Kids taught me a lesson on my return to school

I went there to take on the kids at Scalextric velodrome cycling and despite all the practice I had during Christmas, I lost every race - I was rubbish.

It's difficult to shake that habit of calling your old teachers "sir" or "miss" and two of my teachers were still there. They insisted I called them by their first names when all I really wanted to do was address them as Mrs Dennis and Mrs Armstrong!

Walking in for assembly, I was met with a loud "Good morning Miss Armitstead" before answering questions from the children. At that age, they're obsessed with numbers. I was asked how many gears I had on my bike and they were amazed when I said 24.

Then someone asked me how many times I'd trained and when I told them it was more than a thousand, they all gasped.

I'm going to Majorca soon but I was also there in the warm just before Christmas when I 'marked' my birthday with a crash. In fact, it was a bit of a Team GB effort as I took out Lucy Martin and Laura Trott in the process, too.

They were okay and I got off with a bit of road rash - not great on your birthday.

The Spanish aren't great on birthday cakes, so I got the driest of cakes to celebrate and also a healthy buffet on top of that.

Lucy, my room-mate, gave me a PowerPoint presentation with photos and music as a present. It was certainly original.

I won't be home much between now and the Games but I must be one of the few Olympic hopefuls who still lives with their parents.

I moved back to Otley in Yorkshire after leaving Belgium, although I did toy with the idea of staying on the continent. The British squad are training in Majorca and after that I'll join up with my new AA Drink team for a camp in Girona before racing starts on February 25.

The last week of December was hectic as I had to deal with the move to my new team and the change of contracts. It wasn't straightforward, so I'm glad it's finally sorted.

It's great to be with a top team and, going into Olympic year, it's important that I can stick with my Cervelo bike, which AA also use, as it's pretty much the best out there.

Lizzie is a brand ambassador for Hornby. For details on Hornby's Team GB Scalextric Velodrome Cycling set and range of London 2012 toys, visit www.hornby.com/2012