Back to Winter Training

Posted by Alex Skelton on Jan 31, 2012

Ian Richards is based out of Holland for most of the year, where he races with Team Drc de Mol, but has spent the past few months back home in Australia.  He's just sent us through an update of what he's been up to, including news of a disappointing (in his own words!) Australian championships.  Ian's mind is now very much focused on the 2012 season as he prepares for his first professional UCI race.

It’s been a while since I’ve written my last blog and like all cyclists after a winter season of no cycling I should apologise for not keeping you up to date on doing absolutely nothing. This however is not the case and during the European winter I travelled back to Australia to see my parents and train for the Australian championships.

Unfortunately this didn’t all go to plan and after more than 2 months of meticulous training I fell sick 2 days before the championships. I completed only 70km of the race and this was a huge disappointment for me. Life goes on and now I’m back home in Holland preparing for the season, which I hope to be a big one.

I learnt a lot about training, diet and my body after training so hard for the Australian champs and I hope to put this to good use this year when I’ll be racing my very first professional UCI races. Exciting stuff!

On the 5th of February I’ll be off to Spain for a training camp for 2 weeks and then my racing plan will be formed from that. I hope to start my season by the end of February or early March. At the moment the weather isn’t too crash hot here in Holland but lucky for me I can train indoors away from the freezing Dutch wind and rain on my Wattbike!

Thanks for the update Ian, we look forward to seeing how your season progresses.