Year Finale

With university in full swing and life returning to some form of routine with training, studying and a ‘small’ bit of socialising, my mind had slipped far from the 2015 racing year and was solidly thinking forward to next season. So when I was asked by the university to race the British University and College Sports (BUCS) Hill Climb Championships in Yorkshire I was initially apprehensive on two counts, one I hadn't been doing much race/short interval training and two, I'm not a big fan of hills. But the boys in the cycling club soon convinced me round to the idea and I decided to throw myself head first into my first (hopefully of many) BUCS events. I also had decided to ride the Scottish Team Time Trial Championships the following day in Fife, which meant it would be a tight turn around from racing in England on the Saturday to racing in Scotland first thing on the Sunday. 

As preparation for the race, and, well cause I love cyclo-cross, I decided to race the opening round of the Scottish Cyclo-Cross Series at Callendar Park in Falkirk. I loved the course at

On the start line at Callendar Park

this round last year and this year’s course only bettered last year. I wasn't sure what to expect from my legs but I decided to just race my heart out and see where it got me. I was lucky to be gridded to the front line along with several other strong riders including Anne Ewing, who having been in the Scotland team for the past 2 Commonwealth Games was odds on in my eyes to have a fast start and a good race. And I was right she did win the race!

The race start was on a fast tarmac section and I got off the line in around 5th or 6th. The first few laps were a bit of a blur as I pushed on and tried to dig in on as many sections of the course as possible, but I had started to fade a bit towards the second half of the race. With one lap to go I had two of the other women just in front of me and I put in a big effort of the final short climb to get past them before a technical set of tight switch back before a final flat set of corners and sprint to the line. I managed to just stay in front of the other two riders until the line and finished 12th women overall and 1st Under 18. Even better news was that my team mate Eleanor had come 2nd in the Under 18s so got to fly the Edinburgh Road Club flag on 1st and 2nd steps of the podium!

After this I had two weeks to get ready for my last weekend of road racing of the 2015 road season. After a good first week (which also did include some of the ‘little’ bit of socializing) I unfortunately got a cold. As a precautionary measure I took it easy in the week and only went for a short spin to trying and stop my cold developing, which sort of worked. I was off at 12.07 on the Saturday and we had a 6+ hour drive to the race, so the uni team and I headed down on the Friday afternoon to Glossop to stay the night before the Hill-Climb which was taking place up the Curbar Gap in the Peak District. The weather on the Saturday morning was not promising and it rained on off all day including during my warm up, which did make riding the rollers a bit tricky… After not falling off in my warm up I headed to the start with a lot of nerves and inhibitions about the 2kms of climbing at an average of 11% that was ahead of me. The boys had given me some tips for riding the hill but by half way up no advice on lines or where to push on mattered as I was going flat out just to keep climbing. As I turned the right hand hairpin I knew (or I'd been told) I was almost at the finish and with a large group of supporter gathered in a lay-by I put in a final dig to the line. It was safe to say I was pretty tired after crossing the line and had to ask one of the helper to catch me as I wasn't sure I would be able to get my foot out my cleats without falling over… And yes I was moving so slowly that could have happened… 

After catching my breath I headed back down the hill to do a short cool down in an attempt to save my legs for the Team Time Trial the following day, then put on all the clothes I'd brought with me and headed up the hill to support the other riders, especially the 3 boys racing from St Andrews. As the boys racing went on the weather slowly got colder and wetter but spirits were high as the St As boys (when they'd finished) and I joined the Sheffield University crowd of supporters that had gather on the hillside.

After all the riders were done we headed down to the race HQ, i.e. the local pub, to find out the results. Unsurprisingly the women’s race was won by Hayley Simmonds, representing Cambridge University. She had just returned from representing Great Britain at the Elite Womens World Time Trial and Road Championships in the USA. I had finished 37th, but my goals for the race were to post a sub 10 minute time and I had managed that and as the youngest competitor, I was pretty happy with my position. The boys seemed pretty happy with their placings too, Liam had achieved his goal of top half of the field in 69th place, Andrew went faster than last year and Clem (also a first year) made a solid base to improve on in future years. After we'd all warmed up a bit we headed to the van to pack up and hit the road for the drive home to St Andrews. The hours tumbled by, probably due to me having a sleep, and we arrived back just after midnight. 

