Hayley Simmonds

So today should have been race day. Gralloch UCI Gravel Race. One of my favourite events and something I’ve done for the past 3 years (but have a checkered history with…).

Year 1 - slashed sidewall after 28km when in 3rd place. Not repairable, DNF.
Year 2 - really strong race, 7th.
Year 3 - felt awful. Crawled round. Found out later that I had glandular fever.
Year 4 - DNS.

Why didn’t I start? Well, it’s complicated and I don’t think I have the word limit to go into it here. But I’d been questioning whether to ride for several days and that alone was enough for me to realise that I probably shouldn’t race. I’ve had enough instances in the past of starting a race that I haven’t been sure about and at no point has it resulted in my feeling better (physically or mentally) afterwards. So for once I made a sensible choice. I protected some of my mental wellbeing and I went training. I watched my friend Hanna start, took her extra kit, went for a ride and then met her afterwards at the finish.
There’s a part of me that’s sad I missed The Gralloch this year, but I also know deep down that it was the right call. The race will still be there next year and I will make sure I’m in the right place to be able to compete.

I know myself really well… there’s a reason that I don’t have live segments on my Garmin, and that I tend to watch a movie when doing easy indoor rides. It means I stick to my riding plan and don’t ride harder than necessary to try and go for a segment or a jersey…

Yesterday after my ride I had an email. “Uh oh”… a segment that I got whilst riding from my dad’s 2 years ago (on my road bike) had been taken by 1 second. A segment only a few km from where I’m currently staying.

Today I had an easy spin but part of me wanted to see if I could take it back on my gravel bike. Because I’m petty/competitive/childish… call it what you will.

1 hour of easy riding followed by a 10 minute push - not quite all out but way harder than I should have been riding. Luckily I did reclaim my crown, and picked up another along the way. And I suppose it’s a good thing that my competitive streak is still very much alive and well!

A 530km drive after yesterday’s SRC brought me to Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿. My dad lives here but I make an annual pilgrimage each May which tends to be when the weather is better.

I was lulled into a slightly false sense of security by the sun because the wind was pretty cold today, but I wasn’t foolish enough for short sleeves! I headed out on the gravel bike even though I was sticking to tarmac but there were some pretty rural and patchy stretches where I actually appreciated the 45mm tyres.

Today’s ride involved 3 sets of 8 x 30/30s which felt like heaven after last week’s catastrophic 30/15s, and then 1.5 hours of easy riding to spin the legs. Despite racing and travelling yesterday I felt pretty good so hopefully this week will be smoother sailing 🙏🏻

Spoiler alert… this was attempt #2 at training today.

The planned session was 3.5 hours with 3 x 13 x 30/15s and my original plan was to do it on the turbo (because 30/15s are so difficult to control outside). I knew before I got on the bike that it would be a push today. I did 5 hours yesterday and probably didn’t refuel as well as I should have done, confirmed by the fact that I woke up starving.

I just about made it through set 1 but after 1 effort in set 2 I had NOTHING. Deciding it would do more harm than good, I spun my legs a little bit and then climbed off. Grumpy 😆.
Queue carbs! I made a decent pancake stack, used the foam roller on my quads and waited several hours before then deciding to go out on the road for take 2.

It still wasn’t pretty. The numbers weren’t my best. BUT I got something done. And today that was a big win. I limped though the efforts on the bottom end of the power range and then did enough extra easy riding to make my total ride time for the day up to the target 3.5 hours. And I made sure to fuel really well during the ride, as well as when I got home, to make sure I’m recovered from a solid 2 days.

With rain and work on the Saturday afternoon schedule, we rolled out pretty promptly for some FRT (fatigue resistance training)…

On the menu: 5 x 30/30s, LIT, 2 x 10’ sweetspot, LIT, another 2 x 10’ sweetspot, LIT and then 5 x 30/30s towards the end.

