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! 

The Things I Learnt During The Cyclo-Cross Season

As the Cyclo-Cross season has finished now I felt I should do a blog on my experiences. I thought to spice things up a bit, instead of just talking about my races I'd ponder on the 3 most important things I've learnt from this cross season.

So, drum roll please, at number 3 we have: The Weather Can Change Everything
This lesson was learned heavily during the Mull weekend in mid December. The whole weekend looked in jeopardy as the weather gods were attempting to blow the ferries over, or at least that's the image I have in my head. But with more ferries cancelled than you can shake a stick at, just getting to the island was a challenge. Anyway onto the races. Saturday saw the wettest, windiest and coldest race I think I've ever experienced. In the first lap along I lost count of the number of times I got blown off my bike or decked it on the mud so from the start it was gunna

be an epic for sure! I had led the girls from the start line but a crash put me on the back foot and chasing hard, I got back into second and then coming through a sliddy muddy section I lost my line and while going rather fast crashed into what I can only describe as a plastic lamppost and was 'stylishly' sliding through the mud having flipped over the bars. I was soon up and then had to set about freeing my bike which had in my absence formed a deep attachment with some tape and it took me the best bit of 3 minutes to drag in away like a child being dragged from a sweet shop. Paul Oldham I feel your pain mate! By this point I'd slipped out of contention and had to give myself a serious talking to just to finish the race. If that hadn't taught me about the weather my trip to the British Championships in January reinforced the lesson. For those who haven't heard my tale from that field in Englandshire, the brief synopsis was almost crash off the line, lots of crashes in the race as the 'grass' was more like a mud bath. I ended up running more than I rode, actually at one point I managed to dismount onto the wrong side if the tape, and if you've ever seen me running, you know how bad that makes a race for me! With the pretty dreadful conditions I managed 2 laps of the course and had to bike change every half lap as the bike clogged up with mud. So in all not a great trip! So lesson from those races: if the weather is against you be wary of posts and take lots of water to clean bikes. 

And so onto the second lesson of the cross season. Nothing would be possible without the amazing people behind the scenes.
This was found out over the entire season stretching from October to February. When I say the people behind the scenes I mean the organisers, volunteers, commissars, marshals, kind people who let us wreck their grass, anyone who has helped in any way to do the almost thankless task of putting on cross races. There are too many to list but the ones who have stood out this year are as follows. Jammy Johnson without whom the racing is not the same, the endless slagging and wrong names being called never fails to make you smile so for me he is the soul of Scottish Cross! John McComisky who has given me so much encouragement and always believed in me. And showed his faith by he invited me to race the fabulous Dig In At The Dock and I was so happy to

repay that faith with a podium finish and some very bad champagne spraying! The commissars are a different class of volunteer. Standing out for me was Guto Williams, purely for his efforts on Mull as commissaring is hard enough but on your own in those condition, well I take my hat off to you sir! One group of people i owe a huge thank you too is the entire Tri Centre team and staff (including Matthew). You guys have being so supportive and have put up with me being in and out of the shop with broken bikes pretty much ever week. I've been honoured to race in your colours for the cross season and hope I've done you proud. And last but definitely not least, my parents who have been endlessly supportive. They have put up with so much during the cross season: muddy bikes, shoes, kit and a very muddy and cold daughter on several occasions! My dad is the only person I could ever want pitting for me. He can calm me down when I am nervous and puts up with my bizarre little requests and things I'm rather OCD about regarding my bikes and kit. I don't say it enough but thank you, I'm so grateful and I know I don't seem it sometimes but I honestly am. And so to all the people I've named and the countless others, thank you, from me and all cross racers. You are the people that make the sport so friendly and one of the reasons for its ever growing popularity. You help to make the rain and grit bearable.