After lugging all my stuff into my already messy bedroom in halls I collapsed into bed welcoming all the sleep I could get before my 7.30am start the following day. In an amazing bit of luck that was also the night the clocks went back by an hour so I got an extra hour of precious sleep!

My parents had arranged to come and pick me up from St Andrews the following morning and after a quick breakfast we headed of the race. After we arrived at the race HQ in the quiet town of Freuchie I headed to sign on and squeezed in a small warm up on the turbo before Rae, Jane and I headed as a team for the race start. As we rolled to the start we had a quick tactics talk and agreed that Rae was by far the strongest member of the team and so she would set the pace and Jane and I would help out were possible. The course was pretty much ideally suited to me as a rider with a mix of fast flat sections and rolling roads which could be powered up and with a final longer climb before a fast decent to the finish. 

We started out fast as Rae pushed on the speed, I very surprised that I was managing to keep up in Rae's slipstream and felt good for the first 20kms out of the 50km race. After this point I knew it'd be tough but I was determined to push to the limit and try my best for the team. Riding on my junior restricted gears meant I had to focus on spinning my legs as fast as possible to stop myself being dropped on any descents. But I held on and managed till the

photo courtesy of the Press Room

final climb and knowing we were close to the finished gave it my all to stay with the others. After we'd finished we rolled back to HQ and enjoyed the spread put on by the organisers. The food after a TT is always a treat and there were plentiful amounts of tea, so I was content.

We had a nervous wait for results as we speculated about how we'd managed, thinking we'd maybe been 3rd or 4th in the women’s field. As the results were announced, I was absolutely ecstatic to find out we'd been 3rd fastest team and 2nd in the Scottish Championships (as one of the teams wasn't eligible for the championships). I was extra proud of the result because this was the only opportunity I'd had to ride as a team for Edinburgh Road Club all season so that made it special. 

After the race and a nice lunch and a proper catch up with my parents about my past few weeks of life away from home I headed back to St Andrews looking forward to crawling back into bed… but alas laundry needed done… Student life is hard you know!

The weekend had been a long one but I was happy with my results and look forward to more opportunities to represent my university. It was also a nice way to bring my 2015 season to a close, so now I can properly begin preparation for next season. I have a few people to thank for their continued support throughout this season, and over the weekend. Mainly my parents, who even though I've 'flown the nest' still help me out whenever possible and have got up at unnatural hours countless times this year, so thank you both!! Secondly everyone given me the fantastic opportunities I've had, including Peter Clark, Tim Mackley and Statoil for helping me to experience international racing for the first time in Norway over the summer, (see previous post). My team, Edinburgh Road Club, and the sponsors and supporters of the Junior Race Team have also been massively influential in my racing this year as without their funding and support I wouldn't have been able to travel and race as much as I have. Lastly everyone who has believed in me over this year, as it's not been an easy one, so thank you one and all!

Above the Arctic Circle

Hello there, been a while since my last post but every things just been a bit crazy these last few weeks! My seasons racing was put on hold for a few weeks with a cold that developed into a nasty ear infection and required a few courses of antibiotics. This was annoying because it meant I missed a very good race in Bickerstaffe that I had been looking forward to for weeks and that I was missing training in preparation for my race in Norway in mid August. When I had the all clear from the doctor I get myself back into training with 3 or 4 weeks of left. I was starting to feel more confident in my level of fitness as the weeks went by but still wished I'd had a bit more time! Thanks to Alex Coutts and my ERC Junior and Senior teammates for keeping me motivated.

