Hi, I’m Joanna! I’m 23 years old and part of the Great Britain track squad preparing for the London Olympics. I have been part of the programme since leaving school in 2007. In this time I have done road racing and time trialling but am currently 100% focussed on the track.

I can’t believe we are in 2012 already! There has been such a build up to this year and I’m so excited to start racing! It is 2 weeks until the first big event of the year – the London round of the World Cup which is also the Olympic test event. My event is the Team Pursuit which will be included in the Olympics this year for the first time for women. We have a squad of 4 and training has been going well. We have just returned from 2 weeks in Majorca where, apart from getting soaked on the first day (always good to start a warm weather training camp by getting drenched shoes for the rest of the week...), we were fortunate enough to have gorgeous weather. We were based at the same hotel as Team Sky so were also lucky enough to benefit from the cooking by their chef, Soren. He makes an awesome porridge every morning and also omelettes on request which is perfect to fuel up before a big day of training.

As track riders the majority of our training consisted of split days (2 hours in the morning and again in the afternoon) in order to maintain intensity and prepare us for qualification and finals on the same day at track competitions. It was weird as often we would be setting off for our second ride of the day and the Team Sky guys would only just be arriving back after a very long day in the saddle! On the days when we did just do one long training ride it was great to get that rare free afternoon and enjoy some time sitting on the balcony (topping up the vitamin D levels!). The camp went really well with everyone seeing improvements in their power on Training Peaks which is always good for morale!

After the camp it was straight back to reality as when we landed back in the UK I returned to find my car had been broken into and Sat Nav stolen. Nothing says welcome back to Manchester like finding your car window smashed and glass all over the seats! I was very grateful for Denise and Mike from BC who covered the broken window for me to save the inside of my car getting soaked. I certainly won’t be leaving anything in the car again!

After a chilled weekend with some steady rides (and even a bit of snow to contend with) it was time to get back on the track this week and get on with some Team Pursuiting! We have had a great week of training and the whole squad are going well. It is very exciting to see what time we will be able to do at the London World Cup. No one is sure yet how fast the track is as it has never been raced on before, but I’m sure with the sell out crowd cheering us on we will see some great performances. Next week is selection week so fingers crossed for then!

Joanna