This week was my first week back properly training, and sticking to the plan that my coach sends me. Even though it has been pissing it down with rain on almost every ride, I have really enjoyed it. I think it has done me good having a year off racing and training seriously, because its shown me that cycling is what I actually really enjoying doing. This week I have 'reading week' - no lectures! So I'll have time to focus on my training and getting fit, and start planning races that I want to do this season. 

Bike + hill = cake

Last Sunday we organised a hill climb time trial up Bathwick, the massive hill that leads up to uni. It was really cool because we didn't promote is as a competitive event so all kinds of people turned up; from serious roadies, to downhillers on mountain bikes, to freshers on town bikes. At the top on campus everyone was given chocolate cake and we made a make-shift podium out of a picnic bench. The winner got lambrini and the slowest champagne, all in good spirits. Gingerbread boy and girl biscuits were given to 'king' and 'queen' of the climb. 

 

New World Disorder

I think this year the uni club is going be the best yet - on Wednesday there were 4 rides that went out, one being an all girls ride! Amazing! It will be so good to have some girls to ride with for a change. 

Last night was the first official social, that I organised as 'social sec!' We went to see the premier of the tenth New World Disorder film 'Dust and Bones.' Both screens were fully booked at the Little Theatre in Bath. It was the first of the series I had seen, and the tricks they do just don't seem physically possible to me! And they make it all look so easy and smooth. Really impressive. Some of the inbetween bits of them just messing around between takes were quite funny too. Afterwards everyone headed down to the Cork pub down the road where everyone from the film could get cheap drinks. I wasn't that up for drinking, but people kept buying me drinks - apparently thats what happens being social sec... So what was going to be just one corona turned into going to bed at 3 in the morning. It was a fun night. Its fine though, my coach said the proper scheduled serious training starts at the beginning of November! 

Back to uni life in England

I am back in Engerrland! Year out is officially over. Back to uni life and the pressures of final year! I moved into my new house in Bath this weekend with three of my friends. I am the social secretary of the Bath uni cycling club this year. It was the sports fair yesterday and we got about 100 email addresses down of people interested in joining, most of which were new freshers, right from beginners to world cup riders! I got carried away talking to people about cycling and almost completely forgot to go to my lesson! There are 3 rides going out this afternoon - road, xc and downhill. If even just half the people turn up it'll be amazing. I'm leading the road ride this week. 

France

I've been living in France for a month now. I'm living at the residence where I work at the reception with two other french girls who I work with. The town, Uzes, is very pretty and touristy. The nearest big towns are Avignon and Nimes, so I've been to visit them a couple of times. Here's a picture of the main square where I live in Uzes at night, and the view from the Pont du Gard, a famous roman bridge nearby. The other day I went kayaking down the river underneath it. 

The job is going ok. Almost all the guests at the residence are french, so I have no choice but to practice speaking french all the time! In September apparently they are going to leave me at the reception a lot of the time by myself, so I have to stop ignoring the phone or running away when it rings! 

I don't have my bike here with me unfortunately, so I try and go running or swimming at the pool here most days. In October the proper training starts again! 

From Italy... to France

I am back home in England! My last week in Siena was spent finishing my last exams, and the event that everyone in Siena had been waiting for the whole year... the palio! Followed by lots of parties held by the contrada that wins. The actual race only lasts about 3 minutes because they do 3 laps around the piazza, but there was a massive build to it. During the week there were test runs every night and morning, and on the actual day a big parade with lots of drumming and flag waving, then there was an hour and a half wait while the horses were on the start line getting into position. Pretty tense! Tartuca's horse (which is the tortoise) led from the beginning to the end. 

On Sunday I am going to work in the south of France in another small medieval town(!) called Uzes, which is in between Avignon and Nimes. I'm going to be working as a receptionist for some holiday apartments for 10 weeks, still as part of my course. Need to improve my french now before I go back to start final year. I'm a bit nervous about it at the moment, but I'm sure it'll be fun.. I'll let you know how it's going!

N

Back to England for Set 2 Rise

Got to the race on Saturday afternoon and was greeted by lots of presents from Nick, including a new bike with lots of shiny new blue parts, three pairs on Bontrager shoes and 3 new pairs of Oakleys! Including some white 'speechless' ones with brown lenses that I have wanted for ages.! 

