Hey Perago Trustees!
Here is a bit of an update as our track cycling race season has just kicked off again into full swing.
From having a break after a successful Track Nationals in February, we kicked back into training with a huge strength block, building the base foundations of our power again. We started our racing block in the mighty Southland with NTS (National Track Series) round one in early June. Invercargill put its best weather on for us with highs of 10 degrees but luckily we were in a dry, semi warm velodrome!! The racing was very competitive and it was a great weekend to learn and try out new racing skills. After three days of intense racing I was pleased to came away with second overall for Women’s Sprint.
With the July racing block in-mind I took the learnings from the first NTS and put my head down ready for a very intense racing and training block. July School holidays started off with a bang, my last ever Secondary Schools Track Nationals! I came away with 3rd in the Omnium for the North Island and 3rd in the North Island Team Sprint.
After Schools Nationals I went straight into the New Zealand Junior U19 Worlds Track Camp, based at St Peter‘s school. We were in this camp for just over a week, training at the Avantidrome track each day. The camp focused on developing all skills as an athlete, including a range of team building activities and on and off the bike athlete development. This development included mental aspects of cycling, nutrition, race analysis and preparation recovery.
It was a pretty brutal camp, having NTS round 2 in the middle of it definitely took it’s toll on me physically and mentally, pushing me to learn my limits, but I was able to put what we had learnt the previous days of workshops into action. NTS had its ups and downs for me, but these were all taken as opportunities to become better and learn from the racing tactical mistakes.
The NTS weekend ended up a great success, taking out 1st overall in the Women’s Sprint division.
Straight after NTS we had a ‘Record Attempts Night’ where our plan was for me to race with the Junior Worlds Team Sprint Team and attempt to break the New Zealand Under 19 record, but due to injury my sprint partner Sophie De Vries was unable to race. The alternative was to put me with 2 other Under 17s and attempt to break it, we had a great effort and it was awesome for the younger girls to line up, but it didn’t quite go to plan for the speed. The fatigue of camp had definitely caught up with me that night too.
Onwards and upwards from there, once Worlds Junior Camp had wrapped up I went straight into the New Zealand Development Sprint Camp! We had 3 more days of racing, on the Friday we had a Standing 250 and a Flying 200. I surprised myself and produced a PB in the flying 200!! The next day consisted of Match Sprint learning new tactics and skills.
Overall the two weeks was really challenging, but I loved every minute of it!
Thank you Perago for the ongoing support and everything you do to help us! It really makes a difference.
Lily Cawood
