The sporting year hasn’t been the greatest for me thus far – unfortunately it’s been a bit of a grovel and a drag.

I was looking to build on my best-ever season last year and get some solid results. It wasn’t to be.  Every time I felt I was beginning to develop and come in to some good form I would get sick or just fall off the ball, feeling dead and sluggish and unable to get going.  It has been a bit of a drag really.  January was disastrous.  I had to pull out of The Hub tour as defending champion.  This weighed pretty heavily on me as it is one of my favourite races and winning last year has been the biggest result of my racing career.  Unfortunately, the month didn’t get any better.

At the start of February I took two weeks off to try getting over whatever had been dragging me down over the previous couple of months. Then I stepped back into training.  Things were going well and I began rebuilding solid form.  This was confirmed at a wee 120km race down in Mangatainoka where again I was defending champ.  After a tough 100km of racing I felt like everyone was tiring and decided to push on alone.  With 10km to go, three riders came across to me and we were gone.  I finished the day in second after the four of us sprinted to the line.  I was pretty happy.  I felt like the old me was back and I was riding well.  This was fortunate as I was only two weeks away from heading over to the Tour of Perth in Australia.

Unfortunately again I was to be torpedoed as the night before I was due to fly out I was hit pretty hard with the ‘flu. This combined with no real sleep that night and then close to 24 hours of travel to get to Perth – I was wiped out and dead on my legs.  Trying to ride in this state in such a quality field was a nasty task.  I fought on and unfortunately missed time cut on the second last stage together with a couple of team mates who were also sick.

Upon return it was off to Easter tour where I got off to another rough start but managed to ride myself into the tour. The final stage included four ascents of the Blue Mountains’ climb.  I spent all day in the escape group and finished fifth which I was happy with after a tough week of racing.

The next weekend was a wee ‘fun’ race from Ashurst, heading out into the hills. I won this after spending the majority of the race in the break with two mates from our local club.

Next up was the Nationals here in the Bay, which have only just finished. I was really happy with my ride in the TT, going 1m 23 faster than I did in the local club champs only a month earlier, and finishing sixth.  Sunday was the road race.  I already had a plan based on how the Nationals seem to be run and won the last few times.  It was a bit of a Go for Gold or Go down in Flames attack and from the time the flag was pulled in at the end of the neutral zone I was on the attack, joined quickly by a strong work horse from the Waikato and two past Commonwealth Games medallists, one of whom I now coach.   Long story short, I went down in flames – blown to pieces by the 100km mark.  I could barely turn the pedals and called it a day.  Fortunately though, I was able to catch my brother-in-law Mike Torckler plus one of my best friends who I coach, Gordon McCauley, finish the race in first and second.  That capped off an awesome weekend for me on the coaching front.

I work for GMC coaching, which is owned by Gordon. We had a wee coach cup going between the four GMC coaches who attended.  I won the cup with four medals from four athletes, which was awesome for my first nationals as a coach.  One of my boys, Peter Murphy backed up an amazing Track Nationals, taking gold in the Points race and his first-ever national title in six years of racing.  He backed that up with bronze in the individual pursuit.  This wasn’t even our goal, which was to break hisrun of six-times medallist in the Masters’ Time Trial.  Unfortunately it wasn’t to be.  Even though Peter was in the form of his life, he could only produce a third.  I think I was more disappointed than he was.  Fortunately my amazingly talented wife pulled through to get our next medal with second in the Elite Women, missing out on the gold by three seconds.

The next day in the Women Masters Five age group we took gold in an amazing ride. Our jaws were on the ground as Lesley attacked past on the main climb on the first lap, and then again on lap two she powered clear and attacked the descent with skills that would put some of the junior boys to shame.  She proceeded to drive home for the win.  For me, her ride was one of the most inspiring of the weekend.

On the final day, 43-year-old Gordy took the silver in the Elite Men’s race. The cyclists out there witnessed an amazing ride.  In a horrific crash in last January’s Hub Tour, Gordy completely destroyed both his legs.  This time last year he could barely walk without the assistance of crutches, let alone ride a bike.  We worked together from about August to get him back in form, so to see him ride like the man of old was pretty awesome.

All up, it’s been a pretty roller coaster couple of months with my racing, coaching as well as study and family life. Balancing it all is a pretty tricky act and sometimes it isn’t easy to get it right.  But, as the weekend shows, it is pretty rewarding when things do go right.  I really enjoy the coaching, helping others towards a goal.  It really requires some thinking about how to get the most out of someone and build them up to arrive at the key event in the best condition possible.  I’m looking forward to the rest of the year as well, developing riders to achieve their goals and working at trying to achieve the goals I am after as well.