And finally the most important lesson I've learnt. Life isn't fair.
This is a lesson I've learnt before and will continue to learn. That sometimes things just don't go as you think they should and no matter how well you prepare, sometimes things don't work out. This could be easily seen at the Cyclo Cross Champs at Foxlake. In both the under 16 girls and boys several main contenders had mechanicals or problems. The powerful Rhona Callendar never made it to the start line through illness which made the girls race lose a strong set of legs. From the start I led but had competition from Jenny Holl straight

Team 1-2 at the Champs

away and well fate wasn't on her side and she snapped her chain mid way through the race just after passing the pits and had to run almost a lap which seems little compared to the almost 3 laps Joe Nally ran after multiple punctures. But I guess that's just how cross goes and, as I always say when people say that so and so had the race won from 2 laps in, you never know what can happen and it's never over till the line. And as the rules of the universe dictate, I had a better race (only breaking my saddle so it was pointing vertical but still rideable... just... remounting was tricky…) at the Champs so I paid elsewhere with my bit of a disaster at Mull and my epic failure of a British Championship. But I guess you've gotta have bad days to put the good days into perspective.

So that's was my cross season in 3 lessons. Needless to say I'm still over the moon with my results, defending my under 16 titles was a dream come true, 3rd in the women's race at Dig In At The Dock was fantastic

especially as I led the women for a lap and was probably 20th out of the start loop thanks to some masterful positioning on the grid, if I do say so myself. And finally a win in the womens race at the John Muir Winter Carnival which was my last race of the cross season so I could bow out on a high!

Some of you may be reading this and be thinking "that sounds grim why does she do that?!" and my answer is simply because i love it. Cyclo-cross in 3 words to me would be mud, sweat and smiles - a slight change from the phrase I know but cross is so individual, an over used cliche would not do it justice. Its a discipline I've grown to love and will always love. So despite the freezing conditions I always seem to smile as i stand in a field in the middle of nowhere in wellies and about 3 jumpers. So roll on next season! And remember people, Keep Calm and Do CX! 

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.

Scottish TT and British Madison Champs

Been yet another busy couple of week!! The work load at school has picked up and unfortunatly i came back from School Games with cold so it was another 2 days of school and load of catching up on work and lots of recovery before the Scottish TT Champs the following weekend. The Time Trial championships is run on a hilly 13 mile course just outside Dundee with big open roads which on a windy day makes it torture. Well it was a windy day!! The whole way round the course it felt like there was a head wind apart from about 1km with a tail wind which on Youth gear restrictions makes your legs go like the clappers. I didn't get the time i was aiming for but still happy with a 38:37 considering the conditions and the fact i'd been ill, and even better i won the Youth A Girls Championship so was in all a pretty good day on the bike, and to make it even better my little superstar of a team mate Eleanor Strathdee won her 1st Scottish Title in the Youth B Girls Championship!!

 But naturally its not all hard work and suffering as a small group of the youth had a gathering on the way home to chat and socialise but mainly to eat lots!!

Next up was a couple of easy days and a not to successful outing to track league in an attempt to find some track legs before the day trip to Manchester on the 28th for the British Madison Championship. It was a 7am start to get to Manchester for 1pm which was a bit early considering we weren't racing till 6pm but both Rhona and I agreed we'd rather have been there early so we could just chill out and watch the races and get ready with lots of time, which was lucky as an emergency trip to Evans was required as it turned out the nuts on the wheel i'd been loaded for the race was totally worn out! The panic was over quickly and with bikes sorted, warm up a bit of hand sling practice done it was race time.

Photo Credit to Dawn Fry

Photo Credit to Dawn Fry

With 9 teams entered and only 7 turning up on the day we know it was going to be a solid race and straight from the start it was full gas or at least it felt full gas to me. Its hard to pin point when or even how it even happened but we ended up distance off the "bunch" of 4/5 riders  and we were struggling to get back but i felt quite strong so i got Rhona to rest up the track and pushed on and didn't do another change till i'd made up the distance and got back into the bunch. For then on it was a case of staying in the group until on the last lap it went crazy and we ended up in a
sprint for 6th/7th position and unfortunately got pipped on the line. But its all a learning experience and as a pair Rhona and I were the youngest. But we did our best and in total honest i cant wait for next years championship!! On reflection there are so many positives that i can take from the race and hopefully if i work on the bad things we can go back and kick ass next year, but can never be sure how the season will play out but for now its bike brain off for 10 days as i take my time off before winter training starts. Just wanna say a big thanks to my Dad for being the driver/mechanic/very loud cheerer for the weekend.