I’m pretty convinced we had a headwind for most of the ride but otherwise it was a great route. I definitely started feeling my legs in the last sweetspot block as I was tearing down a long, straight descent and revving out my biggest gear 🙈 but made it through all the blocks in better shape than expected after a pretty big week. And we avoided the rain - success 🥳
Despite feeling really fatigued a week ago I’ve actually been good on the bike all week - good food, a fun atmosphere and riding company has definitely worked wonders. Along with the cafe stops of course!

…which to be honest is exactly what I need right now.

I’m pretty bad at backing off but sometimes it isn’t necessarily a total break that’s needed, but a change in perspective and mindset.
Very rarely do I stop at a cafe when I’m riding at home (normally because I have no training buddies 😂) but in the past week we’ve stopped most days. I’ve done intervals when set but the rest of the time I’ve not been looking at power numbers. And if the ride is 10 minutes short then who cares? It’s the perfect antidote to a mentally (and physically) tough period and exactly what I needed to reset.

In all of my years of pro cycling, today’s ride will go down as one of the more entertaining I’ve been part of.

There was everything… from a specialized tarmac with deep carbon wheels, to an old colnago with mechanical shifting and rim brakes. Plus the unrestricted e-bikes ⚡️
Then there was me… the only girl, with 2 bottles, a pocket full of precision and no mitts 👀
However I got a nod, a handshake and a “bon” from one of the guys on the e-bikes and I don’t think I’ve had me or Matt banned from future club rides.

Turns out, when people shout directions in French from the back of the group, I have no clue whether they’re saying “right” or “straight on” 🫣😂

The other thing I learned today… no matter whether they’re 12 or 72 - boys will be boys.

Well... this was a bit of a baptism of fire to be honest!!

Given that TTs is how I got into cycling in the first place, I realised on the drive to Perpignan that it's been almost 2 years since I raced my TT bike. I only entered this event on the train back from Copenhagen after my half marathon, deciding that TT training had gone okay and I fancied a fun, low pressure race to reintroduce myself to the hurt.

I arrived in the region at 15.00 on Wednesday and headed out on the bike to check out the route. The course had a few km of flat at the start and end but otherwise the remaining 19km was effectively climb-descent-climb-descent.

Given the nature of the descents (the first being narrow and twisty, and the second being exposed and windy) I opted to run my zephyr front wheel rather than the deeper, 100mm Titan.
For some reason, despite working perfectly in warm up (and cool down), I started my race effort and looked at my Garmin to discover no power numbers 🙄. I have zero clue why, though with the course not being one for “average power” it allowed my to just ride on feel - pushing the climbs and recovering on the descents.

A lot of people opted for road bikes and honestly I don’t think it was much of a disadvantage, especially with how windy the last descent ended up being.

I’m really happy I chose this as my first TT back because it was a really fun course, very pretty and a low pressure event. I’ve never done a Gran Fondo race before as I’ve always had UCI points but the atmosphere was super friendly and made the whole day very enjoyable.

And, as a bonus, not only did I win my age category but I won the women’s event overall 🥳 so now I just need to decide whether to add the Wolrd Championships in Japan to my race calendar for the year 🙈

(Early?) Mid-life crisis in full swing! 😂
My first ever running event and strangely really enjoyed it. Only goal was to run sub-2 hours and I finished in an official time of 1:52:17. And yep, I've already registered for next year... 🫣

Ripping off the race band-aid is always painful!! Cold day on the bike and didn't eat or drink enough. Chaotic mass-start which has never been a strong point but slugged my way through. Could tell I was underfuelled when I started swearing at the track and the wind (which picked up A LOT) in the second half.
Literally fell up some wooden steps that you had to walk up...did they mention them in the briefing? Probably but my Danish doesn't extend to that. But on the plus side, only one fallen tree to climb over.
Happy enough with 3rd to start the gravel season.

Woke up to snow this morning...in April. Thank god I packed winter kit for this trip, though neglected to bring merino socks or neoprene overshoes as "feels like -8" was not on my bingo card.
Almost blown into a ditch at one point too. 90 minutes of regretting my life choices and praying for better weather tomorrow.