I’ve had a pretty rough start to the 2011 race season contracting glandular fever taking me out of action for the early part of my first year racing for Maxgear RT.
By mid season I’ve pretty much recovered from glandular fever, so I’m slowly building up back into racing and training again. This started off with just some really easy rides, and just really riding my bike for enjoyment. Then I showed my face at Tameside for a few weeks which started to get some strength back in my legs with all the sprinting out of corners. I rode the junior national RR, however at that point my fitness was pretty bad, so I got dropped after a couple of laps, but I saw it as something to build on. I also rode the Stoke on Trent town centre crit, which if I’m honest I was disappointed in my performance as I got 6th last year, and got lapped this year.
However the turning point came when I went over to Belgium for the first time after my illness. I had a bad cold for about a week beforehand (Music festivals aren’t the best idea mid-season) so I went into the race expecting to be out the back first lap. Because of this, I think my mentality of the whole race changed, and I made sure I was always in the top third, to make it as ‘easy’ as possible for myself. I was therefore extremely surprised and relieved when I heard the bell and the words ‘laste runde’. I think I rolled in at the back of the bunch I was in, in about 17th. I was over the moon with this, as to me it meant that I was finally getting better, and improving.
Alongside this, I have also done a couple of 10’s. The first one I did without a bike computer, so I was extremely pleasantly surprised when I smashed my PB by a minute and a half, to do a time of 25.18. I also did another 10 last night, they changed the course and I felt really sluggish, but I ended up doing 24.25, so I’m hoping that I can improve my time trialling further.