Sainsbury's School Games

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 26^th 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 1^st-4^th 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 3^rd in the sprint and I finished 10^th 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 3^rd and 10^th than the girls who finished 1^st and 2^nd! 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 1^st 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 16^th 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 2^nd and 3^rd as I got beaten by riders which look really sad as I sat in the 3^rd place chair with no one in 1^st or 2^nd. In the end I was 15^th which I was really happy with and even better as we had 3 riders in the top 20 we were seeded 4^th for the team time trial which meant we started 4^th 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 1^st 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 4^th! And with a 12 second gap to 3^rd we figured the chain slip didn’t lose us the medal. But still 4^th 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 14^th! 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 4^th!

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. 

Nationals, Inter Regional Track Champs and Scottish Champs

Wow! Its been a busy month and a half! It all started way back in mid August at the British Track Championships in Manchester. I had 3 days of racing with a day in between each so was a long week spent in Manchester. First up was the 2km Pursuit, it went not to bad apart from a run in with the pads on the last corner and I set a new P.B but finished quite far down the field so wasn’t to happy with it. The week only got worse from there as I fail to qualify for my scratch final and is safe to say I wasn’t to happy (sorry mum). So it all came down to the points race to save my nationals. I didn’t get any points which to be fair is kind of the point of the race but I did get in a few attacks and stayed in the bunch so that lightened the mood on the way home.

Most people would have taken some time off after the nationals but it’s all go for us youths as a week later I was off to the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow to represent Scotland in the Inter Regional Track Championships.  Just to be selected for the Scottish Team was an honour as only 3 girls and 4 boys from the whole of Scotland made the team, and ERC/MCRT had 2 riders on the team (Ben Forsyth and me) more than any other team had. The racing kicked off on the Friday morning nice and early with a 6am start, oh the joys, and first up for me was sprint qualifying. I had ridden Glasgow enough to know the lines and had one of the better lines round the top of the banking (according to Tim Buckle, the hugely enthusiastic commentator) and set a P.B for my flying 200 so happy happy Emma and even better I qualified 8^th, which meant I qualified for the finals. Round 1 in the blue of Scotland Emma Borthwick, in the black of West Midlands Sophie Capewell, the under 16 sprint champion and 2^nd in the junior championships.  Well to say the odds were against me would be being kind. Anyway lots of sprint rounds later, I finished 8^th which for a non sprinter I’ll happily take.

Day 2 was more to my liking with the 2km pursuit in the morning and the Madison the afternoon. My 2km was sore. And slow. But onwards and upwards to the main event of my 3 days, the Madison. In preparation for the race Rhona Callander and I had done some hand sling practice so by race day we were pretty slick and had some of the best changes in the race (again said by Tim not me just being modest). I lined up right at the front so we got a good clean start and we were at the front of the race the whole time. Tactically we said we’d go for sprints and if a good break went we’d to and try to get the lap, well the the race went almost to plan and we got points and got in move to get a lap, unfortunately the race was blown apart and ‘bunch’ we were trying to lap was about 2 or 3 riders so was hard to tell who we were aiming to lap and unfortunately we didn’t quite make it. But we finished 5^th which we were so happy with as we were both at least a year younger than some of the girls.

 Day 3 was team day with team sprints in the morning and team pursuit in the afternoon. Rhona and I were team sprint team and came 10^th and with a new national record being set by the winners, it was a fast race. The team pursuit was one of my favourite races of the weekend as it was the only race all the girls raced together and it went beautifully, well in my opinion, we had a strong ride for 7^th with the fastest time the Scottish Female team has ever set in the Inter Regionals competition. The whole thing was an awesome experience and I didn’t want it to end! The whole team were stars and we came away as a team with a good medal haul and some new Scottish records, the whole thing would not have been possible with out our brilliant team staff Laura Irwin, Martin Harris and Leigh Marshall.

After two hard weeks at big events it was a recovery week before racing at the Scottish Criterium Championships at Ingliston. The race was a very tactical one and happily I won the race and as a first year A I get to try and defend my title next year. No rest for the Youth as the next weekend it was off to Dundee for 2 days of track racing, including the Scottish Scratch Championships. On the Saturday was the Championship race and it was a tuff race as I had to chance lots of breaks and going into the last lap had a perfect position sitting in 2^nd wheel with a small gap to rush out the last banking and got the line 1^st.