Iona at Peterborough Crit

Iona at Peterborough Crit

Friday 4 October 2013

Track Nationals...Jumping in at the deep end

Track Nationals

So I entered the track nationals this year…just to see what was out there. Being completely under prepared I was soon to find out having the correct kit and having practiced on it makes a big difference! So opening my track tt bars the night before my individual pursuit was probably not the best of preparations!

Day one started with the 500m TT, I was up pretty soon so having never even seen a 500m TT being performed let alone competing in one I was really throwing myself in at the deep end entering 3 events over the next 3 days at nationals level having never even practiced these events in training! This is down to not being able to get track time as im not accredited… a strange system which allows me to compete at national level yet not be able to access training at the veledrome :/. I clocked a pretty slow time in comparison to the others girls but that is to be expected on my first attempt when the other girls have been doing it for years, had lots of specific training and the right kit!
Next was the IP, again my lack of experience showed with my poor pace judgement setting off far to reserved after everyone had been warning me not to blow and work into it…next year im smashing it from the start! Some specific practise and I will definitely get sub 4 minutes next year as I was just over that at 4.02 this year.

The Match sprint on Friday was…interesting to say the least and quite amusing really.
My flying 200m was off the pace at 13 seconds however this was due lack of experience as I dropped down off the banks far too early and after watching afew girls after my attempt I realised where I had lost seconds. This will be an easy time to beat next year with abit of practice now that I am currently in the process of getting my accreditation. As a consequence I didn’t get through to the heats which wasn’t a surprise! I didn’t find this out however until I had taken up at least 10 minutes of a very kind man’s time who was part of the Scottish development team who was explaining what a match sprint is looking abit bewildered why I had entered this event at a national level not even knowing what the rules where or having ever done one…iv got to admit I do seem to run before I can walk sometimes! With Nicola soden giggling next to me at my embarrassing confession that in fact I wasn’t even through to the heats I moved on to concentrate on my next and final race, the points race.

This race I felt abit more prepared for as I have competed in the Friday night track league the past 2 years which incorporates points races so I had some idea what I was letting myself in for and for a change I wasn’t the odd one out without an aero helmet! Hayley kindly offered for me to borrow her disc wheel which would have made me on equal terms for equipment unlike all the other races but I was abit scared as I have only tried a disc wheel for about 5 minutes and felt I wasn’t comfortable enough with such an expensive piece of equipment so I opted for my whopper wheels. So the whistle blew and we were off, 6 laps in and the first sprint in coming up 4 laps and something of a red mist comes over me and I decide it would be a good idea to attack some Olympic Champions for the first set of points. Taking a long one 4 laps out I got a considerable gap before being gloriously swallowed 1 lap to go.  A glorious failure! But for a moment I was off the front of a world class field and felt like a champion. The rest of the race consisted of hanging on for dear life which is what I was expecting, but I kept my position and felt really strong. I finished the race with the bunch very happy to have stuck in there with a world class field…it looks good for next years elite crits which I fluffed this year due to lack of form.

All in all an eye opening experience with A LOT to learn in terms of rules, tactics, equipment, positioning and training but looking forward to smashing my times I have now set as my own benchmarks J


By Brit