I went to the UK for the final round of the British Mountain Bike Series with only one single goal – have fun! It had been a long hard season on the road and I was going to go back to my roots (literally) one last time for the year. My season basically ended the week before when I retained my Irish national marathon title (on a course that I really like and find suits me) although since returning from the Belgian racing it had been winding down. Mel was heading over to Newnham park to finish out the series and hopefully claim (which she did) the Elite Women's overall title so I decided to tag along.
On arrival in Newnham Park, we found what was probably the best XC course of any race that we have raced in the UK over the last 3 years. It had everything - tough climbing, super steep climbing, a few drags and then the fun stuff... technical rooty drops, off camber sliddery descents and super fast rollercoaster singletrack that Newnham park is famous for – it was excellent.
My interview Mel caught just as I finished really says it all.
So that was that – a really fun end to the season. In comparison to other times racing in the UK, I really saw where I could be a lot faster if XC was my goal – easily 1 to 1.5 minutes (20 minute lap) on the technical terrain and maybe another minute just being used to the grinding power (as opposed to road racing, where I tend to spin) on the climbs. I'm a huge amount stronger now than I was when I last raced there racing well within myself (remember goal number one) – it was great to see after what was a somewhat mixed season.
There is a report on Sticky Bottle
Showing posts with label bmbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bmbs. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Sunday, July 04, 2010
2010 BMBS Round 4 - Dalby Forest
It's 3am, I can't sleep – my mind is racing, my body is shot – what happened.
Dalby forest – a personal history. In May last year, 500 meters from the end of the race I hit a tree stump propelling me through the air and into the ground hard breaking my collerbone. April this year, the World Cup, crash hard on my second lap hurting my leg, hip and back – I couldn't pedal anymore – strike two. Like a jockey thrown from a horse, I had to get on, get right back on, so I did – yesterday we had the fourth round of the British National Series in Dalby.
CRASH – but this time of another kind. Road Stage racing, criteriums, marathons, road races, cross country races – all in the last two months – I had raced in 4 countries (UK twice) in the last 14 days. Something had to give, I thought I had considered it all and rested appropriately, but I hadn't. Pop, crash, bang, whollop – that was me.
The race started with a slipped pedal – no big deal, I sprinted on and 4-5 minutes into the race was in around 12th position – a platform to work from. That was really it though – the body shut down, the legs stopped, game over before it really began. I hit the major climb on the lap, a steep 3-4 minute affair and pushed hard, my heart rate was pegged but a train of 10 riders rode by me like I was standing still – I couldn't do anything – nothing, climbing is usually my forte – it was tough, physically tough, mentally tougher. I rode on, barely turning the pedals, more riders past and I realized I was barely moving. As I came around to complete the first lap, I was fried, mentally, physically I was spent – the great form I had the previous week was gone – was it too much to ask for a fast XC race only a few days after the hardest race of my season?
Horses, getting back on horses, damn me – I had said before I arrived in Dalby that my only goal was to finish, to not be a DNF. Why did I say this, as I went through the first lap, the smart thing would be to stop, pull in, regroup ,fight another day – I was just destroying myself physically and mentally – I need to save these mental matches for when they count (eh, National hill climb and XC Champs in the next few weeks!). But I must finish – I soldiered on. A few more riders past me, I didn't care, apathy had taken hold with my only wish being for the ordeal to be over. I looked at my laptime as I go through the start/finish – I'm not much quicker than Mel today (usually, on a course like this, there is a 15% difference in our lap times – not so today).
I suffered, I hated it, but I did finish, I got through the race, I didn't crash (or at least, I didn't fall off the bike), no hospital trips and the horse was remounted. It was the slowest I have ridden in an XC race in a few years but I did get through it – my goal of finishing was met. Yeah, I was sick afterwards, couldn't eat and felt the worst I have felt in a long time – but sometimes you gotta latch onto the good things.
Postscript (bike nerdy stuff) – I always race with a Garmin bke computer which really is a treasure trove of post race analysis. The big climb on the first lap, it was terrible – I was climbing it at the same power as I was climbing the much longer climbs the weekend before at the END of the almost 6 hour marathon – I was also climbing slower than when I tootled up them on a practice lap the previous day – despite all that, my heart rate was pegged. There was something seriously wrong during the race – a case of over-raced, over-reached or sick. Afterwards, the only thing I could stomach for several hours was a can of coke – a thing that usually turns my stomach.
The next week is rest, pure unadulterated rest, well, if I can ever fall asleep...
Dalby forest – a personal history. In May last year, 500 meters from the end of the race I hit a tree stump propelling me through the air and into the ground hard breaking my collerbone. April this year, the World Cup, crash hard on my second lap hurting my leg, hip and back – I couldn't pedal anymore – strike two. Like a jockey thrown from a horse, I had to get on, get right back on, so I did – yesterday we had the fourth round of the British National Series in Dalby.