Set my tent up and just had time to practice part of the course before having to get back to watch Nick set off for our starting lap. Next was Cunny, then me, then Ted. My first lap was a bit frustrating as I had some problems with my gears slipping, the second lap was probably my best, then my third lap I managed to miss a turning and got a bit lost! I probably lost about 8 minutes going the wrong way then turning back again, oops. I really enjoyed the course though, racing in the dark makes it feel like your going so fast! And the single track is extra challenging and exciting. I was really proud of my friend Trevor from my uni who came 2nd after Sam in the solo cat. It's the first time he's done a 12 hour, and he only stopped for 2 mins in 12 hours! It has inspired me to try a 12 hour solo myself one day in the future... Depends how that goes as to whether I would ever do a 24... It would take a hell of a lot of training! But it would be such an achievement. We didn't realise there was a category for mixed teams and we weren't really worrying too much about our position, so it was a nice surprise in the morning when we were called up to get on the podium for third place. 

Got back to England on Wednesday and left on the Monday, so meant I was able to do other stuff while I was home apart from just racing, including going to Topshop in London, going to see Lion King the musical, taking my little brother to the zoo, having a picnic on the downs in Bristol, and having a lovely home cooked roast dinner by my mum on Sunday. 

Tuscany Training

The weather is getting pretty hot out in Italy now. I've been following a training plan for the last four weeks leading up to Set 2 Rise. I was suffering doing some hills reps the other day just thinking 'better to suffer now in the sun in the Tuscan hills than in the woods in England at 3am!' But no, I love it really.. I took my camera out with me on a ride at the weekend and took some pictures.

A catch up

Over the Easter holidays I went to visit my friend for a week in Vienna which was really nice, and then went on to Milan for the weekend. Now I'm back in Italy I'm having to start studying a lot again for exams. I've also been doing a fair bit of training for Set 2 Rise which I'm coming back to England for! I've missed racing in England, really looking forward to it. 

Siena Vs Milan football match

It's been a good couple of weeks for watching sport in Siena, because the weekend after I went to watch the football match Siena Vs Milan. Siena were a bit rubbish and lost 5 -1, but it didn't matter because I was right at the front and only a few metres away from David Beckham!! 

Eroica Toscana

Couldn't find any british flags so we had to make them, I hope the british riders appreciated them! We were waving them as they came up the last steep hill through the winding cobbled streets into the centre of Siena, after racing 190 km up into the mountains, a lot of which on gravel country roads. A swedish rider called Thomas Lovkvist won and the first british rider was Daniel Lloyd who came 9th. 

Big road race in Siena!

I am so excited! I have just found out that there is a massive international road race in Siena tommorow, which is finishing right in the piazzo del campo. It's called the Montepaschi Strade Bianche - Eroica Toscana. Look out for me on TV, I've come over all patriotic and I'm off to buy GB flags and face paint!

Venice and Verona trip

This weekend I went to Venice for the carnival. The streets were packed with people all dressed up and wearing the traditional Venetian masks. I've wanted to go for ages, the view from the Rialto bridge was so beautiful I actually felt quite emotional! We also took a water taxi, (we could just pretend it was a gondola!) 

The day before we went to Verona where the was also carnival, but this time with carnival floats and a parade. People go around throwing confetti at everyone. We also saw what was supposed to be Juliet's house (with the balcony) from Romeo and Juliet. 

Exams

Back at uni and doing my exams at the moment. Exams seem to be a lot more stressful and scary in Italy! I’ve done two and just got one to go. They are all oral and everyone has to queue up outside the teacher’s office, or do it at the front of a lecture hall with everyone watching. There didn’t seem to be much of an order you just have to wait until the teacher calls your name. It was 4 ½ stressful hours! But apparently it’s quite normal to wait all day then be told to come back the next day! Then it’s just you and the teacher for half an hour. And if she doesn’t like the answer to your first question she can just send you away! But surprisingly they went pretty well. One more to go and then I’m going to the carnival in Venice, so something to look forward to. 

My first semester in Italy

I'm heading home to England for two weeks on Saturday for Christmas, so I'd thought I'd give a summary of some of the highlights of my first four months in Italy.

The first one was a huge party in the streets of Siena organized by Bruco, the winners of the Palio. The Palio is a horse race from medieval times held twice every Summer in Siena. The town is divided up into the districts called 'contradas,' and each contrada is represented by a horse in the race. The jockeys ride bare-back 3 times round the piazza. Everyone from Siena is really proud of their contrada, and if they win the celebrations go on for months. The party was quite surreal as loads of people were dressed up in medieval outfits. All the streets were decorated with random scenes and there was plenty of wine and live music. 

