Saturday 12 December 2015

Three years in the making.

The last few weeks have been pretty successful for me. I have had the Vic GP (which I talked about in the previous post), a couple of Sprint Series rounds (open to novice riders as well for those interested!), and as of today I raced at the Victorian State titles.

The last two rounds of the ABOC Sprint Series, held at Blackburn, have been really exciting to race. There has been some solid competition and some very tactical races. In the first of the two rounds since I last spoke, I rode a 12.4s flying 200, which isn't fantastic considering some times I have done in the past. However, it is a fairly consistent time, my times hadn't varied a lot in the last year or so. That time qualified me in 3rd place, behind a 12.1 and a 12.0. Despite this, I knew that I had to give it my all if I wanted to win. It came down a lot to tactical ability and I was able to make my way to the 1st vs 2nd final and win. I've had a tendency, lately, to race a lot better than I qualify. My tactical ability, as well as my overall effort to push myself seems to be amplified when I am put in a situation racing another rider. I can often win races against people who qualify faster than me, however, when I am racing against the clock, something seems to be a little off. It's an issue I need to work on in order to ride faster timed events.

In the most recent round of the ABOC Sprint Series I managed to show some improvements to my F200 time. Whilst it was not my fastest time at the Blackburn velodrome, it was a milestone I hadn't seen in a long time, and that was breaking the 12 second barrier, with an 11.9 second flying 200. I was pretty happy with that time considering I hadn't come close since early 2014. This round saw me take out the overall win again, putting me as the current overall leader in the aggregate points. I hope to be able to maintain my lead for the remaining two rounds, but I don't think it's going to be easy. There's plenty of competition.

Today, the 12th of December 2015, was the Victorian State Championships. It was a very eventful day, full of interesting twists and turns, but one that was ultimately very successful. The racing commenced at 9:00am, although they were pursuits, something I don't race. I started my warm up at around 9:30. My warmup is a series of hops, skips and jumps in order to activate the muscles with minimal fatigue (as compared to spending time on the rollers or riding laps around the track), which we have dubbed Prancercise.  This is then followed by a couple of activations on the track. It's a pretty simple warm up, but it's proven effective. The first event I had was at a little after 10am. It was a standing lap. When the gate let me go, I managed to pull my foot and I had to reset, which put me off a little bit. However I still pulled out a time of 19.1s when I attempted it again. There were no medals presented for it and I hadn't really prepared for it. I had decided to do it only a few days before the event. I wasn't particularly happy with that time, but it wasn't the event I was there to race.

After that I spent a couple of hours preparing for the sprints. I sat for a little bit before spending a couple of minutes on the rollers and doing a power jump in preparation. Prior to the qualifying I felt relatively calm. I wasn't nervous. It turns out today as well that all of the stars aligned. For those of you who have read previous posts of mine, you would know that for the last 3 or so years, I have had a time goal to reach during qualifying for match sprints. And that has been to break the 11 second barrier over 200 metres (10.999 or faster). It has been a point of contention of mine for a very long time, and today I managed to finally achieve what I have been working towards for far too long. I qualified with a time of 10.985. I crossed the line and looked up. I couldn't help but let out a little fist pump and a smile as I rolled around the top of the track. I raced a total of 5 more races that day. One elimination round and 2 best of 3 rounds. After winning the elimination round I was put up against the top seed rider who had ridden a 10.5s f200. The first race was fairly close, I rode it tactically well and he only managed to pass me on the line. The second race was a bit more interesting. In the last 3/4s or so of the last lap my rear wheel exploded.
I can't say that I am entirely sure how it happened. I was in the middle of the bend at the time and managed to ride it on the rim to the end of the back straight before I fell off on the grey concrete at the bottom of the track. Fortunately I'd slowed down significantly by then and only ended up with a small hole in my skin suit. It could have been a bit worse. There were a few chunks taken out of my frame where the rim hit. I'm optimistic that the damage is not significant enough to make the bike un-rideable. Fingers crossed. 

