the girls who finished 1st and 2nd!
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur and next thing its 11pm I’m shattered
but so happy with the day and buzzing for the challenges to come.
Day two. Time trials. And hills. The individual TT was in the morning and over a course of about 2km with the 1st kilometre all up hill then a little down, sharp right hander, short punchy up, then down hill sprint to the finish. It was an interesting course and rather painful to say the least. I was 16th off and set the first time under 5 minutes of 4:57 so when I got back I got to sit in the hot seat and after no one else turned up I sat there on my own and then had to sit in 2nd and 3rd as I got beaten by riders which look really sad as I sat in the 3rd place chair with no one in 1st or 2nd. In the end I was 15th which I was really happy with and even better as we had 3 riders in the top 20 we were seeded 4th for the team time trial which meant we started 4th last which was a real shock to us. The team time trial was over two laps of a hilly course which was then used for the road race the next day and started and finished at the same points as the individual TT. I was really honoured when Chris (Team Coach) and Sophie (Team Manager) made me team captain for the TTT so I was in charge and was responsible for getting the team round and making sure it went smoothly, which it did right up till the last corner but I’ll get to that in a minute. We had a good start and got into a good rhythm up the climbs and after the 1st lap we had the fastest time so was looking good and we really flew round the last lap and as we reached the sharp right hander at the bottom of the decent before the short climb, disaster struck! Rhona lead through the corner (with Kiera Johnstone on her wheel then me) and took a bad line so panicked and changed from the big chain ring to the little and dropped her chain! In hindsight it was really lucky Kieran had backed off Rhona’s wheel going into the corner as it prevented a crash and meant Kiera and I got up the hill as Rhona did the fastest under pressure ‘put the chain back on and get up the hill’ routine I’ve ever seen. We then had to get down the hill to the line as Rhona smashed it to get back to us but managed it just before the line. It was a highly intense final kilometre but even with the mechanical we finished 4th! And with a 12 second gap to 3rd we figured the chain slip didn’t lose us the medal. But still 4th against the best girls in Britain is pretty good considering 2 of the team are still youths next year!
Day 3. The last days
always sad cause after being with the same people for 3 days the team sort of
become a slightly dysfunctional family and its always hard to go from staying
with a group of 1600+ athletes who all understand the sacrifices that are
required to reach the high end of your sport to back to lessons and school and
homework. But everything must end so best to bow out of a high, so onto 40km in
the freezing cold, 45mph wind and even a little rain. The race rolled out with a neutral start
and soon the race was on and straight away it was echelons with the strong
cross wind. The first half of the race passed with no major events and as I was
staying in the top 15 riders incase the group split what I didn’t realise was
that slowly the group was getting smaller and smaller. Soon the race light up
and annoyingly I got distanced on the decent for some reason but no matter,
another girl and I worked together and got back in and the next time down the
decent the group split. Coming onto the hill that lap I was in the last group
with a group in between the leader and myself. I drilled it up to this group
that had Rhona in it and got her on my wheel and pushed on dropping most of the
group with us until we were back in the front bunch. And breathe. That was 2
laps to go and coming onto the hill with 1 to go the fireworks had started in
the lead group and the race had exploded all or the place. I got stuck just
behind Rhona’s group and with some loud cheering and hoar honking from the GB
coaches driving the support car I made it to their group of 7-8 riders. Now was
the tricky bit, I’d been given team orders to help Rhona in the final sprint
and for that she needed to be as high up as possible and with the leaders I
sight and strong crosswinds I got Rhona to sit in my wheel and just went for it
trying to a) drop the girls in our group and b) get back to the leaders. It
went almost to plan as we dropped all but 2 of the girls in the group so going
onto the descent Rhona went for it and I just sat on the back on the 2 girls
try to slow them down so Rhona could get a gap and going onto the finishing
climb one of the girls got away and I went after but couldn’t quite close it
before the line. But hey I was happy with 14th! And I thought our
race was mad only about 15 of the boys actually managed all their laps and
Stuart Balfour put in an awesome ride for 4th!
And sadly that was
School Games over but it was one of the best races I’ve ever done in my life!
And we couldn’t have done as well as we did without our great team manager,
Sophie Warburton and fantastic team coach, Chris Soper.
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