Lizzie Armitstead blog: The Women's Tour of Britain was a great event with amazing support

I'm writing this latest post a week after the first edition of the Women's Tour and although it didn't work out as well as I had hoped personally, on the whole it was a great event.

They are both really talented riders, especially in the sprints, and it was good that they were able to show the British public what they can do. The race is nicely suited to them both and it was impressive to see them both picking up podiums. There was also Sharon Laws, who won the queen of the mountains competition. There weren't many mountains, but she still took control of that classification and it was great to see her claim that jersey. It was also nice to see the way all of the riders in the peloton took to the race, even though we didn't have such great weather. It was bigger than any of us expected and I'm pretty confident that all of the girls will target the Women's Tour next year. It was a huge success and I can see it being a much bigger part of the women's calendar than I originally thought it would be. Looking forward, the first thing I need to do is get over this illness. This week was supposed to be a week where I would have a break and have a rest. I'm getting the break from riding, but the illness means I'm not getting much of a rest. All being well, I'll start training again next week and then I've got a race in Holland that I'm taking part in. After that, I'll start building up towards the Commonwealth Games, which is a big target for my year. I'll use the races between now and then as training races, which is difficult, because I won't be getting results in them and you have to have the confidence to accept that. Hopefully the next few weeks will go a lot more smoothly for me than the Women's Tour and I can arrive in Glasgow for the Commonwealths in top condition.