The commissaires decided to give the race to my opponent, which put me into the 3rd vs 4th final. Despite the little stack I got back up and, after borrowing someone else's wheel, raced another two rounds in which I won back to back sprints. I claimed my bronze medal after a hard, but very rewarding day of racing.  I must say as well that the day was rewarding from more than the point of view of my success. I saw one of my training partners ride successfully in the women's events claiming second in the sprint, and I also so another of my close friends and training partners break the 11 second barrier straight after myself. Watching the hard work pay off for them is certainly very inspiring as well. My coach also deserves a mention for being supportive of me for a long time where I have struggled to work towards achieving this big milestone of mine.
Back to training tomorrow. 

Monday 9 November 2015

It's the journey that counts.

I realise that it's been quite a long time since I've submitted a post. I'm pretty bad at committing to scheduled blog posts I've come to realise. At this point it's been around 2 years since my previous post. My dream of becoming a world class athlete is still in progress, which is good. It means that, even if it's not very often, I'll still write blog posts on the subject.

Apparently my last blog post was on the 7th March 2013, only a few days before my 17th birthday. A lot has happened in my life since then. I've had relationships come and go, I've finished year 12 and my VCE and I'm about to finish my first year of uni where i'm studying an arts degree. French is one of my subjects, I'm quite keen on the language and I want to be able to speak it one day. I've been considering, and it's mostly just thoughts at this point, spending some time in France as part of a semester abroad. I think it would be pretty cool to get some real exposure to the language. It would also be really cool to race in France as the current world record holder in the F200 and the Kilo is a Frenchman named François Pervis. The French seem to have a system worked out that is showing results, and it would be awesome to get an opportunity to race there. That's all something to think about for the future though.

In terms of my cycling career, it's been a long road so far. My flying 200 times seem to be staying the same. It's a hell of a plateau, I can tell you that much. But I still enjoy going to training and racing. I've made a number of friends in the last year or so. I left the VSG and have been training with my old coach. The culture in the squad is great and I think I've made some life long friendships as a result. I've seen power improvements, strength improvements and improvements in just about all my aspects of training in terms of raw numbers, and ergos are just as painful as ever. I have increased my strength in the gym a fair bit too. I hit some pretty serious squat PBs this season. I can thank the SMOLOV squat program. I put on 15kgs to my 1rm in 6 weeks. It was pretty brutal. If you want a gym program that will test you both mentally and physically, I would highly recommend it. When I tell people I loved it, they think I'm crazy. Go check it out. The interesting thing, despite overall improvements is that I seem to struggle to break this f200 barrier. It suggests to me that it's a mental thing that needs to be sorted out.

Ergos are just as painful as ever
I would be leaving out some pretty big plot lines if I didn't mention some of the achievements that I have made, however. Probably the one closest to the previous post (chronologically speaking) would be winning a bronze at states in the sprint in December of 2013. The next, and probably my biggest and most proud achievement to date, would be during nationals of 2014 (almost two months after the bronze at states). My gold medal in the team sprint that made me an Australian champion. The excitement that I felt when I won would probably be comparable to a young kid waking up on Christmas morning about to open his presents for the first time. I was ecstatic to say the least. I even managed to get on national TV during on of the keirins, so that was really cool.

National TV ain't bad!
I think the team sprint was a big motivator for a while afterwards. At a club level, I managed to set the track record at my club's velodrome (Blackburn Cycling Club). I pulled out an 11.5s F200, which, for those of you who know the BBN track, is lightning fast. It was electronically timed, so its hard to argue. I don't know what happened that day, but I had some serious form. As a general rule, the BBN track is anywhere between 0.7 and 1 second slower than that of DISC (the indoor wooden track). If you do some quick maths, that puts me at 10.8 or quicker at an indoor track, yet somehow I'm still yet to see a sub 11 time with my name on it on the scoreboard. I'm as stumped as you.

Earlier this year in January at the 2015 national titles I didn't manage to place (Senior riders are fast!), but I did compete in the team sprint again with a couple of really good mates (and training partners). It was a really enjoyable experience and, once again, helped motivate me to continue training.
Team Sprint ready
The most recent event that I participated in was yesterday at the 2015 Victorian GP. I qualified with an 11.1, not super happy, but from there all you can do is focus on the racing. So that's what I did. I managed to claw my way to a third place win after some pretty tactical and tough racing. I was pretty happy with the racing and how I went. I scored a cool picture of myself on the rollers, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

In conclusion, it's been a pretty interesting few years. A lot has happened, both good and bad. But in my experience, it's not all about winning and losing. It's the journey along the way that counts.