It's been a while

How time flies!! That's winter over. Well when I say winter I mean winter training, not in terms of the weather!! It's the 1st April and it's snowing...

So it's race time again and my season started last weekend at the Dave Peck Memorial Road Race in Twickenham, round 2 of the Women's Team Series.

First race for IKON-Mazda in the Dave Peck Memorial RR. 

Sadly my race came to a premature end when I was caught up in a crash and my rear mech was broken. 10 miles to go and it was race over. Gutted and raging I think sums up best how I felt at the time.

Broken hanger

The same fate happened to Elle just minutes before when someone rode into the back of her, another busted rear mech, race over. If things come in threes then they definitely did in this race. Lexie was taken out by the crash but we are all so relieved that she's ok as what happened could have been so much worse!!! Speedy recovery Lexie!! Now I've had a chance to reflect and take the positives from the race I'm not quite so raging and thankfully it was just the hanger that was broken so all fixed now, phew!! 

I thought I'd have a wee recap on the past 6 months. Last season was emotional. There were highs but there were also low lows. I definitely learnt a lot last season and that will really help me this season.  I learnt a lot about myself both as a person and a cyclist. 6 weeks off the bike at the end of the season were a much needed rest for my body and my head, both were pretty done in. I only rode my bike about 4 or 5 times in those 6 weeks and it was just for fun, mostly on the "dark side" (sorry to all my mtb buddies!).  So come November 1st I was feeling refreshed and ready to rekindle the love/hate relationship with the turbo...in the shed...With no power in the shed this often meant training in the dark (daylight is often hard to come by in the winter months in Aberdeen!) with a head torch, gradually peeling off the layers as I started to warm up. We got quite lucky with the weather though and there weren't too many days when it was too icy or snowy to go out on the road. Although I did escape to Lanzarote for most of January so that was a definite bonus!! Lanzarote was ace! Great roads and good weather. Save for the wind... There were a couple of scary moments riding leaning sideways off the bike just to stay upright in the crosswind. I said I'd never moan about the wind back home ever again!

Life has changed a wee bit since returning from Lanzarote. At times it's been a challenge, but I'm really lucky to have the support of some truly great people, who have each helped in their own significant way. I recently posted this picture on Facebook and thought I'd share it again here. When I read it, it really meant something to me and instantly just helped put things into perspective in my head. 

Well that's about it for now. The second day of April, it's not snowing so hopefully yesterday was just the weather's attempt at an April Fools!

Thanks for reading!

Jools.