Monday 21 April 2014

Season Update - Hindrance and Fortune

March/April were certainly more eventful months than I was expecting, the former for all the wrong reasons, the latter for predominately the right. Having raced at Pimbo (Nat B) 2nd March and finishing a satisfactory 13th I noticed a pain in my right quadriceps tendon, my immediate response; "oh sh*t, not this again." Having suffered from the same injury in 2013 I knew full well the potential hindrance it could cause. Luckily however being a bit more experienced now I didn't just panic, make lots of alterations and try and hammer through it. I got in touch with a few friends; Rob Palmer - Quiropractico and Garmin swanny, and Graeme Cummings - Bike fit specialist at Specialized Chester. After a couple of weeks of intensive leg rubbing and bone cracking with Rob and a thorough bike fit with G I'm relieved to say we sorted the problem and I was only off the bike for a couple of weeks, but as any cyclist will know anything over two days on the trot feels like a lifetime. All those winter miles, crawling round the peaks on the rain, clinging to the wheels of riders who make you feel powerless and sluggish, all of that work draining from you legs. Of course it didn't do that, it's all just in your head, but the feeling of being anaemic is not one I enjoy.

I've started working with a new coach for 2014; Chris Pyatt, a very successful British rider back in his day and coach also to a number of the WD40 lads of whom I trained regularly with throughout Winter. Things are going extremely well and I'm loving the structure and attention to detail of each and every training session. The last two weeks in March were extremely tough but in a sadistic kind of way quite enjoyable. With a lack of elite races available in the UK in early April I decided to bite the bullet and book a last minute flight to the Tour Ta Malta despite the fact that sadly none of my team were able to go.
my new friend on the plane
Luckily my team manager at Kuota, Dave Williams, has been to the race on a number of occasions in the past and knows a lot of the locals. He put me in touch with a guy called Fabio Spiteri who helped out immensely and in turn introduced me to his local team - Agones and a couple of his friends; Jason and Josef. Seeing as I booked everything so late the race hotel (Soreda) was unfortunately full, however the hotel I was in was only a short walk from Soreda and so I went there most nights for dinner. This was partly to get away from the elderly residents in my hotel asking if I'm doing 'that tour in France', but mainly because I knew a number of girls staying at Soreda who didn't mind me eating with them. Small stage races drag at the best of times, I think it's because when you're not racing you're either talking with your team-mates about racing or you're eating... while talking to your team-mates about racing. Malta was great though, all of the above were super helpful and so friendly so thank you.

the weather and scenery was awful. 
When it came to the racing luck was certainly not on my side; a slow rear puncture in stage 1 TT, I rode it down to about 20psi and somehow rolled home 12th out of 60 or so Elite men. Stage 2 went fantastically bad; a double blow out just before the descent and a neutral service that completely missed me standing helplessly at the roadside with two wheels. I was placed 10th having chased like a maniac to get back to the second group but was technically a lap down, in hindsight I'd have probably finished higher, but it made no difference; a 5 man group finished 3+ minutes up the road and GC was well established. Fortunately my luck changed on stage 3 held on a small Island just north of Malta called Gozo. The race was only short, around 65km, but it had a fairly tough 1km climb every lap that we had to tackle 13 times. It suited me well. With half the race gone and all the GC guys practically holding hands I thought "screw it" and attacked solo on the flat into a cross/headwind. I quickly built a gap and had around a minute with a lap to go, despite grabbing gels from the roadside off every man and his dog I started cramping up last time up the climb and had to try and limit my loses. Remarkably I held on for the win with the red jersey (GC leader) coming in second, just 1 second behind.

in a bit of pain.
rocking my World Cup GripGrap Gloves
Since coming back things have gone well, training is progressing, I finished 11th at the Sheffrec Spring RR (NatB), 2nd at a crit in Litherland (RegC), and have had a couple of respectable TT results. I've got some decent races coming up here in the UK so will update you on how I get on in those. Thanks as ever to Dave at DHW agencies for the lightning fast Kuota and GSG kit, Exsa for the financial support and GripGrab for the accessories.

I've added a few more pictures below, cheers for reading, stay safe and press on,
Tom 
Unsurprisingly it's still Belgian bootie and long finger glove weather in the UK.

Tour Ta Malta 2014 - Stage 3, Gozo
M&DTTA 25 champs - 55:32 - 9th.