This month has been a mad exciting one! Throwing myself in at the deep end with some big races, a fair bit of travelling and a big announcement, all has me pretty hyped for the rest of the season. As you may have seen on my socials recently, I'm dead excited that I'll now be riding for Tekkerz CC during the summer race season! I feel incredibly lucky to have this oppotunity to join, learn from and race with such a class group of people, it has already helped bring back my enthusiasm for summer racing, giving me something to really strive towards. Where I've previously never had a proper team set up for summer I've lacked that motivation and community at races, meaning I've always ended up drifitng with my training and hitting the start of CX season in a pretty rubbish form. Joining Tekkerz gives me that base and support to be able to race some different, bigger events that I would've never even considered racing therefore hopefully enabling me to maintain a strong form into the start of CX, a key part of the season. Coming from a MTB background I've only every trained on the road so this year i've been moving into the road racing scene to help with fitness; it has also kept things intresting and new. Having a super chill set up around me really helps in taking the pressure off my shoulders, especially in my first proper year on the road. Also, can't forget how damn COOL the kit is, what an honour to be able to rep this jersey with some rad sponsors too- very grateful. The last couple of weeks have been full of firsts. I raced my first ever National A road race at Cicle Classic, first national champs on the road at the Crit Champs and sent it round the sickest crit circuit at the last Crystal Palace crit of the year, taking 3rd in the womens. Kinda just been throwing myself in at the deep end, but loving it! Not only this, but I finally managed to get my cat 2 licsense, something I've been slowly working towards this year. The Cicle Classic was one of the toughest races I've done yet, I was unsure what to expect but after hearing all the hype about the gravel sectors I was super keen to give it a shot. A dicey start to the race had me positioned in the front 20 riders but after narrowly avoiding some crashes I was pushed back a little further. At the first proper QOM climb I got spat just off the lead group (sort of expected this to happen!) and then spent the rest of the race chasing with the second group. I felt really strong in the gravel sectors and where I feel quite at home in the dirt it allowed me to rest up and just enjoy. I struggled in the mid-section of the race where the fatigue started to kick in but weirdly started to feel strong again near the final 15km. Lots of lessons learned on pacing, fuelling and positioning within a group, so finishing 45th out of 130 starters, I'm pretty satisfied with my first big road race. After a lot of travelling up to Kirkcudbright (Dumfries/Galloway) for the National Crit champs, I'll be honest I am a bit disappointed with my performance. It was a super fast and flat circuit, the corners not being super technical, which meant little places to rest. Where I haven't done much crit racing if at all any yet this year, I felt like my legs really lacked that race fitness/speed that the other girls had from racing Tour Series. After sitting in the front group for the first 25mins I then got caught behind a large crash and lost touch with the group, from then on I spent my time chasing alone until I got pulled. Although was held up behing a crash, I had kinda hoped that i would have felt a bit stronger than I did in the race, either way it can only get better from here! My next two races are both this coming week at Otley and Ilkely National crit series, I'm hoping to come away from these races with some fast legs and better experience. A good level of nervous excitement is building :)
Huge thanks to Pedal Potential for their continued support, as well as now to Tekkerz CC, I cannot wait for the rest of this season. Thanks for reading Amy :)
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