3rd at Nat Champs Hill Climb!

I go in chronological order, so if you looking for Nat Champs info it's at the bottom...

The blog has been a bit silent for a while (well, since March) and that has been mainly down to the consequences of my first ever crash - at the Ixworth 3/4 Crit on the 5th of May.

I think it’s good to be open and honest and not just mention the positives and, therefore, here is a brief summary of my late spring/summer. 

Ixworth 3/4 is a village crit with 3 corners, which are can be sketchy - especially after a downpour of rain. Even worse if you are on rim brakes and never raced in the rain! 

The power numbers were looking good ahead of it, I had a small offseason in March and I was happy with how the season was looking to progress. So while I wasn’t looking for a result, I thought I could hang around in the pack.

However, the rain changed that and I became less confident in my setup as the sole rim brake rider and the plan changed to just sitting in at the back and picking off riders one-by-one. That plan was working, but I was going way harder than I needed to be but it wasn’t too bad. The joys of having a lot of raw power is that I can use it. 

However, about 10minutes into the race, the speed increased and I was being put on the limit from a technical perspective and I should have stopped. To be honest, I shouldn’t have even started. However, I continued to pick off some riders before finding myself just off the back. 

I did one lap flat out and took some risks - saved it a few times and got myself feeling invincible (never a place you want to be). I got to the point where it was “make or break”, where if I didn’t get back on then I was going to sit up and call it a day. Unfortunately, that is the corner I literally broke on. 

I was going 44.6kph when I tried to pedal out of the corner and slid out and smashed my helmet and my elbow was gushing with blood. No doubt, the helmet saved my life.

This was followed by a trip to A&E, my parents came to pick me up (and my car) and a week off work. I got my elbow looked at, which was an avulsion (tiny) fracture and concussion confirmed - with the additional good news of no suspected internal bleeding. 

This was my first ever concussion and first ever fracture. I continued with life until I had a massive setback a week later. Let’s just say I learnt the consequences of not taking concussion seriously in the end having almost 4 weeks off work. After that time, the mentality shifted from annoyance for my cycling plans to this might be a proper health problem.

Having a full time job, there is, also, no question that work takes priority and therefore my return to the bike was lengthened by ensuring I was able to work properly - and not return to having any concussion symptoms. With the return to the bike and normal life starting again in August, starting with a trip to the Fringe (and Z1/2 riding around the Paracycling Nat Series in Scotland). 

With life completely back to normal on the W/C 25th August - with lots of trips to see cycling. Essentially it took me over 16 weeks to get back to normal (this is ignoring the elbow still having issues). 

Unsurprisingly, I restarted with no fitness, increased weight (up to 86kg), but I was completely fresh. This meant I achieved one of my objectives for the year, which to reduce the fatigue to get the heart rate back to where it should be. 

With the first block starting in September, almost 4 months after the crash I was able to train again. The big thing for the first 2 months (September 3rd to October 26th) is about being consistent and just riding the bike. With the power numbers unknown, the focus was on feel and heart rate.

The idea is that low intensity is best outside of a few planned races (Nat Champs Crit, Nat Champs TT, Sudbury Hill Climb, Track training and Nat Champs Hill Climb). And while it is not my favourite thing to do (not sure it’s many people’s), I successfully rode Endurance/Tempo pace (135-150bpm) the majority of the time as shown in the graph below with the total time (and percent) being 20hours38mins (49%), with only 10hours32mins above the key zone (around 25%). That is quite impressive given I did some races and high intensity training during that. 

The goal was to ride 4-5 times a week which would equate to about 6-8 hours. I also wanted to reduce the amount of missed workouts to as small as possible - but work, trains and the foot have a part to play in that. 

The idea being that this would be possible around both work and also coming back from zero fitness. 2 months of base training which would allow for even more base training come November, December and January. While I’ve been cycling since the 3rd, the block started on the 8th as the first week was confirm I’m ready to start training again.

(I ignored the half week to start the block and the tapering for the Nat Champs Hill Climb).

That is 29 Days out of 42 and just under averaging an hour a day. This is only the second time ever I’ve been this consistent and when I was doing that much riding most of it was flat out. The TSS is also very high for coming off nothing but it’s felt manageable due to the intensity levels. 

There was only one week which I didn’t hit my target and that was W/C 15th September where the week had a bit of everything going wrong - trains, work, foot pain as well as the race that I sponsored! I’m counting the 13th October as a success as it was only 5mins off 6 hours and that also included a pain-enforced stop on Saturday morning, which would have got me to 7 hours.

