Getting back into the full swing of racing is always a feeling of excitement, 2021 really tested how much I love cycling with a lot of rain affected racing in recent weeks. The rain certainly didn’t dampen my motivation (pardon the pun!)
The final race before points were on offer was the Santini Cyclopark crit. Amazingly, a dry race! With a strong field in the 2/3 race it was a tough race. I was racing how I love to race, aggressively and on the offensive, but unfortunately I missed out on the race winning breakaway. I kept safe in the group after it was concluded we wouldn’t catch them and I sprinted hard to win the bunch sprint for 4th place.
Next up for me was the Catford CC 10 mile TT. A very fast course along the Tonbridge bypass made for me having a good chance to go sub 20 minute for the first time for a 10 mile TT. However, heavy rain stopped my chance of going sub 20 but pushed full gas for the whole TT and ended up finishing 11th and 1st junior.
This year I’ve also been happy to race back at my home track of Betteshanger for some Wednesday night TT’s as well as an open on the course. With some less than optimal weather for the TT’s, it was not overly fast but it’s great to go back to where it all started for me as a cyclist.
The warm up was beautiful conditions 
The TT less so
Another Santini Cyclopark crit would follow and this would be a better race with my aggressive racing style paying off by forcing an early breakaway to stick and after a strong Samuel Painter from TBW U23 attacked the breakaway, I sprinted hard and just was beaten into 3rd place which was still a good result and first junior.
After the solid results I had, I went back to trainSharp HQ for a full physiological test to see how far I’ve come since the first test I had with trainSharp. I saw some big improvements in all areas and I was proud of my progress.
My most recent race was another SERRL race, this time back at cyclopark. I raced hard to stay with the strongest riders but just didn’t quite have the legs to go with the race winning move which was disappointing but I will come back stronger.
Finally, I would like to say thank you to not only trainSharp and Pedal Potential for their support but I would like to say thank you to all the tutors at Canterbury College. Last week was my last week of education for the time being and I’m very greatful for the 2 years I’ve spent at Canterbury College.
There’s some exciting things planned for me very soon so stay tuned to hear about that because I can’t wait to write about it.
Thanks for reading
Lance
Lance Childs 