This weekend saw my first Team appearance for GB Cycles.co.uk at the Aucterlonie Women's Stage Race at the royal welsh show ground in Builth Wells.
Following major surgery to reconstruct my Anterior Cruciate Ligament, in my right knee I have raced a few 10mile time trials, weight trained and one criterium prior to this weekend.
I always knew it would be a big ask after such a long lay off, but race competition is great training to add to my recovery, and also it gave me a fabulous opportunity to meet back up and race with the rest of the team.
Racing this weekend were Iona Sewell , Stephania Magri, Adele Martin and Linda Young, and we were all looked after by our Team Manager Steve Wright.
We all met up on Friday evening at the campsite that Linda had found for us: a beautiful pitch just outside of Builth Wells. We set up camp, discussed times for Saturday, got food and then had a comfy nights sleep.
Saturday morning saw us all arrive and sign on ready for the morning's time trial, which I have to say was a good course with an excellent surface. There was a bit of a drag up to a nice small decent, back round under the main road and then back up to rejoin the first road with a nice small downhill to the finish. The weather held out and actually stayed dry. We all put in excellent efforts for the Time Trial, and I hope I am correct in saying Iona was in 8th , Linda 16th, Steph 22nd, Me 24th and Adele 27th.
We had quite a long break between the Time Trial and Criterium so we all went to town to stock up on food, and rest, that said I found it incredibly hard to want to eat, but also aware that I needed more than just breakfast to see me through the day.
Back to head quarters in plenty of time to organise ourselves for the criterium. The heavens opened, leaving the course looking potentially quite slippery on some testing corners. Other races had been going on throughout the day and our race started at 3:15pm. The start was gridded with higher cat riders at the front. Personally I had a good start, but it was evident from the off that it was soon to spread out across the course. My aim was clear in my head, A) I actually haven't raced longer than 30 minutes since the op so to complete an hour's racing, trying my hardest and pushing myself was the first objective, and B) Stay safe and out of any trouble..... There were a few crashes I saw directly on the same bend, but nothing at all worrying.
Whilst I found myself dropping I had to keep pushing but also telling myself, that I am still in the early days of recovery and also regaining my confidence. I haven't been able to train as I would have been able to had it not been for having surgery. All in all I was pleased I did all I could and had good day's racing.
Saturday evening we were very lucky to have use of a drying room on the campsite, where we left our completely drenched and dirty clothes from the Crit race that afternoon.
Sunday we had a 53mile road race. Unfortunately for me, Saturday's racing was enough for my knee and I knew I didn't want to push it in the road race. Having spun on the turbo on Sunday morning at HQ, I was happy to have made the decision to recover rather that push the knee, so withdrew from the road race.
This enabled me to be Steve's assistant in the service support car, which for me was a great way to see the road race from another angle. It was a tough, tough course, which caught a lot of riders out, with very little in the way of a reprieve from a climb or a drag.
All in all my first team experience was the best I could hope for. The team atmosphere is so relaxed and very supportive and we all had a great weekend. Thank you to GB Cycles for getting some much-needed kit and Zipvit bars to me earlier in the week. Thank you to Steve Wright for all your help and support, and for putting up with me in the car for 2.30hours.
I have more longer-distance Time Trials coming up and will be up in Yorkshire riding the "King of the Pennines" on August 19th prior to the next team race, which will be the Jersey Town Criterium on August Bank Holiday weekend.
