Finishing the season with an injury definitely wasn’t how I hoped this year would go, I was excited to race all rounds of the UCI World Cup but sometimes life just doesn’t go to plan! It’s been a crazy year for me, 2019 has brought so many ups and downs, learning experiences and most importantly, motivation for next year! I didn’t think at the start of the year that I would be planning to race all rounds of the series, so even completing the 5 rounds that I did is a huge achievement for me! It’s been incredible travelling to all these countries to ride, I feel so grateful I’ve had the chance to go!
Photo: Keith Phunkt Valentine
Being completely honest, it’s not been easy going into the World Cups with no experience, I didn’t race as a junior and I’ve not even raced that many British Nationals. This year was also the first year I had even raced my bike abroad! Every race brought new challenges for me; riding new tracks and different terrain to what I was used to, knowing where I needed to be on each day and at what time, trying to figure out a routine and remembering to eat before qualifying if I wasn’t preparing my bike!
This sounds like I’m complaining but I’m not as the good times I’ve had make up for the stressful parts and I can’t wait to start again next year! It was never going to be easy and I know I need to put in the hard work in to get where I want to be. I’ve met so many amazing people at the races, improved my riding, have much more confidence and proved to myself that I can race these events, I just need some more experience and time to get the results. If you don’t do it you’ll never know and I’m so happy I did make the step up to World Cups, this is definitely what I want to do, I absolutely love it!
Photo: Ross Bell
Not qualifying at races did get me down quite a bit, especially as most of my runs had a crash or a big mistake so I felt like I hadn’t been able to compare a good run against the other times. This is something I hope will come with more time racing, I think I do get stressed and ride panicked mainly due to my lack of racing. I never feel like I do in practice and I’m sure lots of racers can relate to that, even the ones who have worked it out! I still haven’t worked out managing my pre race nerves and know this is something I will be working on heading into next season. My run at Fort William was very bittersweet being 0.7 off qualifying with a big mistake in the top turns, this gave me a lot of confidence knowing my pace was there.
Photo: Keith Phunkt Valentine
Flash forward to September, I’m currently not racing and I haven’t raced the last three World Cups due to a shoulder injury I got at the Les Get round. My shoulder was fractured and also heavily bruised, I didn’t find out that it was also torn on the rotator cuff until a few weeks later. This sport is going to give me injuries and I always knew that in the back of my mind, watching other riders sustain big injuries I never really thought it would be me next but its all part of it.This was a devastating injury for me as I felt good on the Les Get track, it was probably my favourite one so far! I had high hopes going into my qualifying run and for the first time felt quite confident that I might qualify. Unfortunately my run started going wrong immediately as I left the gate. I was panicked and definitely wasn’t riding smoothly, I had gone completely off line and was trying to make up time in other places which resulted in me sliding out in a corner. I knew straight away I had broken something and reached for my collarbone but it seemed fine, I lay by the side of the track for a while until I could manage to ride down. This was pretty much the worst I’ve ever felt, I was unbelievably gutted to crash in my run after being so excited for it but to also end up injured… I knew there could be a long recovery period ahead. I had pretty much convinced myself that I would be back racing for Lenzerheide, this was certainly not the case! I think I mentally struggled a lot with this injury wanting to rush back to racing, but luckily I took lots of advise from friends and family, especially local physio Jacqui Parfitt who helped me huge amounts from the start.
Photo: Mikayla Parton
I’m still not out of the woods and have pain with certain movements, I’m now waiting for an MRI in October that I hope will show healing but Its really hard not knowing at the moment. I have been riding but very conservatively and will continue with this approach until I know I’m safe to do more. I had hoped to be strong enough to race the last national at Ae Forest this month but unsure if it will be possible.. I really hope I can!
It’s been very comforting having so much support from all my sponsors about my injury and I feel so grateful to have so many positive people around me. Although not racing has been hard I’ve been happy to have some time at home too after a summer of being away a lot, especially with my family’s new puppy, Beanie! Hoping to get some gondola laps Nevis Range before the end of the season, fingers crossed!
Photo: Mikayla Parton
