What an up and down year so far

Firstly, an explanation of my long delay in writing anything on this blog.

Around February, I severely fell out of love with cycling, and life in general. In fact, I have been diagnosed with depression by my GP. I was tired all the time, had no energy to dedicate to medicine, let alone cycling, and to be frank, couldn’t care less about anything. I kept training, albeit missing quite a few sessions, only because I didn’t want to reverse a winter of hard work. But I was going nowhere, on and off the bike. It got to the point where I needed help, and I asked for it. It’s probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, and now, the 3 people who will actually read this, are one of the very few people I’ve actually told. It’s not that I am scared of the stigma of depression. It’s just how do you bring that up in conversation, especially as a young male.

However, here I am, back on the up… and with many many things to get writing about! Here’s a list of what’s gone on and what I want to do pieces on!

1. A strong start to the season at winter racing

2. A more in depth piece on depression in sport

3. GOLD! GOLD! GOLD!

4. New PB’s at both 10 and 25 miles

I hope that some people still read the blog with a vague interest, and will try and get the pieces out over the next few days!

TJ

Delayed 2015 goals

So, a long hiatus from writing. And just as I decided to come back to it, I realised I never published a draft I wrote with my 2015 goals in. I have a lot to write about from 6 months worth of cycling, but I’ll start by just copying and pasting what I wrote all the way back in January. Some of its been achieved already, some not, some looks a long way away. But there’s still a few months to go! Here it is:-

So far, I haven’t actually given 2015 much thought. I’ve just kind of been aimlessly training. Training to ‘be strong’ when the season comes around. And so far, so good. I’m hitting numbers in tests that I haven’t seen before, I’m slowly but surely getting leaner and I’m pretty sure that I’m in a much better position now than I was last year. A position that I have to remind myself found me lapping the E/1/2 field at Mountbatten. But for obvious reasons, my training lacked in March and April, and with not enough time to make up for it before going to Ethiopia in July, that was pretty much the season done.

So, seeing as the power meter is starting to lose its motivation, its probably a good idea to write down what I have in mind for the year ahead, and hopefully acheive, most, if not all of them!

So first, some general goals, they’re quite vague, but hopefully measurable;

1. Ride more.

In 2014, I only averaged around 6 hours a week. Take out the 10 week lay off for Ethiopia, and it looks a bit better, but at the end of the day I’ve still averaged less than 8 hours a week. Yes, some people can get very fast on a dose of high intensity intervals, but they are the exception, not the rule. My aim for 2015 is quite modest, 10 hours a week average, but still a substantial amount more. I’m not going to suddenly be putting in 20 hours a week. I both don’t have the time, or most likely the physical capacity!

2. Race more

It speaks for itself really. Yes, racing costs money, and sometimes I therefore don’t because of the bank account. But then I’d spend 30 quid on a night out. I know which one I’d prefer to, and it’s about time I did it.

3. Lose some weight

I seem to be forever on a diet… I’m over 80 kilos and I pay for it when the race goes uphill. However, I’ve lost nearly 5 kilos in the last couple of months, just through eating right, not less. If I carry this on I should comfotably get down to a more ‘raceable’ weight of around 76-77 kilos. In 2014 I was generally racing between 82-83 kilos. That would be a huge, and in some ways easy, performance gain

Those goals will only keep me going for a while though. They are almost intermediate goals, something I have to do in order to acheive my true goals as such. So, I better spell them out too;

1. Let’s start with an easy one. New PBs for 10 and 25 mile time trials.

Lets put some numbers on them too. Sub 20.30 for 10, and under the 55 minute mark for 25. I actually think that is reasonably conservative, but only if I get the training right. We shall see.

2. Get that first E/1/2 win.

I’m under no illusions, I’m not going to go from being dropped from road races 60km in to winning them… But, I wasn’t all that far off the pointy end in the circuit racing. A win would be great. An early season one to get the confidence sky rocketing would be even better.

3. BUCS Gold.

I have 2 silver medals from the individual sprint and team pursuit from the BUCS track champs last year. At the time I was super happy. But, at the end of the day, I was still beaten, it wasn’t quite gold… Weighing up my options, I see 4 possible oppurutnities. One of them a lot more doable than the others, but 4 options nevertheless. Of the track events, the team pursuit is the most obvious. We narrowly missed out last year, but after Revolution, I don’t know how much I want to rely on team mates to get me the medal. For sure, I trust them, but it’s just another variable. So, I’ve earmarked the points race, road race and individual pursuit. All super tough to win, but all, not out of the realms of possibility.

And I have another goal, not particularly my own goal, but a cycling goal in general. Last year, I raced for Peter Hansford Racing. At the time, it seemed the right thing to do. They had a solid team – I was the only second cat rider for the university. Thngs went wrong though, and I’m back racing for the uni, but with renewed enthusiasm for it. So the goal here is to really develop racing within the club. I think I’ve already started well, we now have quite a large amount of riders interested in racing, we’ve secured funding from the AU to develop road racing. It just needs that extra input, and I hope that I can lead by example, and put some real energy in to expanding that part of the club.

I hope everyone else has a great 2015, here’s to good health, and some great results!