Looking Back on 2012 - MBG Sarah

If I’m honest I haven’t really done much winter training this year! Last year when I was still a layabout 3rd year art student I was training for hours every day but this year I’m an impoverished graduate and just started a new job (alongside my old job) so cycling has taken a bit of a back seat for the moment - aside from a few seriously painful group turbo sessions courtesy of Elite Cycling.

What I have been doing a lot of is coaching, with the last day (I hope) of my level 2 coaching exam coming up soon I have been cramming in the coursework and hours to get it finished in time, and to that end, ran a basic cyclocross skills session at Herne Hill this weekend.

While I’m used to coaching on the track, cyclocross is very new to me, and not my strong suit, but armed with British Cycling’s ‘Go-Ride’ session guides, a few months practice and one race under my belt (and a bag full of biscuits and a pair of wellies and a whistle) I gave it a go! We were blessed with the mildest day in weeks, but this hadn’t made much impact on the mud, the girls ploughed through it (literally) in great spirit and all made fantastic progress, impressing everyone by all managing to touch a bottle on the floor while riding in boggy mud and not fall off, as well as all of them tackling the infield obstacles left behind from muddy hell, which over the last months have only become muddier and more difficult, and despite more than a few tumbles and several kilos of mud per bike, they kept at it and all made it round the course.

I’m really looking forward to starting again where we left off with track sessions next year and taking the skills the girls have learnt, and getting even more of them racing. 

Have a great Xmas.

Sarah

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