 The trip to Norway started for me on Thursday as my team mate Lulu and I headed up to Aberdeen to stay in the airport hotel so as to avoid a 3am start. My dad gave us a lift up and helped us in with the bikes and bags and then we were left to ourselves. The hotel staff did seem bit bemused as Lulu and I struggles through the lobby with our bike boxes but they were very accommodating. After a comfy sleep in a double bed each (thanks for the upgrade) we raided the free breakfast and got to use the complimentary mini bus to ship us the 2 minutes to the terminal building. It was a very wet morning but the whole team were in good spirits all excited for the journey ahead. We all got checked in and through security and before we knew it we were one the first flight!

Our day of traveling had begun and after 3 flights and a bus journey at the far end we were all quite tired when we arrived at Narvik university which was our base for the next few days. Due to Narvik being a small town we were being put up in class rooms at the uni and sharing with other teams so was 12 to a room. We (well us girls) quickly got chatting to our roomies and made a bed plan on the white board so we could remember each other names. Luckily during this we discovered our Norwegian room mates all spoke very good English and were kind enough to write there names how we should pronounce them.

After a quick dinner we were onto unpacking the bikes which had all made it in one piece. Thanks to the boys for helping me with this as I was having real struggles with reassembling my bike! We all lost track of time a bit at this point and soon realised it was quite late and that all the girls in our room had gone to bed bar us so we had to attempt to sneak in and get into bed without waking anyone. Safe to say we failed badly...

The next morning we were up and enjoying the breathtaking scenery that we could see from the dinning hall.

The photo doesn't quite do it justice

 We had a slow start to the day as we were due to ride the sportive that was an add on event to the professional races final stage the following day. We passed the morning painting out nails with Scottish flags and enjoying the endless supply of free fruit from the canteen. By the time we headed out on the bikes we were all excited and just wanted to ride! We joined with the 30km ride and I don't think I've even ridden a more beautiful 30kms!! 

Once we were back from the sportive ride we did a few laps of what we thought was the race circuit (we added extra climbing) and certainly for me the challenge of what was to come really hit home. The circuit was about 8kms long with 130+m of climb and about 200m of flat in total. After one looked at the course I knew this was going to be one of the toughest races I'd ever ridden. I've never been ashamed of how I'm built as a person and have accepted I'll never be a small, lean climber like Emma Pooley, but I am finding my own power based way of climbing but the repeated climb, descend, climb, descend of the course was going to push me to the edge of my abilities. After we'd looked at the course we headed back to the university for dinner and some seminars. 

Luckily for us and our lack of Norwegian these were both delivered in English, which was probably not so fortunate for the majority who didn't speak English… The first was a talk about making the right choices and being strong, it was very well delivered and really made you think. The second was a Q&A with Thor Hushovd, Bryan Coquard and Chris Williams. I found it particularly interesting to hear Chris talk of his challenge to overcome type 1 diabetes to become a professional cyclist. After we had a photo call with Thor, who (life goal achieved here!) remembered me from when we met in Aberdeen.  

The following day was race day, so we all headed to bed early in nervous excitement  The race order had the boys starting at 9.15 racing 10 laps, the Professional Arctic Tour of Norway race start at 2 and then my race at 2.15, The girls race was 6 laps then the pros returned to the circuit to do a finishing few laps. This meant the girls had a luxury of a late start, a chance to support the boys on the brutal hill past the university with still lots of time to get ready and prep for the race. Usually when I'm doing a road race at home I'd do a small roller warm up but unfortunately even my bag couldn't fit a set of rollers in it! This meant we had to adapt a bit so we used the last finishing straight of the race and a bit of extra road to roll up and down to get our legs going. This also meant we were rolling up and down past all the team cars and riders, resulting in Lulu getting chatted to by a Tinkoff-Saxo rider and me nearing running over Alexander Kristoff! After the pros rolled out we were called up onto the stage and announced officially as the Scotland team. This was an amazing experience and the first time I'd got to to sign-on on a stage and get my name announced to a crowd, safe to say my usually big smile was literally the width of my face!!

The photographer doing the pictured also loved our nails and insisted I showed them off. After this we headed back to the start line and had a nervous wait until the race began. 


