After reviewing the ups and downs of 2016, its fairly obvious what this post is going to contain. Writing down your goals and sharing them make them more accountable and means your more likely to acheive them, or at least give it 100% failing to complete them! So, here are my goals for 2017;
- Balance racing with medicine
For the last few years I have been balancing racing my bike with undertaking my medicine degree, and by and large its gone well. However there have been times when they have both been detrimental as well. Looking back, the main problem has been not racing enough, but not necessarily the training. I have got stronger year on year but perhaps don’t have the results to show for it. Therefore in 2017 I want to race a hell of a lot more, and try to keep doing it around times when I’m stressed or have exams. Rather than dropping a race but carrying on training, why not race but drop the training session? It’s something to try and hopefully if I hit the season in the form of my life it will be much easier to maintain that form and get some results for Primera-Teamjobs! (Oh and make sure I pass my finals…)
2. Win a road race
This has been seemingly a perrenial target on my goals for the year and as of yet I haven’t acheived it. I’ve had many top 10s but have always just been that couple of percent off the win. Hopefully however, now I’m getting some proper coaching I can really focus on my weaknesses and don’t have an excuse to not work on my sprinting anymore! I also need to be more clever when picking the races I want to target so that they play to my strengths. At the moment, that is my threshold power so something over more rolling terrain where a break can form would be perfect. Let’s wait and see!
3. Break the 19 minute barrier
It seemed to take forever to get under that magical 20 minute barrier last year, but when I did, I got more than 2/3rds of the way to breaking the 19 minute barrier as well. This is a big target for me but also I hope a realistic one that means I won’t be driving all the way to Hull just to blast up the M62 or whatever they use for that ridiculous course! I’m hoping either the A3crg events on the A3 or the events held near Tring on the F11/10 course will bring this one home!
4. Improve at a national level
2016 gave me my first taste of time trialling at a national level at the 10 mile TT championship. This one is simple, improve on my 40th place from this year. Easy peasy right.
5. Forget about the excuses
Sometimes I can definitely look for excuses in my performances, and to be honest, who doesn’t. In cycling, there’s always new products coming out claiming to save you x watts or make you x seconds quicker over an hour. It can get overwhelming. I quite often got down in 2016 as I wasn’t on a level playing field in terms of kit compared to the guys I’m racing with.
Now, this is partly solved by the fact that the team are providing some fantastic kit for next year from the likes of Sidi, Endura and Kask, but at the same time I’m not fooling myself that I will still be turning up to races on the ‘Frankenbike’ that has a mad mix of parts on and some £80 wheels (for now, I might get lucky!)
I can’t afford a £2000 pair of wheels, not many people can. So I just need to man up and get on with it. More positivity is needed and with a can do attitude and not having a defeatist mindset already on the start line I believe I can prove that it doesn’t really matter what you race on, you can still win!!! Mind over matter and all that. And that victory will be all that bit sweeter.
6. Have fun
Above all, I want to have an amazing season racing for Primera-Teamjobs. So far, its been an absolute pleasure riding with the other guys on the team and I can’t wait to pull the kit on once we have the team launch in January. I’ve got a really good feeling about 2017 and think it is definitely going to be the best by far, shared with a bunch of really good riders, but also good friends.
Once again, Merry Christmas!
TJ
Mediccyclist 