RACE REPORT: Northampton & District Cycling Association Round 2
Sunday marked round 2 of the Northampton & District Cycling Association and its safe to say this one was a proper lung-buster! A brutal 9.5-mile course from Medbourne tested our riders with killer climbs and a lightning-fast descent.
Shoutouts again to our team riders:
• Mike Deely: Solid ride! He's improving with every race after the NCRA road series. Keep pushing, Mike!
• Bethany Spencer: Happy 22nd Birthday and congrats on 4th in the ladies category against some very stiff competition! Continuing to improve and so far - crushing it!
• Jack Eastman-Nye: After finishing 13th in round 1, he was up to a brilliant 5th! That's how you bounce back and we know there’s still so much more to come!
• George Fox: Ride of the day! Just 5 seconds off 1st place, only 3 months after baby Stanley's arrival! George’s season is surely about to kick off properly!
Speaking on the race – George said: "It has been no secret that the last 9 weeks has been tough with our baby boy, Stanley, being born at the end of January. He's doing great and Esmie is incredible every single day no matter how little sleep we get! Training over winter was more than hit and miss, back injuries, house renovation and then baby Stan – cycling was bottom of the list of priorities really!
After a couple of weeks, routines started to appear which meant getting outdoors to ride was a bit easier, the odd commute and just using time wisely meant some 10 hour weeks started to filter back in again. 6 weeks in to what I'm calling my 'winter' training and I've averaged around 9 hours a week now, all things considered I'm over the moon to be back in the fight for the win in opens this soon. I've had a change of bike brand in the last month too, so I'm working hard in the background on building up a new road bike for some fun later in the summer, but initially my focus is very much on the Cervelo P5 I have now got and getting it optimised in the way I always do!
Todays race was nasty, initially I was skeptical of the course but in reality the best TTs to watch are the ones where you really have to calculate and work out what equipment is going to be faster. With the amount of climbing and the conditions as they were it was so important to commit to a setup and make it work, I did everything I could, with the best numbers I've seen since this time last year and managed 2nd by 5 seconds to the flying Paul Pardoe.
I'm happy, my first bigger targets will come in around another 6 weeks so I'm now really excited to see where I can get to in that time!”
