CELEBRITY SPECIAL
Since retiring at the end of last year and moving back to the UK from Andorra, it’s been a process of relearning how to train to be good at racing. My aim is to keep competing on the domestic scene, and I soon realised I couldn’t rely on residual fitness. In my first 30-mile TT, off the back of a winter doing not much, I averaged 345 watts and Michael Hutchinson laughed in my face.
After my final professional race in 2022, it was a really weird process – for the first time in years, no one was looking at my TrainingPeaks account. No one cares anymore whether I train or not – I’m accountable to no one except myself. There’s a real sense of freedom I didn’t expect. Whereas as a pro, I wouldn’t bother getting kitted up for a 45-minute or hour’s ride, I now see merit in every bout of exercise – I’m learning what the real world is like, basically.
I knew that time-efficient indoor training would be a key part of getting my fitness back. And to do that, I knew I’d need a good space for it. We’ve always used the third floor of our house for training, but I was tired of ferrying bikes up and down three flights of stairs – firstworld problems! – so the obvious solution was smart-bikes.
There’s no real structure to my training right now – in fact, it’s more exercise than training – but I enjoy Zwift racing, and I also use the Wattbike Hub app. Chanel [Alex’s wife] has continued to exercise through her current pregnancy, and we sometimes train together after our daughter Juliette has gone to bed.
Accountability now comes from the virtual platforms.
My goal is to win a CTT national title – just one and I’d be happy. Ideally the 10, that’s the one I’d really love. It comes as a shock to many people that I’ve never won one, but the level is really high. This year’s National 10 was my best ride of the year, 398 watts, but I was only third and convincingly beaten by Josh Charlton, so I’ve lots of work to do.
