About me

After stopping BMX racing over 30 years ago due to a knee injury I am making a comeback at the age of 43. For the past 20 years I have been playing basketball competitively and now have a bunch of chronic ankle problems to go with my bum knee I got when I was 11 bmx racing although I was never really very good at racing to be honest I usually finished second or third in local races and made the finals at a regional level a couple of times. I have been struggling for the past 2 years with weight problems and injury for the past 6 years where my weight has steadily risen from my playing weight of 70kgs to nearly 100kgs today (I have dropped down to 95kgs at the moment). Due to the injuries and weight gain basketball was becoming more and more difficult and stressful as I was caught in the endless cycle of training hard loosing weight getting injured and putting it all back on again!

When we moved back to the UK from Brasil I bought my son a cheap ebay race bmx and took my son to the local bmx track for a club taster day to see if I could get him interested in something other than video games as he didn't take to basketball very well. Once he got there he loved it so I bought an old cruzer also from ebay and we have been going to the track every weekend. My son has moved off of the ebay bike and onto a new racing bmx which he loves and it has helped him progress no end so far. I am trying not to push him and he has said that he doesn't want to start racing just yet so I have left it a that.

I have become more hooked on the racing than my son and I have decided to train towards returning to bmx racing this year. My goal is to drop to a more respectable weight of around 80kgs by the first local regional race in the next town from us which is on the 5th of june.

To get the weight down and try and stay injury free I have started back at the gym as well where I have asked the trainer to make me a more bmx related training program. I am also lucky that I work shifts so one week I start at 7am and finish at 15:30 and one week I start at 17:30 and work until 2am.

The early shift is proving to be more of a challenge for working out as I do not have time to workout or ride. On the late shift I workout in the gym when I drop my son off at school at 9am for an hour then I go to the track for an hour of two after the gym.

I have noticed that after 3 weeks my riding is getting much smoother and I am pumping much better than before, I am also able to jump the small table tops while pumping which is great.

I have done 2 gate sessions an I am gating pretty well and I am usually the first person to the first jump which is good. My problems lie once I get to the first jump as apart from pumping I have no advanced skills to speak of! I cant really manual and my jumping skills are limited to say the least.

I have decided to take it slowly as my ankle problems are cutting short my training when I try and push my limits. I am also going to learn to ride reversing my pedals to put less stress on my really weak right ankle that I have managed to sprain twice already whilst riding!

I have decided that I am going to concentrate on the following skills during the following months:

March = Pumping
April = Manuals
May = Jumping
June = Sprinting and gates.

Hopefully this will get me in some kind of shape to at least make the finals in my first race.

I am currently looking for a cheap video camera to record my training to measure my progress.