Visit the new recovery section of the Ocado website, to order your bottles – Ocado Recovery Section – For Goodness Shakes

After a busy weekend of racing the previous week I had a few areas that I needed to address to allow myself to be able to get myself a good race and result. Just recently I have been struggling to get a good start and have allowed people to push me out and so have ended up backing off. Part of my issue comes from my nasty crash at the start of the season at Namur. It is not related to the start of the race but I guess I was just worried about having another crash and sub conciously I have let it effect me. So, after discussing this ‘issue’ with a few people I knew that positive thoughts were all part of helping me to overcome this problem. I knew that i needed to nail my starts down and this was my plan for Zolder and Loenhout.

I spoke to Gregg and Rick before the start and we all agreed  on the perfect line to take at the first set of corners for the World Cup, the plan worked great as I made up a whole load of places by simply riding around the outside on the first long sweeping curve.

During the week Shaun, Craig, Nikoline and I travelled to Zolder to check the course out so that we wouldnt have to travel on christmas day to pre ride. It was very snowy and icy and alot of it was tough to ride. There were lots of technical sections and steep descents. I came away pretty content with things but it was definitely going to be a dangerous course!

Unfortunately mid week I came down with a nasty cold and so had to have a few days of rest and sleep to try and help my body recover ready for sundays world cup. I was feeling pretty rough and so was rather worried about how my Zolder race would go. I really wanted to ride well as I knew that anything was possible in snowy conditions. I finished 23rd, but the positives to take from it were that I got a great start and was well in the top 15 until my legs gave up on my me and my breathing became painful. I crossed the line rather frustrated. But my main priority was to keep warm and try and get better for Loenhout…one of my favourite races.

The next time I rode my bike was three days later at Loenhout. I always like this race, it is a circuit that is great in any conditions. So whatever the weather threw at it I was ready…well as ready as I could be considering I had not managed to shift my cold completely. 

When warming up I didnt feel that great but I stayed positive and focused on my days goal of getting another good start…which is exactly what I did! I got myself into the select lead group of six, with myself, Daphny, Sanne Cant, Sanne Van Passen, Hanka & Marianne. It was a great feeling to suddenly be up there where I know I can be. I stayed with the lead group for a lap and a half until marianne attacked and I lost contact and combined with a slight mishap with a post that was the end of that. I stayed away on my own for another two laps but was struggling and the group of chasers behind me were getting closer. I eventually finished a satisfied 9th. With full health and a great start, a great result is definately possible. I even got myself some TV time and the commentator was enjoying the novelty of announcing my name, with things like ‘Its a great Day for Gabriella Day’ a nice play on words!! 

Here is the TV link: http://bit.ly/hJ8t1S

Cycling News link: http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/gva-trofee-azencross-cross-des-as-c1/elite-women/results

I now have two more races (Petangue and Tevuren) before I travel back to the UK for the national championships in Derby.

Hey people,
 
It’s been a while since I posted in here, just thought I’d let you all know how it went in Alicante, Spain at the ISKA (International Sport Kickboxing Association) World Championships. I went out to Spain full of confidence after my win in Rome at the European Championships last year, despite having only competed once before the worlds this year (due to various injuries and generally being skint haha). I took to the mats on the second day of competition, into what was one of the largest categories and highest quality – pretty much everyone in there was world class. Due to my win the previous year, I was seeded second last in the running order, in front of a German guy I beat at the Euros (he was seeded last as he got the silver medal in the previous world championships). I got through to the finals in which the four highest scoring competitors had to go up again with a clean slate on the scorecards. After a well fought campaign in the finals I ended up placing second, which at the time I was very disappointed with (I still am to some extent). I went to the tournament with my eyes on gold and viewed anything less as a failure. Although with hindsight, considering the size of the category and the quality of competition, second place was a very good achievement – and I will beat the guy who won the next time I’m against him! If anyone is interested, you can view my performance on Youtube (just type in my name and ISKA World Championships 2010).
 
Now back to the injury updates (lol), since coming back I’ve damaged my ribs in sparring again, in exactly the same place as a few months back, and two nights ago whilst on a hill sprint session I went over on my ankle in a pothole resulting in a really bad sprain/potential break which I can barely stand on! Oh the joys of being an injured athletelol. I’m off to see the doctor tomorrow to get an idea of the extent of the damage in the ankle, looks like I’m going to have to do a fair bit of adaptive training for a while until it’s healed up .
 
