News & Features

A time trial is an unforgiving beast. I've said it before but when everything goes well and you're having a good day, it feels effortless. Like you're floating somehow. But when the legs aren't there…you can't hide. It isn't like a road race where you can try to sit in, maybe hide in the bunch and hope that you'll warm up as time goes on. From the start you are alone and you have to work out exactly how much power you're going to be able to push for the duration of the race. It's a pretty miserable feeling.

I had one of those miserable days pretty recently and honestly, a lot of it was my own fault. I've been TTing long enough and I know my body well so I should have known better than to make a lot of the mistakes that I did.

I guess it's useful to do a bit of a rewind. I've not done much TTing the past 18 months. I have missed it and I want to get back to doing more but last year for various reasons I barely touched the TT bike and the only TT I raced was on my road bike. This year I entered, and won, a round of the Gran Fondo World Series in France back in April (which I wrote about on my blog). I happened to be in France for some commentary and it sounded like fun; it's the first time I've not had UCI points for my entire career so I was eligible to compete. Winning qualified me for the Gran Fondo World Championships in Niseko, Japan but as that was never on my agenda I wasn't sure whether to compete or not… Fast forward to today and I'm writing this from Japan, 48 hours pre-race. I chatted with my coach in mid-May and we decided to go for it. I've had an up and down few years and I want to enjoy racing a bit and regain some confidence so this seemed like a great opportunity. And well, Japan

I had a solid run of TT training in early June but then the MyWhoosh Championships were announced for the start of July and my focus became split. In hindsight, I know I'm the sort of rider who needs to keep training on the TT bike or I de-adapt, but somehow I lost sight of this and blindly followed my training plan without questioning why I wasn't riding the TT bike. I went over a month without touching it. During the last week of July I became very aware that Japan was looming and so switched a session in my plan to TT bike rather than road bike. The next day my body was really struggling. I then had an aerotesting session booked on 3rd August with AeroCoach to find a new helmet and although this went well, in the days that followed my legs were frankly horrendous. This was when I made my next mistake. Rather than focus on recovery, I shuffled sessions that were planned for the rest of the week and did efforts on the road bike to make sure I got everything in. I was too focussed on the TSS and CTL in training peaks and missed my Thursday rest day, instead doing the 3 hour endurance ride that I should have done on the Wednesday.

On Saturday I was racing. My second TT in 2 years - the British Masters Championship at Thruxton. I was worried. Actually, with hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have raced because I knew I'd been in terrible shape all week and I was unlikely to be able to perform. But I felt I needed to do a practice event, even just to go through the motions a bit with timings. Long story short, I had a shocker. My legs seized up quite early on, I had pain in my left leg and the power got worse and worse. I was actually leading at the 10 mile point and then lost by 2 seconds to Jess Disley (who is having an incredible year which I absolutely love to see). Honestly? I was in a foul mood. I spent the drive home wondering whether to cancel my Japan trip and feeling angry at myself for the mistakes I knew I'd made. I also started to panic about a recurrence of my iliac artery issues, as I always do when I have any left leg issues (though I was pretty confident that in this case the problem was muscular, not vascular). I wasn't sure if there was a way to turn it around. The race was actually the kick up the butt I probably needed because then everything switched to re-adapting my body for the TT bike. I knew my numbers and fitness was great - I just needed to be able to get it out in the TT position.

Since that Saturday I've ridden almost exclusively on the TT bike. I've revisited sessions that I've used in the past in the early season to help with adaptation. I've had massage, stretched and really focussed on getting my body in the correct state. Would I have been this focussed without the loss? Perhaps not. I hate losing, but I've been in a situation before where I lost a race shortly before a major target and that caused me to rethink and turn things around.

I hope I've done enough in these past few weeks to be ready for the race in Japan. Having been unsure initially whether to enter, I hope I can put in a strong performance, take confidence and use this as a stepping stone to getting back to where I hope to, and know I can be. I've actually received some messages from someone in my category telling me that I shouldn't be here competing at this event but I am eligible to race and so I will do so. I've had a rough period and I don't hide that, but I know I'm still strong and I still love to race my bike so that's what I'm here to do. I hope that on Thursday I can have one of those magic, effortless days that every TT rider dreams of.