There’s nothing like being in the thick of competition or a big training cycle which you know will be leading into the next competition season. As an athlete who will clock her 20th year as an athlete next year, I love being in the thick of battle, but having said that, after a long year of racing it’s always great to kick back, relax and celebrate your birthday on a paradise island!
With the 2010 season closed to me, it was time to jet off to the Caribbean and soak up some sunshine on the beautiful island of Grenada. In fact that is where I still am, having celebrated my birthday yesterday!
From the moment we flew over the lush green and hilly island, I knew it would be a place where I was going to fully chill out and with a week in a beautiful self-catering apartment, followed by a week all-inclusive literally 10 steps from the beach, there was a great deal of sunbed time for me to muse over the year of racing. Well 7 months of racing to be exact.
For me, 2010 marked a new era as I was venturing into a different world, cycling with my racing team, Horizon Fitness, and also with Team England at the Commonwealth Games. Having set myself the target of racing in a professional race and also at a major able-bodied Championship, I was fortunate enough to start the year with one, and end the year with the other.
Racing in Europe in the professional women’s peleton was such a different experience, and alongside the Tour of Limousin 4-day stage race, I was well and truly thrown in at the deep end and surviving!
2010 was, without doubt, a year of firsts, not just with racing. I’d always wanted to ride from John O’Groats to Lands End and see the entire country in all its glory. In June of 2010 I got to do this alongside 600 fundraisers in the Deloitte Ride Across Britain, with the money raised being donated to Paralympics GB for their quest to provide the team going to London in 2012 with the best ever preparation - no mean feat when it will also be the biggest team they have sent too.
Looking back through my year, with the season long duel against Julia Shaw and the battles to control the road races in the UK, I felt very proud to be able to say I was ending the year as a much better cyclist than I’d started, and that was without considering the World Road Championships!
Flying to one of the most awkward locations in Canada in August 2010, I knew the odds of me winning the world titles in both road race and road time trial for the second year running were less likely. I knew all the girls I was racing had also been working super hard to turn the tables on me, and with the introduction of the new classification, that also meant the introduction of teams into the women’s peleton which made my job even harder. Flying home with 2 more rainbow jerseys and the world titles in tact after a few days of tough racing was truly a great feeling, and under normal circumstances the season may well have ended there.
With the 2010 track season starting early to accommodate the Commonwealth Games, it was straight to the track and racing to defend my National Pursuit title. Although falling some way short of that, I did come back a few days later, and with the help of my awesome team mates, managed to scoop the National Team Pursuit title instead. It was a fantastic feeling doing the lap of honour with my team mates and knowing as a team we’d finished the season on a high.
So then we come straight back to the present, just a week or two after the Commonwealths and the amazing experience that it was in India. I’ve been thinking about the highlights, the sort of montage I would run if I was doing the Sarah Storey annual review. What moments would I put in there?
The torrential conditions during the winter training camps before the racing started would definitely get included. Snow on the beach in Mallorca in March! First time in 25 years!
The season opening Time Trials would also be there, as I was scoring quite highly on the men’s side too!
All the road races, the hell of the cobbles and pot holes in Belgium to the excitement of winning the Bedford 2-day, coming so close at the Cheshire Classic, and getting my first top 10 at the National Road Race Championships. Riding with Horizon Fitness at all these events simply added even further to the experience, and one that I’d been missing since my days as a swimmer when I was an integral part of the relay teams.
The dazzling heat of the National 10 and 25 mile Championships and the peaks and troughs of riding from one end of the country to the other. The heat of the south of France in May, and the scenery in Canada at the World Championships.
Put together, my Worlds jerseys and National Champions jersey with the Team England tracksuit, and the montage is complete.
Of course the highs far outway the lows, with the disruption of that chest infection in August and September now a distant memory.
The sand is trickling between my toes and the waves are lapping the shoreline. I certainly feel a million miles from a racing bike! But the burning ambition for the upcoming races is burning away, my motivation to get on with the journey towards London 2012 couldn’t be stronger, yet at the same time I am soaking up the relaxation, enjoying the peace, and relishing my only goal for the day being to cool off in the sea sufficiently to get back on the sunbed and do some more relaxing!
You can’t beat the end of season break, it’s the icing on the cake and just for a little while longer I will enjoy the memories of 2010 before I have to get back to reality and work on the future!
Happy sunbathing 
For more information about the Horizon Fitness Racing Team, visit www.onthedrops.com.