Keep on kicking folks,
 
Stuart

If not, then it might be worth checking again, because until the end of November we are on promotion for just £1. Check out the link below which, although a little plonky, contains all the stores that we are stocked in, arranged ideally in alphabetical order accordng to postcode.

Seven years ago I entered my first Dusk ’til Dawn and it also happened to be my first attempt at a solo 12 hour. Up until that night my mountainbiking focus had been mostly cross-country with the occasional dabble into DH or Enduro. It started me on my adventure into the mind-bending world of endurance racing and shaped the next period of my life. In the car on the way home from winning that first big enduro I cried the tears of happiness that only someone who has given everything, both before and during, an event can understand.

The years that followed are the most vivid I’ve ever experienced. Maybe the memories are more recent but I think that it’s actually the case that my life has been that much more intense. Endurance racing takes a certain amount of energy and a certain amount of focus that I’ve not found is required in many other parts of my life. I crave that, I seek it out, I aim to find something of that in the rest of my life.

Five years ago I went back to Dusk ’til Dawn with the Masters 24 Hour Solo World Champions jersey on my back. I didn’t race solo though because I don’t believe in trying to repeat history. So I got some friends together and we entered as a team. I stood on that D2D box again, this time with some of those around me standing there with me. It was a good return to the event.

My life took some turns. There were highs, there were lows, and in 2007 I reached such a low point that I decided to retire from racing. I didn’t know what else to do because I couldn’t cope. I decided to end my racing at Dusk ’til Dawn. I entered the mixed pairs category with my team mate and friend Fi. But the race didn’t go as it should of and at the halfway stage, whilst lying in second position, we withdrew from the race and went to bed. Incomplete. It was reflective of my life at the time.

So three more years had now passed since my last visit to the forest where my solo career first took off. I’m still racing. I didn’t know how to quit and retire because it wasn’t something I did because I wanted to but rather because I couldn’t cope with the pressure to go on. In that time I’ve started to heal, to refind my way, and myself. This year in particular has been a climax of emotional healing and new beginnings. Off coming round full circle and finding myself at the start. The end and a new start? Yes. I like the sound of that.

In my minds eye I saw 2010 as a year of saying goodbye. Of doing it my way and putting it all to rest on my own terms. I felt robbed by the madness of my own mind and the problems that took me to that low when I retired. So I prepared myself and trained properly through the Winter. I choose 3 races. A 24 solo, a 12 solo and a 6 solo – the distances of choice – and when push came to shove I had it within me to win two of these races and then I paid my respects to my peers at the third.

And so that just left Dusk ’til Dawn…

As we started, it started to rain. It just rained and rained. It rained like it was going out of fashion and all the rain had to be used up before tomorrow. Bikes were ground away in the grit and sand of Thetford. It crept in, it broke bikes. It broke riders. It broke hearts.

But for me it was all and everything it could have been. It was perfection despite the imperfection of the conditions. It was racing, it was attrition, it was suffering, it was starring yourself in the mirror and asking yourself if you had what it took to even carry on.

I broke my bike and so I ran like I’d never be allowed to experience tomorrow unless I did. I cracked physically and I made myself continue. I embraced the cold and the wet and the horrible sound that you know is the end of every moving part of a couple of thousand pounds worth of equipment!

I smiled, I grimaced, I cried, and when the sun rose on the morning after the race of the night before I stood on the second step of the podium and completed two circles in one.

It was perfect. The perfect end. The perfect place to prepare to start again…

The Orbea-For Goodness Shakes women’s team took silver at the 2010 National Track Championships, in front of a sell-out crowd at the Manchester Velodrome.  The team of Rebecca Romero, Emilie Fisher and Janet Birkmyre had ridden together just once before the competition and preparation for the race was severely disrupted as a result of injury sustained by Janet from a fall while racing. 

It is over two years since Rebecca has raced on the track, but her status as reigning Olympic gold medallist in the individual pursuit, earned the team the advantage of riding last in the qualification round and as a result the team was able to ride to a schedule that easily put them into the gold medal ride off without going too far into the red.  For the medal ride off, however the team knew they would have to lift their game.  The plan was to ride to a schedule until the half way point and then to ride to the opposition.  The schedule chosen was a full 8 seconds faster than the qualifying ride, considerably faster than they had ridden in the single short training session, but the team got on it and rode technically well, with crisp changes and a very smooth pace, but it was not enough to hold off the Horizon Fitness team and they were forced to settle for silver.