CRASH – but this time of another kind. Road Stage racing, criteriums, marathons, road races, cross country races – all in the last two months – I had raced in 4 countries (UK twice) in the last 14 days. Something had to give, I thought I had considered it all and rested appropriately, but I hadn't. Pop, crash, bang, whollop – that was me.
The race started with a slipped pedal – no big deal, I sprinted on and 4-5 minutes into the race was in around 12th position – a platform to work from. That was really it though – the body shut down, the legs stopped, game over before it really began. I hit the major climb on the lap, a steep 3-4 minute affair and pushed hard, my heart rate was pegged but a train of 10 riders rode by me like I was standing still – I couldn't do anything – nothing, climbing is usually my forte – it was tough, physically tough, mentally tougher. I rode on, barely turning the pedals, more riders past and I realized I was barely moving. As I came around to complete the first lap, I was fried, mentally, physically I was spent – the great form I had the previous week was gone – was it too much to ask for a fast XC race only a few days after the hardest race of my season?
Horses, getting back on horses, damn me – I had said before I arrived in Dalby that my only goal was to finish, to not be a DNF. Why did I say this, as I went through the first lap, the smart thing would be to stop, pull in, regroup ,fight another day – I was just destroying myself physically and mentally – I need to save these mental matches for when they count (eh, National hill climb and XC Champs in the next few weeks!). But I must finish – I soldiered on. A few more riders past me, I didn't care, apathy had taken hold with my only wish being for the ordeal to be over. I looked at my laptime as I go through the start/finish – I'm not much quicker than Mel today (usually, on a course like this, there is a 15% difference in our lap times – not so today).
I suffered, I hated it, but I did finish, I got through the race, I didn't crash (or at least, I didn't fall off the bike), no hospital trips and the horse was remounted. It was the slowest I have ridden in an XC race in a few years but I did get through it – my goal of finishing was met. Yeah, I was sick afterwards, couldn't eat and felt the worst I have felt in a long time – but sometimes you gotta latch onto the good things.
Postscript (bike nerdy stuff) – I always race with a Garmin bke computer which really is a treasure trove of post race analysis. The big climb on the first lap, it was terrible – I was climbing it at the same power as I was climbing the much longer climbs the weekend before at the END of the almost 6 hour marathon – I was also climbing slower than when I tootled up them on a practice lap the previous day – despite all that, my heart rate was pegged. There was something seriously wrong during the race – a case of over-raced, over-reached or sick. Afterwards, the only thing I could stomach for several hours was a can of coke – a thing that usually turns my stomach.
The next week is rest, pure unadulterated rest, well, if I can ever fall asleep...
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
2010 BMBS Round 1 - Sherwood Pines
After spending the guts of a month traveling and racing (and working) abroad Mel and I came home pretty shattered from it all. The week I returned I also took part in two road races, a race on St. Patricks day and the following weekend, the first round of the Irish Road Classics Series held up in Donegal – The John Deere Classic (Finished 11th, ended up TTing alone for the final hour holding off the main group). Something wasn't right though – during training, and even racing my heart rate was not rising – I use my power meter (and perceived effort) to judge efforts in training and racing but the heart rate is a good gage of how things are running – things were not running well. I performed a threshold interval (400Ws for 15 minutes) and my HR average was 161... 10 less than it would be normally for such an interval and about 18 less than it would be if I was racing.
This attack on a 10 minute climb blew the field - I'm 4th in green, 7 of us broke off
The following week I took it very easy, some sessions were cut short when I couldn't turn the pedals and I felt very very tired all the time – not since I started training as an Elite have I felt like this.
The first round of the British National Series (BMBS) was being held in Sherwood Pines the following weekend – a race that I swore the previous year I would not return to. Obviously for a BMBS, organization, atmosphere and competition are all top notch but I really disliked the course. Fast, flat singletrack through trees that I didn't feel flowed very well (with a few sections that were the exception). Anyway, with the cancelation of some Bundasiliga races, Mel decided that she will have another go at the BMBS series (she finished 3rd in 2008, her first Elite year, and 2nd last year) – I guess my mind was made up for me, I'll go and race as Mel is going anyway.
The race was a quick out and back, we flew out on Saturday morning and home on Sunday evening. With bikes already packed from our return from Israel, preparation was stress free and when we arrived at the airport in East Midlands we found that our rental Ford Fiesta was upgraded to a Mercerdes AMG estate – wow :)
After some fun playing with the gadgets on our new car we arrived in Sherwood – the day was nice but the course was still a little wet and boggy in places. If the weather stayed the same it would be very fast again for race day. I was happy to find on the preride that the course was changed a lot from last year with some technical sections added and even a little climb (although there was still only 700 meters of climb over the 50km Elite race distance).