The race was neutralised until we'd descended down and gone through the tunnel then the car pulled off and we were straight onto the first short sharp climb. I clung onto the bunch until just before the top of the long climb as one of the girls from a strong team put in a dig and the pace went out. After a chase back on the long descent I got into the second group on the road with what remained of the peloton in sight on the climbs. Our race was 6 laps and I was just hanging into the group on laps 3 and 4 up the hill but on 5 i just slipped off the back on the last drag of the big hill. I then chased like mad trying to get back to the group and was only about 100m off the back of them going over the finish line into what I thought was the last lap but unfortunately due to the pros riding faster than expected I got pulled.  The most heart breaking thing was the group just in front of me was allowed to continue and given an official finish. In all honesty I was devastated after I was pulled out and I'd like to thank Peter and Tim for how they dealt with a slightly tearful me…

After I'd pulled myself together, had a quick shower and packed my bike (well ok, got the boys to help me pack my bike…) we headed out to watch the last few laps of the pro race go passed the university. It was so bizarre watching these grown men battle up the same hills I'd been grinding up only hours before. Safe to say the guys nearer the back of the race looked how I had felt going up the hill! I was certainly glad I didn't have to ride up the steep section again but not so glad that the bus and van for the bike boxes was at the top of it… Apologies everyone I ran into with my bike box it seemed to have a mind of its own! 

Once we were on the bus and heading back to the hotel for our last night we (the girls at least) were all still buzzing from the whole experience and soon made a bad attempt to liven up the journey by starting a sing along to Katy Perry and Sam Smith. Surprisingly some of the Norwegian boys seemed to know all the words too! When the 'party bus' arrived at the hotel the next challenge was getting the bike boxes to the rooms, Ashleigh and I were lucky we only had 3 flights of stairs to manage, Lulu and Sarah had 6! A bit of team work, much laughter and a near disaster later the bikes all made it safely. The next morning we thought I'd be quiet enough to use the hotel lifts but unfortunately a party of French tourists in the hotel also choose that exact time to leave the hotel… "I could have swore this weighted less yesterday" was the continual thought in my head as I precariously staggered down the stairs with my bike. 

I won't bore you with the details of the bus journey and 3 flights home but I for one will be glad if I don't have to set foot on a plane for a long time!! 

The whole experience went by in a fantastic blur of laughter, beautiful scenery and a severe burning sensation in my legs. I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone involved in the trip, from the fab people at Statoil, Peter and Tim who were totally awesome the whole trip, and last but no means least my fantastic, amazing, outstanding and unbelievable crazy team mates! You guys made the trip 100 times better and for that thank you!! 

"which way to the start?"

I know how lucky I am to get these opportunities and that fact was brought home more ever when I heard about the heart condition that my old teammate Ben Forsyth has.  Ben and I started out riding round the cones at Inch Park with ERC Juniors and in 2013 he went on to win the U16 Boys British Road Champs in ERC colours. He has now found out that he has a heart condition that means he will never be able to compete again and he will have to live with a pacemaker and defibrillator.  Even while Ben has been dealing with all this he has still taken the time to share his story and to encourage all young athletes get a heart screening - something I hope to get done soon.  I want to wish him all the best for his upcoming ops and for his University career.

After taking a week off to have a my first bike free holiday in a long time, I'm back on the bike and just enjoying riding in what remains of the Scottish summer. I'm off to start a new challenge of university in the next few weeks and am both excited and nervous but looking forward to many new adventures! 

The Season Till Now...

Before I write anything about the last few months I thought I'd name drop horrible. After having met Jens Voigt in Criterium Cycles in March I was lucky enough to see him again in Mallorca so here's Jens and me. Also a selfie with Thor Hushovd! Anyway now I've got that out the way, on to my actual post...

 Since my last post life has been a bit of a daze. Between a week of training and 'studying' in Mallorca, my final days of school, choosing a university for next year, training, racing and perhaps most importantly the dreaded SQA exams, its been a busy few months

Perhaps my most exciting news since my last post is that I've been invited to ride for East Scotland at the Arctic Tour of Norway Heroes of Tomorrow race that is being held in Narvik (northern Norway). The race is taking place at the end of August and I am very much looking forward to my first experience of international racing.