I’m not going to pretend I’ve been the perfect athlete - I’m far from it. I spent a lot of the block doing stupidly high cadence work because I wanted to see if I could do 100rpm for an hour (I got up to 99rpm for 35mins). But that also helped me not do too much intensity in the legs as the training was based off bpm and higher cadence = higher bpm at lower power. 

As I noted there have been a few intense rides which have allowed me to have an understanding of my fitness levels with my FTP starting around 240w for the block and ending at around 300w. I know that my FTP is around 300w, it could be higher but it’s not lower.

The National Champs Crit, which turned into a solo TT, was interesting as I was severely limited by my elbow (still not recovered) so I rode solo for just over an hour. That was on the 13th September going off a big week of training. It was a very technical, very explosive course with my average power of 233w but my normalised power being 266w for the 63minute effort. I felt really strong but it’s not an effort that suits me. I came 10th though so I’ll take that as my first proper intensity ride.

This was followed by the Nat Champs TT where I’m on a road bike with a lot less power than everyone else. That said I was delighted with my performance and pacing. My race effort was 44mins32secs at 269w (272w NP) so basically a perfect TT pacing. The legs didn’t feel great either but it was a 10/10 RPE day. The legs felt awful and that I was overly fatigued (unsurprisingly) but I still did that effort. 

It was, then, hill climbing season and while I’d love to have been in a position to do more in a competitive manner I still did the Sudbury HC where I set my best ever 70-77second average power with 568w for the 72second effort beating my previous best - helped by the fact that I took longer do the climb than last year. 2024’s effort being 605w for 65seconds once I got clipped in etc. The 65second effort was 583w which isn’t bad given the build up. See the comparisons below, the first being this year compared to last year.

I, then, returned to the track on the 18th October, which was good to be back. I still need to work on my skills at lower speeds on the velodrome but once we got up to race speed then I was happy. We did a scratch race simulation with the final 6 laps a proper race where I set my record of 127rpm for 30seconds! Crazy high, helped by being on 89 gearing. New max cadence by miles! 

Shows the progress of working on high cadence can do and helps build confidence in bunch sprints on the track.

The final effort and ride of the block was the Nat Champs Hill Climb on Bank Road. A climb which I estimated to be around 4minutes for me. The day before I did Slack Hill and the main effort was just under 4minutes at 373w. And that was about a 90% effort, I knew I had another 50w at minimum. So the target was about 400w-425w for the race!

The race tactic was 400w until the steep part (where the crowds were) and then 450-500w until the corner and then just survive after that. However it went wrong before I even really started. 

Not an excuse, just a reason. I find balancing really difficult (on the verge of impossible), it’s something that I was hoping to learn over the summer but I didn’t manage to. Therefore I decided to not be held. I just didn’t feel balanced enough and normally it costs me a second but this time it cost me 18seconds… ouch.

I, then, failed to check my power on the “flat” part and ended up doing 470w (not ideal), then I went back to the plan and maintained it for as long as I could. 

If you want to have the TDF feel, this is one of the few events where you can feel the atmosphere. Hundreds of people shouting your name, making as much noise as possible and thanks for Stassi and James running up with you; this is the event you need to enter. Nothing more motivating than having people run up quicker than you! The photos don’t do it justice.

In the end, the first 2mins 9secs were at 467w. This was followed by 51seconds at 414w to the corner before the true death happened. 45seconds at 330w until the end… proper death. That combined for an effort of 3mins58secs at 427w! As part of this, I broke my 2min12sec to 3mins24secs power bests! This isn’t too much of a surprise as I’ve done a 2min test and a 5minute test and rarely do anything flat out between. 

I think with even pacing that my 5minute power as a result is about 425-430w. A great benchmark ahead of the Individual Pursuit in February. I have an idea of 500 for 5 (minutes) as a goal in 2026, I have no idea if that’s actually possible, but it’s a good bar to aim for. 

While that the process/fitness analysis... I came 3rd in the Para Open Category! My first ever podium at a National Champs! I didn't know what was possible off only 2 months of training.

Photos by Phil Crow

So now I’ve built my base, it’s time to increase the hours. I’m now comfortable doing 8 hours so it’s time to build on that. I’ll be having a couple weekend training blocks - hopefully the weather will be okay and I can do them outside. My first week was 7 hours 22mins as I travelled back and then rested up ahead of testing week for the first week of November!