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Hi, I’m Thomas Prentice- rider for G.S. Metro and a CTT scholar for 2018. I’d like to open my series of blogs that I will write to be published on the CTT site by saying a huge thank you to the CTT for taking me onboard and offering me the funds to race the national events I’d like to compete in this season.
10th March- I kicked my season off at the Gifford ¾ road race, having never done a road race before I wasn’t sure what to expect, the 40 mile race was challenging in the conditions, heavy rain and around 3 degrees- expected in Scotland. 5 miles I joined a 2 man break with a teammate and another junior. We held a gap of one and a half mins to the finish, I finished 3rd. 26th of March- My next event was another road race, the Reivers RR 34- a local course to me which I knew well, a nice sunny day this time lifting the morale somewhat. After half a lap in the bunch I broke away solo staying away for nearly half the 40 mile race to take the KOM prime. Burning my matches early in the race I got caught, rolled round until the finishing steep uphill drag, Didn’t jump on an attack potentially costing me the win, I sprinted for 2nd- a good result but left slightly un satisfied. 27th of March- Gordon Arms Mountain Time Trial- a low key British cycling ran time trial up in the Scottish borders, quite a technical hilly course which suited me. I picked up 5th and 1st Junior. A pleasing result after my road race the day before and it being the first outing of my TT bike in a race. 
In April I did the Blaydon 2 up TT with team mate Zeb Kyffin to take the overall win by 30 seconds, a fun race despite the wet conditions. A week later I did my first 10 mile TT at the NTR open 10, clocking 20:46, power was down due to the nature of the course being a dual carriageway with 8 roundabouts, improvements to be made to pacing but happy enough with the time, 8th overall and 2nd Junior. I took my first open TT win at the M27 time trial on the 22nd of April, A hilly course suited to my ability, I took 1st place completing a team 1/2/3. This month started at the Derwentside MTT, a tough 40 mile course on a very hot day. I took 5th behind a high standard of competition and 1st Junior.
A week later saw a trip up to Glencoe for the Knight Composites Series Round 4- A deflating ride, suffering with a puncture a mile into the course I had to walk back to the HQ to lend a teammate’s wheel to finish, many thanks to Sheila Hardy for encouraging me to continue! Nevertheless a great course, I’ll certainly be back.
As I write this I have just finished my first National B road race at the Hugh Dornan RR, a hard 75 mile course, I finished top 20.
A big learning curve, hardest race so far by quite a stretch.
In the next few weeks I will be doing the Knight Composites series round 5 over in Penrith, followed by a few local TTs and
road races before my first season goal-the 6th round of Knight Composites series, which is also the National Circuit champs. 
More to come hopefully, thanks for reading!