My racing has really picked up since my last post. I have competed in 4 road race, 3 time trials, 2 crits and a track meet with mixed successes. The highlight of these recent races has to be the Sharon Argue Memorial Trophy which took place in Slamannan, Falkirk. The day was split into two races, a 5 mile rolling time trail in the morning and a 30 mile road race in the afternoon. The event was very well promoted and the result was a record number of women for a Scottish road race, ranging from beginners racing for the first time to commonwealth games riders and British level pros. The first rider
was off at 11.01 (which meant no 5am starts unlike the other time trials I've done this year) and as the sun shone it also felt like summer! Time Trialing equipment was allowed so I was kitted out with my clip on bars and an aero helmet, I felt a bit like I'd over done it as I rolled to the start as lot of the other women were just on standard road bike but then someone on a TT bike with a disc went passed so I stopped feeling bad! The TT course was like 3 sides of a square, the first side with a head wind and a few sharp ups, the second a long, straight, slightly down hill road and the third a undulating road with a tail wind. I got away from the start smoothly and caught both my minute and two-minute women and was feeling good, the only bad point was when I hit the tail wind section and due to junior gear restrictions was totally spinning out.

Doesn't look like much of a hill...

After a quick change out of my skin suit, some food and switching my bike back to standard road position (thank you to my dad for sorting that part for me!) I had a bit of time to relax before getting ready for the road race. The race was over 4 laps of a pretty challenging circuit with some narrow twisty turns, 2 longer drags half way round and 3 pretty short steep climbs within the last few kilometres including a nasty kick up the finishing straight.

I was nervous to see how I would cope as I've never been a particularly strong climber. So as we rolled out of the HQ I tried to hold a middle-ish position in the bunch so I had some positions to slip back on the hills. This plan worked on the first two hills but as we came round to the finishing hill for the first time I just lost contact with the back of the bunch.  Towards the top I was only a 100 metres or so behind when there was a touching of wheels in the bunch and a few riders hit the deck. This meant a few of them were chasing back on and I was able to join them.

We worked pretty well as a group and as we approached the last lap everyone was tiring until it was mainly me and a very nice lady from Moray Firth doing the work at the front. Coming up to the final hill and the sprint for positions there was some confusion on the road ahead as a rider from the front bunch had crashed and was still on the road, this in itself wasn't too much of an issue the real problem was the horse that was coming in the opposite direction and for some reason was on our side of the road.   The person on the horse wasn't doing very much to get the horse off the road but luckily we were all being sensible in the group as we all slowed and shouted to make sure everyone knew what was going on and to pass the horse with care. However it also meant we were carrying less speed into the final hill so when one of the girls attack it was a big acceleration to follow.  I managed to get up to
her wheel coming over the top of the hill but then tired coming up to the finish line.

Still I was over the moon to have finished and get 2nd in our group's sprint.  Once I saw the results I was even more pleased as I had finished 16th in the TT and 26th in the road race, meaning I was 26th overall on the final GC and first junior. I would like to say a huge thank you to the organisers, volunteers, marshals as well all the riders for turning up, giving it their all and making the race the friendliest and most welcoming race I've ever ridden.

After a big day of racing I took a few days to recover before looking ahead to the Scottish Road Championships which were the following weekend in Ayr. The race was the women's championship so had top Scottish riders in it and a separate junior title was being awarded to the first Under 18 rider. This meant the 4 juniors in the race were doing the same 50 mile/80 kilometres as the older women.  I was firmly of the opinion that if I finished the race it'd be an achievement, let alone thinking about wining the junior title.  The longest race I'd done this year had been just over 60kms and that was flat so the idea of over 80kms of hilly and undulating roads was making me very unsure of my own ability.

Due to the sign on opening at 7am my parents and I headed through to Ayr the day before in order to pre-ride the course. The lap was around 28kms long, with the first 15kms into a head wind and containing all the big hills - including the Electric Brae which I was told was an optical illusion that looked like you were going down when you were really going up.

