Over the winter I've been training hard and have been getting my biggest training weeks ever done through the finest weather you can get during British winter. Did some big rides as well including a ride to Lincoln with the boys. Big day out covering 208km and in the saddle for 7 hours and 35 mins; mostly a great day for it as well with the sun shining for most of the day however a headwind on the way home was less than ideal.
Up until now though 2022 is looking a lot more positive than both 2020 and 2021. Eurosport are covering a lot more racing than they were this time last year which is a big positive. While some riders and teams are still having to pull out of these early season races due to covid positives or as a precaution due to potential covid exposures there is lots of great racing on to watch.
It would appear that I'm in good company as just like Fuglsang and Nibali I've also tested positive for Covid this past week. Thankfully the symptoms have been very mild but it's been a bit of a blow as it's still enough to take me off the bike for a week at this point. The infection annoyingly came a couple of days before I was due to go up to Harrogate and undergo my early season physiological testing but it's better that it happens now than mid season. This was something I was looking forward to, as much as you can look forwards to a ramp test! My form was in a really good place as I had just finished a number of training blocks over the winter that saw my fitness rise to it's highest level so I was very optimistic about putting out some really good numbers in the test. I was ready to see how much progression I'd made over the winter and then get stuck in to the early season races.
Since I'm off the bike I've been going hard on the recovery over the past week or so to make sure I get over the infection and then the plan is to carefully manage the return to training with my coach Huw at Vitfor. There is no point rushing back too early and going mad only to set myself back so I will be taking the advice and following the plan for a safe return. Given its only been a week off the bike I don't think I will have lost much form or fitness but best to be on the safe side when coming back as my goals are not in the early season.
As well as training hard over winter I've been focused improving my Time Trialling position and kit as this is an area I really want to improve and perform in through 2022. One of the big goals is the U23 National Time Trial championships as I feel these big improvements that I've already made can help me to improve on my 12th place from last year and hopefully get me closer to the podium.
Once I'm back to training and have found my legs again after this short period off, I will re-book the testing and hopefully I'll feel as good as I was feeling before getting ill.