So, it was back to pinning a number on last week with the National Championships in the Isle of Man.
This is always one of the toughest races of the season and this year was certainly no different. With a very gruelling course and the standard of the British Women’s peloton at a very high standard, there was going to be no holding back.
At the start of the season, the time trial at the National Championships was a big goal of mine. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the best preparation. With illness beforehand and not being able to train properly for quite a bit of time, I wasn’t going into it with much form – but I was looking forward to getting stuck in.
We arrived with an entire day to check out the TT course and make sure everything was running smoothly. It was a tough course – all up and down with a couple of tough climbs. Though it didn’t end up being the result I’d have liked, I was happy with how the race went overall.
With a few days until the road race, it was time to recover and check out the course ready for Sunday. Having raced the Youth Commonwealth games here quite a few years ago, I knew what the finishing circuit was like – again with a tough climb it was going to be a hard six laps.
For the first part of the race we were using a lap of the very well-known time trial course, and you guessed it… there was yet another climb! This one being quite a bit longer than anything I’ve raced on before.
The race started off rolling and apart from a break of four, everything was smooth and steady until we got to the climb which started off steep and then settled down. It split a lot, but we gradually came together to form the main bunch with around nine riders off the front. Things stayed like this for the rest of the race, and I had to dig deep at every climb which eventually took its toll. During the last lap, I just had nothing left so came in at the back of the bunch.
Overall, I was happy to get through the race and am now looking forward to the rest of the season with my Wiggle High5 teammates. It was a great week back in the Isle of Man, revisiting somewhere that I raced a lot in my youth and of course it was a very well organised race, with lots of locals out cheering us on.
Having the support of SD teams is really appreciated when having to race in places like the Isle of Man with the cost of travel and hotels etc. all adding up! I hope to go to Holland/Belgium at the start of next month to get more racing under the belt and hopefully some results for myself.
– Amy Roberts
