February has often been the time for my racing season to get under way and find out how well my winter’s training has gone or how much work I have to get to my best. This year it will be different due to the ongoing situation in the UK but there is hope that we will once again get back to racing.
Firstly, a throwback to September when I raced the West Kent RC 25 mile TT. I recieved a lovely note from the organisers at West Kent RC to congratulate me on being the Junior Champion for 2020 of the event and a cheque that I’m very grateful for. Huge thank you to everyone at WKRC for the lovely message and I’ll be back at the course this year to push my record further.
In recent months, we have seen the effects of Brexit. It’s been a big area of frustration for many athletes and other people as well, especially with the new 90 day ruling for UK citizens in the EU. This is a massive blow for non elite athletes from the UK that want to move to Europe to have a chance of becoming professional. This has made me look at the other options that I have available to me to ensure I have the best chance of becoming a professional and not allowing something out of my control affect my future. There is currently a petition to try and get the govenment to allow sportsmen and women exempt from the 90 day ruling as it would be detrimental to careers across the board. The link to the petition is: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/569584?fbclid=IwAR0eIDfG72xOzAqT7dG-MTO9MnKUr1aQs2STfNO8L1pwPg3FHDnxrO5IfUE If you are a UK citizen, my peers and I would be grateful if you can take the time to sign the petition to attempt to help athletes achieve their goals.
Back to a more positive note, my training is feeling very good. Thanks to trainSharp I’m finishing sessions very satsified and I have some good numbers which are a big step forward from the same point last year so I’m hoping this will give me a strong base for the season and allow me to show my strength in races. I’ve been using Zwift as my main training tool over the winter along with my turbo and it’s been very tough training indoors for the majority of my winter’s training, but it has allowed me to motivate myself even further for when the weather is better. Last weekend, I included the 128km Uber Pretzel route on zwift into my training session. This was a hard test as I pushed at near threshold for the whole ride and ended up with a finishing time of 3 hours 49 minutes. Fair to say I pushed myself hard on this route.
Alongside my training on the bike, I’ve incorporated some regular home gym work for the first time and I’ve been doing alot of flexability work with the help of the Rapha flexibility sessions run by Daisy Hughes . In the past I haven’t seen the point of flexibility for cycling but talking with my coach Alex Welburn and utilising these sessions, it’s shown me that it plays a big part in making big improvements on the bike. Big thank you to Rapha and Daisy for putting these sessions on over the winter months to help improve everyone. For anyone who wants to join the free sessions the link is: https://ti.to/rapha-uk/Daisy-Mobility-Series/en
With the plan being set out for the UK’s easing of lockdown, It’s looking like racing will return in the near future. It’s been too long since I last raced my road bike, so I’m looking foward to getting stuck into racing and the dream would be to pick up from where I left off back in March 2020 with some more wins but let’s wait and see.
Thanks for reading
Lance
Lance Childs 