I was smiling on the pre-ride…

I can firmly say that this is wrong and I certainly knew when I was going up! After a sharp descent off the Electric Brae the course turned and was a mix of descent and short ups with a lovely tailwind all the way to the finish. On the Saturday the weather was quite calm and the sun was shining, alas the weather didn't last as I was woken in the night by rain lashing against the window.

Sunday morning came around and a huge wave of nerves hit me. After forcing down some breakfast and getting my kit on we headed to the race HQ. The next hour or so just seemed to disappear and before I knew it I was getting off the rollers to head to the rider briefing. There had been 23 entries for the champs but as we gathered in it was clear there weren't that many riders.  In the end we had 18 riders take the start, including 4 junior girls (a record number I'm told) and we all rolled out behind the convoy of motor bikes and cars. The first few miles out of Ayr were neutralised which meant I could settle into the race a little and try and keep a high position in the very small bunch. The flag was pulled in, the race properly began and the paced remained fairly steady so I was feeling ok but then we hit the first climb.

It was so early in the race and with defending champion, Jane Barr picking up the pace, I was quickly out the back of the bunch and on my own. This was no surprise really and I'd discussed with my mum before hand what I should do in this situation.  So with about 70kms of lone riding ahead of me I switched to time trial mode and settled into a steady pace.  I was pushing myself but not so much I wouldn't make the finish. The rest of the first lap was fairly uneventful and I pushed on in the tailwind hoping I might see someone, but alas I didn't.

Going into the 2nd lap my parents shouted saying two of the other junior girls were also dropped and about 2/3 minutes in front  This gave me a little boost as my aim was to now close down that gap as much as possible. Coming over the top of the Electric Brae I finally spotted a rider in front of me. I knew she was close enough to catch but I still had over half the race to go so I focused to keeping a steady pace and slowly caught up to her.  Going into the last lap I made it onto her wheel and after a short rest I put in a dig up one of the smaller hills and got a gap. The wind had picked up even more and this made the climbs even tougher but I pushed on and opened a bit of a gap. I had it in the back of my mind that the next junior was somewhere up the road but with about 15kms left of the race I was having to dig deep on the final few hills and just focusing on getting every last bit of energy out.

By this point I'd been racing for almost 3 hours in pretty nasty conditions and was frozen, so changing gear began to be a serious struggle. With about 4km to go there was a long straight road and I finally caught a glimpse of the girl in front of me.  This was the final boost I needed to keep pushing to try and reduce the gap as much as I could by the finish.  I got it down to about 20 seconds by the end, but at that point I was just glad it was all over!

So after almost 80kms of solo riding with most of that as last rider on the road I'd like to say well done to everyone who rode the event, especially to Rosa Martin of PHAS-VCUK Womens Team for hanging in there with the bunch and finishing 1st junior to claim the title. Also a huge thank you to all the marshall and spectators who were out round the course and gave me lots of encouragement, it was so appreciated and helped keep me motivated. Also a thank you to Janette from Scottish Cycling who followed me in the SC van when I was last on the road. I've got a few more races this month, the highlight being a flat road race back in Pimbo, part of the Racing Chance Foundation series in the North West of England. Fingers crossed the weather will be better than last time!

New Beginnings

Last weekend was the beginning of a new part of my racing life. After a disappointing final year racing in youth I was lacking in motivation going into the cold, dark winter months and in all honesty only put in some sporadic and highly unstructured training. I did some cross over the winter mainly cause I love it and find it incredibly fun but also for some training benefit. After going out on some rides with the Junior race squad of ERC I got a bit of a spark back, even if I was always last up the hills. After Christmas I started to pick up my training a bit more and continued to ride with the Junior team, I found it a great motivation and comfort to have team mates and a group to ride with every weekend. After a few good weeks training and slowly building some fitness again I decided to enter a few races to test the water and basically see if I still enjoyed racing my bike.  