The team thanks their pit crew, David Jack and Spencer Wix, and also acknowledges the support of Steve Grimwood (Elmy Cycles), without whom none of this would have been possible.

Also, here’s another piece from The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/sep/25/rebecca-romero-cycling-london-2012

Below is the full list of Total stores in which we are stocked. Unfortunately there are no fancy graphics, just a long list of shops, but you should be able to locate your nearest stockist and make the most of the promotion.

Click on the image to open it up in a new window. 

This was my first time back riding in the UK since racing in Europe, but also back racing was my younger brother, Ed who has been travelling the world for five weeks. I walked the track on Friday with world cup winner Marc Beaumont, and the organisers obviously wanted to make the track a full motorway by taping it straight for the whole top section. Luckily by practice this had changed and a few corners were in.

Ready to Ride

Saturday practice : The winds had picked up and the rain set in, which made things interesting every time you left the ground, as there are no trees on this hill to shelter you from the cross winds. Scott ‘Six-pack’ Mears was having trouble with this all weekend and couldn’t stop his backend of his v10 accidentally stepping out every time he took of a jump! Most riders were running cut spikes most of the day as the track was pretty wet, but for the last practice run things dried up and most had then changed back to dry tyres. A good day with most people getting seven or more runs in.

Practice

Race day: The track had now dried up and a few easy-ups had taken off over night. The air ambulance had been called out during Saturday practice and was again called during Sunday morning practice. Heading up for the last practice run before racing, with many elite’s, we all witnessed one of the tractor drivers lose control driving back down the field and tipping on its side pretty hard. Luckily no one was hurt and there wasn’t a queue of 100 or more riders anywhere near, a pretty wild thing to see happen at a race.

The seeding runs finally got started around 40 minutes late but were soon stopped after another nasty crash and the air ambulance was needed for the third time over the weekend. This led to massive delays in the racing and a decision was made to scrap seeding and go straight into race runs. Ed had been sat at the top for over an hour and then had to cruise back down the fire road, this also meant there was a gap of around 7 hours from when I finished practice to when I would do my race run.

 Race run

Results:

Ed managed a 19th in the seniors, just 5 seconds back from first so not so bad. On our way up to the top we had around a minute to look at a change in track to make a little section easier, I should of looked a bit harder as I mucked it up in my run ! Older brother Dave finished up 9th, I got 8th, Ashley Maller was 7th, Miami Bryce was 3rd and Peaty took the win with some close racing. Half the top ten all on Santa Cruz v10’s although two have some carbon!!

Check out the action, including the tipped tractor and a little clip of me early on:

All the news on Round 4 of the British Downhill Series

Cheers
Berty Smith

3 countries, 7 alpine cols, 8000+ metres of climbing all in one go. It seemed like a good use of a weekend, with the potential for accruing some decent bragging rights.

Check out how I got on by visiting this photo album in our Facebook page…

Tour du Mont Blanc Photo Album

Well three weeks travelling around Europe didn’t quite start to plan. Ralph Jones and myself left Shrewsbury heading to Weston-super-mare to pick up Ben Baker; who got delayed deciding what party gear he should pack! So we missed the Dover to Dunkerque midnight ferry by 5 minutes, and then had to wait 2 hours till the next one at 3am. I snuck into one of the staff rooms, had a chill and made sure my phone was fully charged for maximum roaming charges! From Dunkerque we hit the road straight away and headed for Morzine. Old Lesley the sat nav took us the scenic route and avoided as many tolls as possible. We had a quick stop in a European McDonalds before enjoying some views of Lake Annecy and then doing some serious laps of Geneva before finally arriving in Morzine to enjoy some 30degree sunshine!      

Week one: Morzine      

I wasn’t too sure how much I would enjoy this as I was missing the National Champs in the UK, but after seeing the weather warnings for Scotland and the 30 degrees in Morzine, I was sure it would be a good week. We were staying with Brendan Fairclough, his brother and Andrew Neethling in a nice apartment with all the works including Jacuzzi and Sauna. Riding in Morzine, the downhill was probably some of the best riding I have ever had, amazing tracks and riding with good mates and some of the best riders in the world, Ben Baker also joined us. The pleney in Morzine was where we spent most of our time riding loads of new tracks that Chris Kovarik had cut into the woods, we didn’t spend too much time on super Morzine as rumours of head height barbed wire on the tracks didn’t sound very inviting!     