It was amazing when the new James Bond film came out because the beginning is filmed in Siena, part of which when the Palio is going on. Everyone in the cinema started clapping. One shot even shows the end of the road where I live!

http://www.the007generation.de/22blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/palio.jpg

My second highlight is Wednesday nights, because every Wednesday there are parties organized for all the international students. There is a really cool bar called 'La Bella Vista' where all the walls and ceilings are completely covered in old film posters and they serve amazing mojitos and daquiris, which are ridiculously strong. A really cute jack russell dog also lives there called 'Ultimo.' 

 

Leading on from this theme, is when me and 5 friends dressed up as 'zucche' - pumpkins, on halloween. We bought bright orange ponchos and stuffed them with balloons. The Italians don’t really get the dressing up thing, so we did get some looks…

 

I've also been exploring some other parts of Italy since I've been here. The first was to Assisi, where St. Francis of Assisi is from. It was so peaceful there, and you see monks and nuns just wandering round the streets.

 

The next was Rome, where the hotel we stayed in was right near the Spanish steps. We saw a woman jump into the Trevi Fountain and try to re-enact the scene in 'La Dolce Vita,' but got taken away by the police straight after! I also ate the best pizza I have ever tasted in an old church that had been converted into a restaurant, it still had frescos painted all over the walls. My flat mate from near Naples says the further South you go, the better the pizza. (Since being in Italy I have become slightly obsessed with food…) However, the colloseum was probably my favourite part. It’s massive, and it’s still so intact that you can still picture the barbarity and bloodshed of the gladiator and wild animal fights that went on there so long ago. 

 

And last week I went to Florence. I saw the ponte vecchio with all the gold jewellery shops and went in the stupidly expensive big designer fashion shops just for fun. I saw the famous statue of Michelangelo’s David I also went to the uffizi, where I saw really beautiful paintings by Botticelli like 'Primavera' and 'The Birth of Venus.’ 

So that's about it. Next semester I want to visit Milan, Bologna and Naples, but right now I'm looking forward to Christmas and going home to see my family.

Bye for now. x

 

Back into Training

After a bit of time off training I now have both my mountain bike and road bike arrived safely with me in Italy. This is a picture of where my local trails are, surrounding a tiny medieval hilltop town called Monteriggioni. I have started training with the local cycling club called 'team bike pionieri' who go out for road rides every Saturday and mountain bike rides every Sunday. They are organizing a local marathon event in March. Last year there were over 1200 entrants! I'm really looking forward to experiencing Italian racing, and this event especially is something that I'll be training towards. 

MBUK article

Forgot to say, although I had to miss a round and I punctured in another, with my two wins in the national series I ended up 2nd expert overall. It means when I get back from Italy I have no excuse not to go up to elite! Exciting stuff.
Also, apparently the mbuk with an article in it about me is out at the moment. Why not take a look.

Siena

I haven written a post for a little while, and that's because I have been busy moving to Italy ! I'm now living in the middle of Tuscany in a medieval town called Siena... I'm here for a year studying at university to improve my italian. I'm starting to feel quite settled here now, have made some nice friends and getting to know all the good places to go. Lectures are quite hard to follow, but hopefully my italian is improving!
I bought a map of the area today to plan some rides in the hills, and I have found a local mtb club who are starting up organised rides soon.
At the weekends I've been exploring more of Italy. I've been to Florence, going to Perugia this weekend and Rome the weekend after that.
Here is a picture of the piazza in the middle of Siena. It's also where they hold the famous 'Palio' horse race every summer. I spend most of my time here with my friends sitting in the sun and eating pizza and icecream...!

My first podcast

I spent the day doing some filming with Alex Rankin last week in Bath for my first podcast. I've never been filmed for anything before so I felt slightly shy in front of the camera at first! But I am really pleased with how it's turned out overall, I think the music is especially cool. Why not take a look...

National champs

I came 3rd in the espoir category at this year's national championships. It was a really exciting and closely fought race, with 2nd, 3rd and 4th positions changing a lot between me, Marie Stuart and Lily Matthews, with Amy Hunt out in front. The course was flat with a few short sharp climbs and lots of windy single track in the woods, it felt like there was nowhere to rest! There were lots of spectators around cheering, which gave me more determination to give it everything I had, especially in the last half lap where I managed to make up the gap and pass Lily. I was happy to be on the podium at least, and I worked out that my lap times would have given me a decent placing in the senior women's category. I have two more years as an espoir, so there is still plenty of time to get that national champs jersey!