The Scottish Points Championships

After a nice 'relaxing' break from training which largly consisted on even more school work it was time to get back into bike mode and prepare for the Scottish 500m TT and Points race championships on the 12th and 13th of October at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow. The term 'eased back gentle' cannot be used in this case as I had 2 days with 5.30 start to do roller session before school, which actually I really liked as it: a) made me get up on time, b) meant I got training done before school and c) made me sleep better at night. Anyway on to the racing. On the Saturday I had the 500m TT which is basically 2 laps as fast as you can. As a more of an endurance based rider the 500m TT is not usual something i enjoy but surprisingly i loved the race and even better I set a PB and got 4th place which doesn't sound so good, but I was happy!

The next day was the points race which was my main aim for the championships. The race was being run over 20km (80 laps of the track), with sprints every 10 laps, now to put this distance into context, the Youth A boys (Youth A=under 16) who are suppose to be 'better' and 'stronger' than the Youth A girls only raced over 15km (60 laps) which is standard distance for Youth A boys and girls but because the Youth A girls race had been combined with the Junior girls (under 18) race we had to do the minimum distance for Junior girls, which you guessed it, was 20km. So it was going to be a long race, in fact the longest track race many of us had ever done!

I'm just going to pause to explain how a points race work for those who are unsure. Put the simplest way possible it's a endurance race run over a set distance with intermediate sprints at set distances and in each sprint the top 4 riders earn points, 5 for 1st over the line, 3 for 2nd, 2 for 3rd and 1 for 4th. So this continues through the race and at the end, the points from every sprint are added up and the person with the most points wins. Another way to score points is by gaining the lap, which basically means you lap everyone in the race, but this only gains you 20 points which in a long points race would not seal the victory.

So back to the race, with there being 8 sprints in the race and a total of 88 points up for grabs it was going to be a full of race with the focus being on getting points in every sprint and winning as many as possible. I knew is was going to be a close battle as a new (well new to us) girl had arrived on the block, Hannah McDade, who had made the very long journey all the way from America to race the Scottish Champs, she had showed great sprinting ability in the sprint and 500m collecting the gold and silver medals respectively and if that doesn't dent my confidence enough she finished 2nd in the American Omnium Championships, furthermore she won the points race in that championships, making her literally one of the best Youth riders IN THE WHOLE OF AMERICA! And to really worry me, Rosa Martin had made to trip up from the North West to ride the champs, having raced Rosa a lot this year i knew she would be tuff to beat as she is a classy rider. And those were only the threats from other countries, the Scottish based riders have all taken a huge leap forward this year and with Katie McLean and Keira Johnston leaving the Youth ranks at the end of this season they both were looking to exit with a bang and are strong riders having both medaled at previous Scottish Championships in the last 2 months, also making leaps and bounds in great sprinting and awesome speed is Lauren Smith.

3rd Rosa, 1st Me, 2nd Hannah (l-r)

So it was going to be points, points, points in an attempt to win, however this is easier said than done as I discovered in the first sprint when I messed up and crossed the line 4th gaining only 1 point which put me on the back foot. The rest of the race is some what a blur, I know I won 3-4 sprint and at least got points in every sprint even if I didn't win it. A lot of moves went in the middle bit of the race as riders switched there focus to trying to gain a lap and i knew that with only a few riders willing to chase if the rider attacking gained over half a lap advantage the force would go out of the chase and the rider would gain the lap, so every time an attack went i chased, hard! Luckily for me there were some strong girls in the race who were fighting for the podium places so didn't want the break to succeed and we were back together for almost every sprint apart from a very good move from Keira Johnston which saw her stay away till the line. As i was scoring consistently i went into the lead by 6 points going into the final sprint so it was a final push to the line to try and get some more points even though it was in the back of my mind that I'd sealed the victory, but it's always nice to get the final sprint, alas I only got 1 point but still I won the race! I was so over the moon about winning as I'd put my all into the race and no one was making it easy! I'm pretty sure every single rider in the race tried some sort of move and everyone should be proud of them selves for managing the distance and getting points along the way.

Unfortunately this was my last race of the 2013 road and track session and I hate the fact it's the end of this years racing as it's been my best yet! But onward and upwards to hopefully an even better year in 2014! And for now its head down with winter training and the return sliding around in muddy fields at the cyclo-cross races.

Just want to say a big thank you to everyone who has helped me over this year, I couldn't have do it with out you all.