Race morning arrived and I was gridded on the front. “Some time in the next 15 seconds” - BANG, and we were off. I really really need to work on starts, I was moving backwards. Up the long drag to the first singletrack I was sitting in around 25th place when I sensed a rider trying to barge through on my right, he rode straight into me and tangled my bars – F**K, I really don't want a crash at 40kph with a bunch of riders around me. He knocked me off my bike but I kept things upright (I was sitting on the top tube, chain was dropped feet skidding on the ground) but he came off considerable worse as I saw him tumble into the bushes – please, ejits, learn to ride a freaking bike and do not take other folks out of it – it is not like we don't have a job to go to on Monday morning!
Anyway, after that, I entered the singletrack almost last (55 starters in my race). The course is almost all singletrack and passing is a real difficulty. With my troubles over the last week, and even not knowing if I would race until the morning I took this setback as a nice challenge to move up as much as I can and enjoy riding my bike at race speed. I started pulling back people from the start but congestion in the trails meant that my first last was almost the slowest of the race, my last almost the fastest (data from the Garmin). Over the laps I rode past more and more riders, passing on the fireroad linker sections and then dropping them on the singletrack. Towards the end of the race, my legs even started to feel good – on the climbs I felt I could attack strong but wished I had been dicing more towards the front of the race. After a little over two hours I rode in for 21st position.
It is funny looking at the results, in Israel (Man'nit) I beat Dave Fletcher on a flatish race and diced with him the following day on the European Champs course finishing a few seconds back while in the BMBS he rode to a great 3rd position while I was in 21st. I classed this race as a 'C' race and I guess that shows somewhat – roll on the hillier, more mountain bikey races in the UK :)
A really well run race and highly attended (all races were full - 650 riders!) - good job!
This attack on a 10 minute climb blew the field - I'm 4th in green, 7 of us broke offThe following week I took it very easy, some sessions were cut short when I couldn't turn the pedals and I felt very very tired all the time – not since I started training as an Elite have I felt like this.
The first round of the British National Series (BMBS) was being held in Sherwood Pines the following weekend – a race that I swore the previous year I would not return to. Obviously for a BMBS, organization, atmosphere and competition are all top notch but I really disliked the course. Fast, flat singletrack through trees that I didn't feel flowed very well (with a few sections that were the exception). Anyway, with the cancelation of some Bundasiliga races, Mel decided that she will have another go at the BMBS series (she finished 3rd in 2008, her first Elite year, and 2nd last year) – I guess my mind was made up for me, I'll go and race as Mel is going anyway.
The race was a quick out and back, we flew out on Saturday morning and home on Sunday evening. With bikes already packed from our return from Israel, preparation was stress free and when we arrived at the airport in East Midlands we found that our rental Ford Fiesta was upgraded to a Mercerdes AMG estate – wow :)
After some fun playing with the gadgets on our new car we arrived in Sherwood – the day was nice but the course was still a little wet and boggy in places. If the weather stayed the same it would be very fast again for race day. I was happy to find on the preride that the course was changed a lot from last year with some technical sections added and even a little climb (although there was still only 700 meters of climb over the 50km Elite race distance).
Race morning arrived and I was gridded on the front. “Some time in the next 15 seconds” - BANG, and we were off. I really really need to work on starts, I was moving backwards. Up the long drag to the first singletrack I was sitting in around 25th place when I sensed a rider trying to barge through on my right, he rode straight into me and tangled my bars – F**K, I really don't want a crash at 40kph with a bunch of riders around me. He knocked me off my bike but I kept things upright (I was sitting on the top tube, chain was dropped feet skidding on the ground) but he came off considerable worse as I saw him tumble into the bushes – please, ejits, learn to ride a freaking bike and do not take other folks out of it – it is not like we don't have a job to go to on Monday morning!
Anyway, after that, I entered the singletrack almost last (55 starters in my race). The course is almost all singletrack and passing is a real difficulty. With my troubles over the last week, and even not knowing if I would race until the morning I took this setback as a nice challenge to move up as much as I can and enjoy riding my bike at race speed. I started pulling back people from the start but congestion in the trails meant that my first last was almost the slowest of the race, my last almost the fastest (data from the Garmin). Over the laps I rode past more and more riders, passing on the fireroad linker sections and then dropping them on the singletrack. Towards the end of the race, my legs even started to feel good – on the climbs I felt I could attack strong but wished I had been dicing more towards the front of the race. After a little over two hours I rode in for 21st position.
It is funny looking at the results, in Israel (Man'nit) I beat Dave Fletcher on a flatish race and diced with him the following day on the European Champs course finishing a few seconds back while in the BMBS he rode to a great 3rd position while I was in 21st. I classed this race as a 'C' race and I guess that shows somewhat – roll on the hillier, more mountain bikey races in the UK :)
A really well run race and highly attended (all races were full - 650 riders!) - good job!
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