My time in France
Well here I am, back in the rather autumnal feeling UK.
After getting back from my trip to France a week ago today, i’ve had plenty of time to reflect on my time out there. I can’t believe how much I learnt out racing in Europe, not only did I learn about my racing and training but also a lot about myself I didn’t know before going away.
From my experience, everything out there is exaggerated compared to in the UK. When I say this I mean in racing, when its hard its VERY hard and when its easy its VERY easy (in between very hard bits of a race for example). The level out there is so much higher also, probably due to it being a bigger area and a sport lots of people start doing from when they are quite young. Its much more common than in the UK to be racing from below the age of 12.
The terrain is always difficult, to the French a flat road race with 10 laps of the same circuit with no wind is not a race. When it went uphill it was flat out, when it went downhill it was scary and if you had a flat road, there would almost always been a crosswind! Many times I found myself battling with others to stay on a wheel as the real strong guys would turn the pace up in the cross wind and start echelons.
I didn’t do as well out there as I had planned and hoped to, but any athlete would always want more in that situation. Having little experience it would be hard to make accurate goals before I had gone. However, I did surprise myself a few times as I soon found my confidence and was on the attack. I think now coming back to the UK will boost my confidence still as I have pretty much unlocked a new level of flat out ha!
It was great to be able to stay with the Carr family, I was very well looked after and it was a pleasure to work for them also. They were very understanding of the commitments of a cyclist such as training regimes and the habits in the build up to a race. I wouldn’t hesitate to go back and do it all over again!
Now back home its time to focus on getting some BC points. Having missed out the easy opportunities to get points such as mid week races etc, I have some catching up to do now. My next race starts tomorrow at the 5 stage Tour of Sussex, a cat 2 race I have high hopes and confidence for and I cant wait to hopefully be battling it out for the win.
Again a massive thanks to all the support i’ve received from my family, friends and Team OnForm while I was out there learning the hard way. I’m sure all the hard training and racing will soon pay off!