Hi, I am Nathan Hardy, a first year junior from Bedfordshire riding for Tofauti – Everyone Active (http://tofautieveryoneactive.com/). I have to decided to start this blog as a means to give an insight into the training, thoughts and feelings of a young, aspiring athlete. Expect regular updates on what I’m up to on here, hope you will enjoy hearing more of what I have to say!
I started cycling competitively around the age of 8 years old, just in a few local league cyclo-cross and mountain bike races. At this point I was also playing football, cricket, and doing triathlon, athletics, and cross-country running, which I will cover in more depth another post. It was after this that I joined my first club, Cycle Club Ashwell, a welcoming club based in North East Hertfordshire. That winter, I started to love cyclo-cross, and was competing regularly in Central and Eastern cyclo-cross League races (whichever was closer!). I also had been enjoying riding the grass track at club sessions, and would begin racing on that the summer after.
My first real race season was as a 2nd year u10, in 2014. I enjoyed some success in grass track racing, and a fair amount less in road. Over the following seasons, I gained speed on the road and country, leading me to my 2nd year u14 season in 2018, gaining some good results nationally in cyclo-cross, the best being a 12th place at Ipswich National Trophy, and doing better on the road, coming away with 6th overall in the National Youth Circuit Series, and a 3rd at the National Championships in Scarborough.
It was during the 2018 season when I switched clubs to Welwyn Wheelers, leaving a few of my old friends from CCA behind. This gave me new opportunities to really step my game up, and hopefully lead to bigger and better things.
In 2019, I achieved some strong results as a first year, regularly being in the top 30 of national series races, and had come close a couple of times to a top 10 result, one being 11th on the 3rd stage of the Isle of Man Youth Tour. Highlights included racing the Manchester 6 Day Youth Event, partnering with my good friend Anthony Morris of VC Londres.
I will cover 2020 in another post, as I feel this is dragging on slightly, but thank you for taking the time to read this.
Ciao for now,
Nathan
Nathan Hardy 