mooleur

I'm not kidding when I say this year has been a bit of a bag of shite. It's certainly not been the worst  year, but it's been a small bag of shite in some ways. With that being said, there are  things I am very grateful for....and this is where I tell you that I am editing this post.  I'd already published it days ago but I was clearly in a grouchy mood when I did... let's try again, with a more positive outlook!  Things I'm Proud Of Quitting nicotine! While I've not smoked for many, many years - I have been using Snus, a very popular tobacco product here in Sweden. As of today I'm about 2.5 months nicotine free. I took on a new role at my job which has been a little stressful, but it's a domain I love and I've been having a lot of fun!  Staying consistent with my strength training, I've added 10kg to my deadlift this year and I'm totally hyped about it. Working with Sam has been an absolute privilege.  Got my green card in climbing so I...

I mentioned in my post in October that I'd been struggling for a few years with an autoimmune condition. Thanks to social media I see more and more that "hidden" and chronic illnesses are something that a lot of us suffer from, especially folks born with an innie. I'm not going to go into the overall debate about certain demographics are more affected by autoimmunity, but I am going to go into what that means for me - a cyclist and someone who has a lot of active hobbies in general.  I call it the goldilocks problem (there's already a few of those ). Since late summer I've been trying to ramp into a more consistent training model on the bike, focusing on rebuilding my engine. Along side that, I also strength train 3 times a week working with my very excellent strength coach, Sam at Pursue Performance .  That's all fine and dandy, right? Despite being a bit older now I seem to still recover quite well under stresses, aerobic endurance isn't exactly some...

I've been pondering over what to write about this issue for about two weeks now. At first, I thought I might talk a little bit about time trials and how much I miss the culture of open time trials back in Britain. That led me down a bit of a rabbit hole around cycling culture in general, and what I've come to learn about cycling in Sweden (of course there's a lot more to learn ahead of me, given my short stint so far back on two wheels..). For the purposes of this issue, I'm going to focus mostly on bicycle racing (road & track) - else this will become very long indeed... The Awesome If you're a road cyclist (or, landsväg in Swedish) and a fan of long, straight, sweeping routes this place is fantastic. I was never much of a climber, I'm not really built that way (certainly not now!). Here it's like I have a second chance . This may be a controversial statement but there basically aren't any what I would call "hills" here. There's rises,...

I did promise I would catch you all up on what on earth I've been up to this last 8 years, given I simply disappeared so let's get to that shall we;  As you well know I moved to Stockholm, Sweden in the summer of 2016 to pursue a new role - I work in the tech industry and moving here has given me a much broader set of career opportunities for which I am truly thankful. That's not the reason I've been off the bike, mind you..  In early 2017 I began to develop some concerning health symptoms, diplopia, fatigue and extremely painful headaches for the most part. After a rigorous period of tests and pokes and prods I had finally been given the somewhat unhelpful diagnosis of Idiopathic Orbital Myositis. On top of my pre-existing conditions (mild epilepsy, alopecia and IBD) - this threw a spanner in my training and athletic routines. Top that off with several years of high dose steroid & biologic treatments it also led to me putting a lot of the weight I'd previously ...

An 8 year hiatus, that’s pretty unreasonable isn’t it?  I’m resurrecting this blog from the shadows. Oh so much has happened over the last 8 years and very little has had anything to do with cycling - for better and for worse. I’ve a lot of stories to tell you all, which we will get to in the next couple of posts but for now…. Hello, I’m sorry it’s been so long and I can’t wait to tell you all about the last 8 years.  It’s good to be back, and it’s even better to be back on the bike with new goals in mind.  I’ll be back very very soon with a “real” post ❤️ Laura x

Alright, I've got a bit of explaining to do, haven't I? Firstly - apologies for having posted no update since winter! Since my last post, I've had a couple of trips to try track cycling (and subsequently fallen in love with it!), and have actually stopped racing temporarily. "WHY!?" I hear you scream! Well there are two reasons for this, the first being that after last year I felt I'd put a lot of pressure on myself, I'd decided in January to stop my programmed witch coach Mike Doyle for a while and train myself in my own way - so I could then include other sports such as weight lifting and running. My mind needed some temporary alternatives. The second reason being that I have actually made some pretty big life decisions and, as of a few weeks ago, am currently packing to move to Sweden - where I will be starting a new, dream job with Spotify. (OMG, I KNOW RIGHT!?). As I've been wanting to move, and do different things, and enjoy life a lit...

Off-season is now well and truly in full swing. Following the Mountain Time Trial I actually had two solid weeks off everything. It was weird, I normally have about a week or so, but two forced weeks of being completely sedentary left me wondering how I coped before cycling. I completely lost my appetite, lost some weight through what I can only assume was wastage and ended up trying to learn conversational Norwegian out of a sheer need to engage my brain. Thankfully, after a meeting with my new coach, I'm now back on it and enjoying a really mixed regime (including several different sports). I've also taken to training before work in the mornings which is leaving me with tons of energy and evenings to myself. It's great. I'm feeling quite good and looking forward to the winter ahead. A few people have asked me what my team plans are for next year. If I'm honest I've not been as focused on forward planning as I have been previously. My reason for this is I...