Dodgy weather, crashes, bad luck and back pain are not the best things to deal with when you're a professional cyclist.
But road cyclist and Sky Academy Sports Scholar Lucy Garner has been in this game long enough to know it's just part of the deal as one of the country's top riders.
The season is well under way with the sunny climes of Australia a distant memory and the testing conditions across Europe challenging her tenacity, endurance and pedal power.
Here's Lucy's latest blog on her new team Wiggle-High5, how she's overcoming some nasty crashes and why she feels she was born to cycle.....
It was another double weekend of racing for me at Borsele in the Netherlands and Westhoek in Belgium. The wind was in full force again for both days, which made the racing pretty much full gas from start to finish.
As a team, we were disappointed with the performance on Saturday as we had nobody in the first group. Ours legs are good but positioning played a big part and we just missed out on the lead group.
It wasn't great, but Sunday was a lot better for the team. I was personally disappointed as I was caught behind a big crash, which meant a group of 30 riders got away and stayed away.
The wind and rain really affected everything, but my team-mate Emma Johanssen took a well deserved third place.
We are well under way with the season and I competed in my first European stage race last week. That was in Holland at the Energiewacht Tour but before I got stuck into that, I competed in the Grand Prix de Dottignies in Belgium.
It was a fast and aggressive race and as a team we worked amazingly together by following attacks and protecting our sprinter Georgia Bronzini. I was happy that I could position Chloe Hosking and Georgia coming into the final kilometres and seeing Georgia cross the line with her hands up in the air was really special.
It brought a lot of confidence for the team!
Knowing I had a stage race coming up, the rest day in between finishing Dottignies and starting the Energiewacht Tour was very important.
I did an easy spin on the bike, packed my bags and tried to rest as much as possible… oh, and the best part, eating lots!
I am a born racer so I actually love taking part in different stages day in, day out.
It was my first time on the time-trial bike and the first event was the team time trial (TTT). I was nervous going into this event because it isn't my strongest point but as a team we really rose to the challenge and put in a good performance.
We finished fifth and considering we had only five riders and it was our first TTT together, we walked away a proud team.
The rest of the Tour went ok for me. I felt good but, having crashed three times, it made the racing tough as I had pain in my back which prevented me from putting full power down on the pedals.
Luckily, there were no big injuries so the recovery has gone well and I'm training as normal.
My race last weekend was pretty much a 'home' race in Holland. It was on roads I train on a lot so it was nice to go into the race with a bit of experience.
In previous years, I've managed to have some good results so it was a goal of mine to try to do that again.
I felt good in the race and even managed to get myself in a break away for a while so I knew I felt strong and had good legs. The final was fast and aggressive.
I had a great lead-out from my team-mate Amy Pieters. Unfortunately, three stayed away but I managed to get second in the bunch-sprint behind Marianne Vos to get fifth. It was great to be back in the mix at the finish and test my sprint again.
Overall, I'm feeling strong but seem to be having some bad luck. I hope that next week, in the Tour of Yorkshire, I can change all of that and get a good result.
WHAT'S COMING UP FOR OUR SCHOLARS
APRIL: Olivia Breen, training camp in Tenerife
19-27 May: Savannah Marshall, World Championships in Kazakhstan
22-30 May: Sam Oldham, Europan Gymnastics Championships in Switzerland
MARCH 19 - May 2: Holly Bradshaw, training in USA