May

Not a lot to post about recently as I haven't raced since the end of April. This is due to a number of factors but it is primarily due to exams and a lingering cold. I keep telling myself (and other people) that I am not fussed about my first year exams but sub-consciously I can't let myself get a bad grade.  It also puts my head in a bad place when I am out training as I think to myself I should be revising, This means that I have trained half as much as I would like.

Low mileage for the last 3 weeks left me with shocking legs in the race today and I was disappointing to finish around 20th. I am taking the result as the kick up the arse I needed to get out on my bike, train hard and realize my full potential. 

I only have 2 exams left next week and then I will be able to focus my summer around achieving the goals I set earlier in the year. 

Stats

Whilst studying an accounting degree I was always going to have to share some statistics for my year so far and here goes.

January-April:
Distance- 3350 Miles
Time- 192 Hours
Rides- 97
Climbing- 181,316 feet
Average Speed- 17.44mph
Points- 24

So to summarize I have cycled up Everest 6 and a quarter times, spent 8 days in the saddle and cycled from Land's End to John o'Groats 3.83 times all in the last three months.

As for April:

Distance- 777 Miles
Time- 42 Hours
Rides- 28
Climbing- 52,906 feet
Average Speed- 18.5mph
Points- 13

April was my first full month of racing so I will use this as comparison with the next few months and fingers crossed there will be another statistic for the amount of wins I have had this year!

BUCS 25 & Out of the Saddle RR

Last weekend was the first time I have competed on both Saturday and Sunday this year. Saturday was a 25 mile time-trial in Cambridge which was part of BUCS. I went into the race with no real expectations as I knew I didn't have the equipment to be in the top 10. This left me with the only real goal of a PB which realistically I could have achieved riding a BMX round the course. Ok that might be a slight exaggeration but even so I smashed my PB by 12 minutes and finished frustratingly close to a sub 1 hour time, 01:00:15 by my watch. This leaves me with a solid benchmark to beat over the coming season. 

After a quick removal of my clip-on TT bars and a nights sleep I was ready to compete in the Out of the Saddle road race. I decided to ride over to the race to give me a chance to spin the legs out and get a few extra miles in. It also gave me a good chance to assess the conditions which were: a. Cold and b. Windy. I knew the conditions were going to be hard enough to blow the race to pieces so I looked for the early break. Eventually I bridged across to a break which swelled to 15 or so riders with another 2 up the road. I then stupidly missed the split in the break I was in so only ended up with 11th place. Another top 15 but still no top 10 this season which I am gutted about. 

Overall I feel I can take a lot of positives from the weekend, PB in the time-trial, competitive in the road race and more importantly my legs felt OK both days. So onto the next weekend of racing which is in a fortnight and I will make sure my season does improve at some point!