After finishing riding around 4’0 clock most days we would then go and chill out at Lake Montriond for a few hours in the late afternoon sun.     

The Tour de France had just gone through Morzine a few days earlier so I brought my road bike out to do a few mountain passes. Brendan and I headed up the 12km switch backs to Avoriaz, a climb which one of the tour stages finished on. 50 minutes later we got to the top and then took a different route down, 18km of downhill on the road bikes overtaking cars at 45mph, pretty good fun and a top way to end a good days riding, just a shame no one had painted our names on the roads.      

Week two: Champery World Cup     

We packed up and gave the bikes some TLC before heading over the valleys into Switzerland for round 4 of the UCI mountain bike world cup in Champery. This track is steep and was raced on in 2007 and it was a shock to the system then when I rode it. This time the track had been worked on a lot with loads more man-made features which would make things a little easier to get down. Walking the track in very dusty conditions I was a little worried about setting the forest on fire my brakes would be getting that hot. First day of practice went well, and I had most of the jumps sorted apart from one gap, which I got sorted in my two timed runs in the afternoon. It was a little nerve racking having Steve Peat, Greg Minnaar and Brendan lining up behind me for the first one. Champery is not shy of enjoying a few rain storms, and Thursday evening a big storm rolled in. Friday and it was still raining hard, and it did for most of the day changing the dusty track into a mud bath. I put flat pedals on and did one practice run before heading up for my qualifier.     

I qualified in 57^th which I was pleased with after a crash in the bottom section. I then headed back to our expensive Swiss apartment and got my kit in the washing machine first.    

Here’s a look at the course, as ridden by Brendan Fairclough    

Race day and the mud was getting deeper and really sticky; in a few places my back wheel was clogging up real bad. Race run didn’t go very well for me; I went off the track in two places and ended up 60^th. Ben baker pulled out a stormer run and got 58^th and Ralph had a big crash and came in 68^th. Brendan came home 3^rd and got the biggest cheers from the crowd for some of his wild line choices. As soon as the race was done we packed up and headed back to Morzine. I got all my kit washed and sorted before popping into town to watch my good friend Ben perform all the dance moves he had been practising in the mirror each night. We also had Alan Bond join us now, one of England’s break through riders this year, Champery didn’t go to plan for him - four crashes in his run and a broken bike. The English born-and-bred rider was hoping for more luck the following week in Italy. An interesting night out in Morzine ended in some funny entertainment watching a few local lads getting a metal barrier into our apartment whilst slightly influenced by alcohol.    

Week three: Italy     

After another day riding in Morzine we packed up and headed to Les Arcs, another riding area in some stunning mountain ranges. On the way we had a look at Mont Blanc and its glacier. I decided not to ride in Les Arcs and instead fix my bike. Luckily Les Arcs had a lot going on including the French National canoe championships so I spent the afternoon watching that in the sun.    

After a day in Les Arcs we headed to the round 5 of the world cup in Val di Sole!  We drove over some more exciting mountain passes and into Aosta and then Milan before finally finding the small town in the valley of sun.

Val di sole – I knew this was a technical track but when seeing it for the first time I couldn’t believe how rocky and rooty it was.      

Check out Sam Hill’s legendary run at Val di Sole

First day of practice went ok; the track felt really awkward to ride with rocks and roots hidden in all the dust. Any rain on this one and it would get real tricky, then early afternoon in came the rain; although the forecast for the next few days was sunny.  In the qualifying run I made way too many mistakes and had one of the worst runs this year, it put me in 90^th just under two seconds from the top 80 which was pretty frustrating as I knew I could have ridden a lot better. Oh well! Fellow school buddy Marc Beaumont got himself a very impressive victory which was good to see. That was it for my world cup racing this year as the last round is in the USA and I don’t quite have the pennies to get there! Well I’ve had an amazing few weeks of riding and banter, thanks to Ralph and the big red van, Brendan and Christian, Ben Baker, Shropshire’s new found talent Alan Bond and all the other top riders and everyone that helped us out.     

Cheers     

Berty Smith