To kick off the season I entered two races last weekend, a crit on the Saturday and a road race on Sunday. Saturday was an early start and a drive south to Salt Ayre near Preston for a womens crit race. This was nothing new as I'd used dispensation as a youth to ride a few womens crit races so the routine was the same. Change into skin suit (and lots of layer), sign on and get numbers pinned, few practice laps then quite blast on the rollers to try and remind my leg what a race warm up was. The new thing about this race was my junior gear restriction, a whole 2 extra cog on the back wheel compared to youth restrictions! This may not sound exciting but for someone who

Photo from Lancaster University

relies more on power than leg speed, those two extra cogs got a lot of use.

Anyway onto the race. The weather was slowly turning colder as 13 of us lined up neatly for a short briefing before the race began. We stayed largely together for the first few laps and then a few attacks went. In a burst of youthful enthusiasm I chased quite hard to try and stay with the top few riders, and for a while I did, but the inevitable happened and I got distanced from the bunch of 6 riders as the winning attack went. The next 25-30 minutes were then a solo time trial effort for me, which as my mum commented after "you love a TT effort Emma" and it's true. I spent a large amount of my time racing as a youth, time trailing my way round crits not being able to stick in with the bunch. So this was again nothing new as I steadily plodded round Salt Ayre barely using my brakes in the whole effort due to the wind and lovely swooping bends of corners. Heading into the 5 laps to go I'd found someone to work with and after realising we weren't going to catch anyone else the focus turned to not getting caught by anyone. Coming up the finishing straight the final time I jumped early keen to try out my extra two cogs in the sprint for 8th. Happily I got it! After a short cool down on the rollers and a yazzoo to help aid recovery for my race the next day, it was off to the hotel for a relaxing evening. 

Photo by Ellen Isherwood 

The next day was very new. My first ever proper open road womens road race. I'd like to say I was totally chilled about it but that'd be a bit of a lie. In truth the whole thing felt a bit scary. After 4 years of racing at youth level 
you learn the do's and don't's, you learn the common race courses like the back of your hand, you learn your routine, the race distance is max 50 minutes and most importantly you know people. So turning up to a road race with 80 women who all barring 3 I didn't know, in a place I'd never been to, racing a distance way longer than I was used to, was scary and as my mum will testify I was freaking out a bit but I held it together (mostly). 

Once on the start line I started to relax bit more and chatted away to a very nice women that was also a newbie to road racing. After a bit of hanging around we got underway with 18 laps of around a 3km circuit to complete, and the heavens opened. With in two laps I was completely soaked through and started to warm up a little. 

Photo by Ellen Isherwood

Before the race I'd made it clear I had low expectations and was simply setting goals to achieve. First goal was to survive the initial rush at the start, second was to last the first 20km, next was to manage to halfway through the race with the front group, and after that to take every lap as it came. I got into a little rhythm of moving through the bunch on the slight downhill and flat to be able to slip back a bit on the drag to the finish to ensure I made it through with the bunch. And as the minutes and laps ticked by I achieve my first two goals feeling reasonable comfortable.

As the race got to 10 laps to go there was a prime/sprint lap. I knew any acceleration in the bunch up the drag to the line was going to cause me problems so I tried to position myself as far forward as possible without getting caught up in the sprint for the line. After digging hard I made it up with the group, just, but struggling with the cold and wet this was a effort I paid for. The next few laps were mainly hanging onto the coattails the group. With 7 laps to go I blew and was distance quite quickly, so I switched to TT mode and put my head down to try and maybe catch a few other dropped riders. 

Photo thanks to Fred Bamford

Luckily I managed to team up with Laura Morgan of VCUK and after a brief discussion we agreed to work together. A fist bump closed the deal and we pushed on for the last 5 laps. With 2 to go I blew big time hardly able to change gear due to the cold. Laura saw I was done in and let me sit on her wheel for the last laps. Coming up the final straight going into one lap to go a blur of speed went passed as the leaders lapped us, it was inevitable as two lone riders against the wind were no match for the bunch. But this meant my first road race was over and I'd survived the distance (well minus 3km).

 I knew getting dropped and lapped isn't much to shout about, but I managed all my goals, stuck in when I was dropped, gave it my all and made my mum proud. And hey what more can you ask for!