2012 AnPost Ras Stage 6

Hot hot hot!!! Came close to a great result, but fell 150m short. Don't think there were many riders anywhere in the peloton that were feeling good by the end - a hard hard day.

2012 AnPost Race Stage 5

Mountains, yeah - well, small ones (longest climb was 7:36 - what I would give for some 20 minute+ climbs), but mountains all the same!

Thanks a million to the whole team for keeping me fed and watered during the day.

A summary of the 2011 bad bits

It's always hard to write a summary when things didn't exactly go to plan. My 2011 season, my first where I concentrated on road cycling, was a real mixed bag. Sickness, health, national titles and missed targets – a bit of everything.

Things went well for me during the 2010/2011 winter. My job was busy but I was able to consistently get good training in in decent weather with enough recovery. I came into the end of February as strong as I had ever been and as lean/light as was reasonably possible.

My season ahead looked great – I would start racing with Giant/Kenda Pro Cycling (a UCI Continental team) in Asia at the start of March with a Criterium in Singapore, then the 6 day Jelajah Malaysia followed by the 10 day Tour de Taiwan – happy days.

The happy days were pretty short lived – the day before the start of Jelajah Malaysia, the worst road crash I have had left me covered in road rash and aching all over – exactly what you don't want the day before you start a stage race with 200km+ per day in the saddle in tropical heat/weather. I could hardly sleep at night, I stuck to the sheets and on reflection after the stages, my power meter said I was barely turning the pedals. Not so good.

Ouch - and yeah, I was lean

With a week between Jelajah and the Tour de Taiwan, I hoped most of my wounds would heal and the legs would come back – it didn't happen like that. I was fine on any of the mountain stages but the snap, the extra 10%, was never there – it frustrated me – I didn't know what was happening. I was as strong or stronger than a large part of the peleton – but that wasn't what I trained for – I trained to be faster than that.

I came home somewhat dejected from the experience and FOUR kilograms heavier! What the hell happened to me?!? Asian buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner is something to be feared was amongst my take home lessons – I have learnt from it and made adjustments.

I started racing at home and sometimes felt okay but most of the time felt drained. I couldn't train as hard as usual, I couldn't race as hard, and I felt I had to sleep in the middle of every day. Oh, and work was still busy. My next port of call was a trip to the doctor for full blood work and many many tests to investigate what was happening. The result – well, my blood values where 20% below what I would normally see – I was heavily anemic... Starts to explain some things. I went on iron supplements, but months later there was still no change – it was a very frustrating time. I couldn't race as hard I wanted, I couldn't even train hard.

Eventually, my doctor decided that iron injections may help my situation (4 months of normal supplementation didn't do anything for me) – 3 weeks later, bing, blood values shot back up, even before I found the results, I knew things were different – I felt healthier and was able to train harder – the probable reason for my issues: a viral infection picked up in Malaysia. Unfortunately, at this point I was most of the way through the season and I was not as race fit as I should be. A trip to Gran Canaria for 10 days of hard training and I returned feeling much more like myself and finished off my season strong winning a few races and retaining my MTB Marathon National Championship.

A lesson I learn't during the year was to really follow and trust my instincts in relation to my health. I knew when I was strong, and I knew when I was weak – I really should have gotten on top of my health issues as soon as I started to feel weak and really focused on fixing it rather than continuing at 70%. All the signs were there, the power to heart rate ratio changed dramatically, poor recovery, saddle sores, motivation issues. Was it over training? No – I seriously doubt that, considering how quickly I recovered once the iron issues were resolved (without taking a break from training) – it wouldn't make sense.

Defending my MTB Marathon Title

If you have been following my blog over the last while, you'll know that my season wasn't all bad, lots of great things happened (I won my first stage race while still being 'sick') and there were parts that I really enjoyed – it's just, I like to remain honest on the blog and level out the good things with the bad. When things are going well, it is easy to tap down a few words but to be more complete, sometimes you have to write about the tough times.

Next up, a post on my preparation for 2012 (hint – things are going well - I'm feeling good, lean and happy – but I still need a team!)

2011 AnPost Ras Stage 8

Simple pleasures

...sitting down, after the days chores are done, with your girlfriend and watching the highlights of the days Tour de France stage on a huge projected screen...

The ITV 3 highlight show is pretty good.

Some more interesting info about it all here.

I know it is the 'smarter' move - but I wish Cadel would attack properly at some point.

Me in the winter

From BKW

"Establishing shot: Cyclist shown from shins down walking up stairs. With each step water squeezes from his booties. The brand is unrecognizable thanks to a mellange of mud and sand. As the camera backs up you see the thick tights and jacket covered in sand too. The bike on his shoulder is covered in grime. The cyclist shivers uncontrollably, drops his keys twice before ramming one into the lock on his apartment. He opens the door, sets the bike down and begins to strip: First the neoprene gloves, then the glasses, helmet, struggles with the jacket zipper and as he staggers, naked, from the foyer, we see a wet, dirty spot on the wall where he leaned while he struggled with his socks."


The weather has changed a bit - it was warm yesterday and it looks like being warm today. Finally - apart from when I put on too much clothes I don't think I have sweat (and not had it evaporate off) all winter/spring... Hopefully the weather will stay like this for this weekends race.

Motivational Issues?

Next time it is too windy, too cold, too ... watch this video. Amazing dude.

No racing for me this weekend - I need to let the legs recover at some point! I did a nice long MTB spin yesterday and a road one today. Horrible weather yesterday, okay today - I'm still wearing 4-5 layers though! Summer, please come soon!

Next week it is the third K-Captial race, then, Mel and I are off to the UK for the first of their XC and Marathon National Points Series races and then back home for the final leg of the K-Capital series. The Irish NPS series starts the week after that but I'll have to see how my legs are doing.

Awareness Test...

It seems all the cycling websites/forums are promoting this...

Road Ride Route - Flat With One Climb

I thought that I should start putting up the routes of some of the nice road and off-road spins that I go on. I'll try to keep them reasonably different and only ones that I actually like. The kml file should be available so it should be easy enough to have a better look at or put onto a Garmin.

The first one is a road ride that I did a couple of days ago. It's mostly rolling terrain for the first 50km or so followed by the only major climb – The Wicklow Gap. Coming from the west it's actually a very easy climb. It's never very steep and your at the top before you know it. A quick descent to Laragh and it's back to mostly flat/rolling terrain back to the city. The roads are pretty good throughout and apart from when your on the N81 and around the city there is not much traffic. I did the spin in a little over 4 hours at a pretty steady pace. Total distance is 120km with a total climb of 1100 meters.


View Larger Map

For some reason I can't get all the points to show in the initial map (maybe too many?). When you look at the map, click next to see the next page of points.