Varsity

Varsity is held every year and is a sport competition held between local universities, in my case Sheffield University v Sheffield Hallam. The competition involves all sports and there are 5 cycling disciplines to compete in. Being a road cyclist I chose to compete in the hill climb and the 20km time-trial, in the future I may also compete in the mountain bike event as well.
The first event is a favorite of mine, the hill climb, which was held at Monsal head. I knew I had a great chance of victory and had support from friends of my course (Becky & Will) to spur me on. I was one of the last riders off which meant I knew the time I was looking to beat was 1 minute and 39 seconds. Having completed the effort I was asked 'Did you set of at the correct time?'. I knew this was going to go one way or the other and after the times were read out my time of 1 minute and 23 seconds had secured victory in the event by 10 seconds. I was very happy with my time and will look to improve it during the hill climb season in October when the infamous Monsal hill climb is held.
The next event, held a month later due to snow delays, was the time trial. This season I am trying to improve my time-trialing as it a useful skill to have and can be key to success in road races. We rode out to the start of the race and I told myself to use it as a hard training session as I was just riding my road bike, this makes a significant difference compared to riding a time-trial bike which can knock minutes off your time. I really enjoyed riding the course which was very hilly compared to what I had ridden in the past. My time, 31min 30sec ,was good enough to secure 4th place in the event and 26 seconds off the winner Tom Stewart. I stupidly did not warm-up properly which caused a slow start and I could not make up the lost time in the latter half of the course.
Varsity was great fun to compete in and the cycling team completed a 5-0 whitewash against Hallam whilst Sheffield University were crowned Varsity champions. This was a great results for the sports teams and I hope to be part of several more victories in the future.