Quarantine situation

Well it’s been a bit of a crazy couple of months, two months ago I was out in Italy with my team just as the coronavirus started to affect everyday life, from seeing the first towns being put into lockdown and shops being empty of food showed just how serious the situation was.

Luckily for me I managed to get home before the situation in Italy deteriorated too badly and returned back to my normal lifestyle, being just below the affected zone I was allowed back to school and carried on racing and training as usual. That lasted about a month as the situation took a while to develop here in the UK in comparison with Italy, but the next thing I knew we were put into lockdown as well, initially for three weeks but that has since been extended to last for a further three which will take us to the 10th of May.

What came as the biggest shock to me and took me a while to get my head around was the fact all schools had shut and there would be no exams, I was meant to be taking my A level exams in physics, geography and PE this summer, but with them cancelled I am effectively a full time cyclist as of now. Initially I was pretty frustrated, a year and a half worth of revision, pages and pages of notes, tonnes of flashcards created and many many exam papers practiced, the day before this was all announced I had printed out 600 pages of exam papers which was a waste.

However a month or so on and I have realised I am in quite a nice situation, with exams taken away a huge deal of stress has also been lifted, both from doing the actual exams and during the weeks leading up to them, plus it has meant that I can avoid hours and hours sat at my desk trying to remember all the context from each subject and instead I can focus on my training which has been very nice especially in the sunshine and warmer weather that has seemed to have appeared pretty recently.

For now its just about getting on with the training

I am pretty lucky that the whole situation has not affected my training too badly, I still can get out on my bike (only solo of course) and clock up the kilometres, its just that there are no races to train towards which has been the hard part. Currently the plan put in place by the UCI will see racing resume in July if everything goes accordingly and obviously if the situation is deemed safe enough, but for now I am just enjoying being out on my bike in the fresh air and building back up towards the start of the season again, I had had a bit of a break after coming back from Italy and when the situation started to worsen here in the UK and am just starting my 5th week of training getting that base before gradually starting to add in some effort over the next couple of weeks.

Thank you very much to pedal potential for the continued support through this uncertain time and rawvelo for keeping me fuelled and hydrated through those longer rides. Stay safe and wishing everyone all the best.