Lauren Ellis and 13-month-old son Joe enjoyed some time at home with family in Hinds over the festive season, before Ellis makes her big return to cycling for her country later this month. Photo Erin TaskerLauren Ellis dreams of standing on the podium at next year’s Olympics, a medal around her neck and her son watching from the crowd.

He might be too young to remember his mum’s moment in the velodrome spotlight, but if it happens, it’s a moment she’ll remember for the rest of her life.

When it comes to motivation, it doesn’t get much better than that.

But for Ellis, that dream is just part of what is driving her to get back to her best on the bike after a break to start a family.

A silver medallist on the track at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, Ellis had already competed at two Olympics – Rio 2016 and London 2012 – but she had big hopes for Tokyo 2020.

She has unfinished business when it comes to the Olympics and is determined to give it one more crack.

For years, Ellis had been one of New Zealand’s top track cyclists.

When the New Zealand contingent takes to the track at the Avantidrome in Cambridge later this month for a three-day World Cup meet, Ellis will again be there.

But instead of riding as an elite rider as she had for many years before, this time she’d take to the track as part of a development team.

It was a strange feeling for the 29-year-old. After breaking into the big-time of New Zealand cycling’s ranks, Ellis had never really had to worry about selection. But now, it was a different story.

She has been out of the picture for the best part of two years after taking a break to welcome baby Joe into the world, but now Joe is 13 months old and it is coming towards crunch time for his mum.

Ellis is as determined as ever to make it back to her third Olympics, but time is quickly ticking down towards Tokyo 2020.

Ellis knows she is capable of getting back to that world-beating level, it is just a matter of time, and she just hopes she has enough of that commodity.

Joe was born at the end of November 2017 and although in no real rush to get back on the bike, Ellis had Tokyo on her mind and wanted to keep up some level of fitness, so she only took a few weeks off before returning to gym work and the odd ride.

“I didn’t have any plans for coming back onto the bike until the Cambridge World Cup anyway.

“I knew I had time, so I didn’t push myself,” Ellis said.

She is getting faster and stronger every day, but admitted she probably isn’t quite where she hoped to be, having made the trade team instead of the elite team for Cambridge.

“I was aiming to be in the elite team but you have to reassess sometimes, and just to be in the development team and be given a chance again is great,” Ellis said.

She has made a huge amount of progress over the past year, but knows she still has work to do.

“Every couple of weeks I’ll get a PB for the year. When I was fit I went for ages without seeing that progress.”

She found out she was pregnant just before the World Championships in 2017, and still planned on going to the worlds, but a chest infection she just couldn’t shake ended that plan.

Due just a few months out from the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in early 2018, Ellis also made the decision to miss that.

It would have been a huge call to try and get back to peak fitness so soon after having a baby, and Ellis has no doubt it had been the right decision.

The first couple of months after Joe was born were incredibly hard.

Nothing can prepare you for what awaits when you welcome your first baby into the world, particularly when that baby is colicky.

Being a top athlete is hard, dedicating your life to training and competing on some of the world’s biggest sporting stages, but that was nothing compared to having a colicky baby, Ellis said.

“As an athlete you’re so used to having control over everything you do, then you get a little baby who’s like ‘I’m not going to do what you want and I’m just going to cry all the time’,” Ellis said.

But now, Joe is a happy, healthy one-year-old and Ellis is back on the bike working hard to get back to where she was before he arrived.

Ellis said she felt like she has unfinished business at the Olympics, so there was no shortage of drive.

“After Rio, I think if I had medalled and done really well I probably would have thought about retiring, but coming away with two fourths and being so close, I want to go back and give it another go,” Ellis said.

Being a top athlete now, compared to before she became a mum, is a lot different.

Before, if training plans changed at the last minute it was fine – cycling was her job and top priority.

But now, Joe was her top priority and life is a balancing act, the key to which was being super organised.

Ellis said she is lucky that her partner Tim is able to work part-time and had also taken parental leave when Joe was born. That made the juggling act a lot easier to manage.

With the Cambridge World Cup event now just around the corner – January 18-20 – the pressure is on though.

Ellis has also been selected for the next World Cup meet in Hong Kong the week after the Cambridge event, and that will be the last shot at selection for the World Championships.

Hong Kong is set to be huge, both on and off the bike.

Ellis was yet to spend even one night away from Joe and going to Hong Kong will mean spending a whole week without him, while at the same time dealing with huge pressure to perform on the bike.

If she wanted to be a part of that New Zealand contingent in Poland for the World Championships in February, she will have to prove her worth.

After years of not having to stress over selection, it was an odd feeling, but Ellis is doing everything she can to ensure she is on the selectors’ minds.

While back home in Hinds over Christmas and New Year, she made the most of any opportunity to get back out on the bike.

She was back out training on those familiar roads where it all started for her back in her Tinwald Cycling Club days, and competed in the Jolly Potter race in Temuka between Christmas and New Year.

The more time spent on the bike, the better she is getting, and while she could understandably be feeling nervous or daunted by the tasks that lay ahead, Ellis said the main thing she was feeling right now was excitement.

By Erin Tasker © The Ashburton Guardian - 5 January 2019