Wicklow Way Record Attempt - Part 3

Having reached the half way point and already covered the most technical and mountainous terrain of the ride, I had thought that the second half of the Wicklow Way would be about the same as the first effort wise. The terrain and riding would be easier but I would be more tired so evening out to be about the same. I started out climbing up Slieve Maan and it seemed like that. Mel had ridden the climb earlier in the year (everything from this point on was new to me) and warned me of a right turn off that is easy to miss. At 67km into the ride I found it which took me to a steep hike a bike climb in the mud. The climb looked like it would be a lot of fun as a descent and I think I'll come back here some day soon but today it was much to wet and muddy to even try. Up up up, filled the next 30 minutes as I made my way to the top of Slieve Maan where Mel was waiting in the car. I briefly stopped and checked the watch – 5 hours in, another 3 ish to go... I remember telling her that I'm starting to get tired.

Slieve Maan

The next while was pretty uneventful, I had to take it pretty easy on the descents to make sure I didn't make any wrong turns and even had to consult a map on a few occasions. The rain was getting worse but it didn't bother me much as I was warm and pretty concentrated on getting around the course.

Descending down some fireroad

At one point I was riding up a tiny road that was more like a mucky fireroad when I hit an unmarked turn. It was basically at a derelict farmyard. I stopped, took out the map and started to figure out where to go. At this point, I heard a rumble behind me to find Mel driving up the road – I couldn't quite believe it. We chatted, took out the colour map and figured that the left was the right choice (I was pretty paranoid throughout about making a mistake).

I left Mel and headed down the hill towards my next turn – a river crossing which was pretty cool and I started out on a long traverse around Garryhoe and Collafunshogue hills. I remember looking at the OS map beforehand and felt that I would be 'bombing' along on this section. If you had to pin point an exact location where this long ride became a real challenge for me, this was it. As part of my training for racing I do a lot of climbing, I like climbing, and in hindsight, I would have much preferred climbing up and down Glendalough 3 more times than the 'flat' course that remained. The thing about it was that the traverse was on a grassy track – the type of thing that during the summer (or I should say, after a long period of dry weather) you would ride along quickly at 20kph. Fun, fast and maybe even flowy. Not today though – the ground was completely saturated and keeping myself moving on the bike was very difficult – I ended up having to walk lots of it. That was what got me down – physically I was pretty tired but okay – just having to walk, in the rain, in the mist on super slompy ground, it started to play with my mind. Anyway, I trudged on and after about 10 gates to jump over and some nice short descents I got back to the road. Unfortunately for me, the road didn't last very long – fortunately for me though Mel was right at the corner before the next off road section pointing me in the correct direction. I remember saying, “this sucks!” as I passed by...

The river crossing :)

If the last section was the part that it started to get really difficult, this next part was the bit that practically broke me... For the next 3 kilometers I was basically riding on a boggy path that a hundred cows had milled over. Again, lots of bike pushing. I mean, it's one thing to push a bike up a hill – but this was pretty flat. It was raining hard, everything was misty, I was tired and walking through a swamp that was going half way up my calves – this really does SUCK. After what seemed an hour I reached the road again – but this time I was a broken man. I don't think I have been in this state before – I was not physically exhausted – but I was mentally 'cooked' – I had had enough and wanted to stop. If I was in a racing situation, mentally it would be very different. You have people to race against, or a known course, or a difficult time to beat. This ride had none of these things to mentally keep me going.

The start of hell...

So why didn't I stop, well, there were a few things that kept me going from this point on.

1. I REALLY don't want to do this again so I better do it now, I have already invested a lot of time.
2. Mel has been a star helping me all day – I can't not finish
3. Both Mel and I took days off work to do this, it's costing me money!
4. I announced on all the forums that I was going to do this – I thought that I would be a wuss if I didn't finish.

With all that in mind, I rode on. Thankfully, much of the final 30 kilometers was on roads and fireroad (although all the fireroads where either muddy or had freshly placed stone that rode like treacle). Apparently, it was supposed to be mostly 'flat'. That it was not, I still remember climbing a lot. After my final meetup with Mel I turned up a road climb that looked like a wall. I have to admit that not only did I drop the gears into the granny ring, I actually contemplated walking! and it was tarmac! I thought better (it would be even more energy walking up it) and continued on the bike.

Me at the last stop - incidently, that Assos ClimaJet jacket is amzing!

With darkness starting to fall, and my brain functions slowing down, the final 20 kilometers were a bit of a blur. It was easier than that final super boggy section but I really had enough of it all and wanted to be done.

Arriving in Clonegal

At 6:39pm - 8 hours, 17 minutes and 19 seconds after I left Marley Park I reached the placard in Clonegal. I broke the previous Wicklow Way by bicycle record by almost 4 hours and was happy to be finished. The weird thing was that I actually wasn't as physically tired as I expected – mostly, I think the difficulty in the final sections was mental. Too many people told me that I would 'bomb' the last section while in reality, my average speed turned out to be almost the same as my speed over all the big mountains earlier in the ride. Mel took a few pictures and I cleaned up a bit – needless to say I was pretty hungry so I had some recovery drink and a bag of Haribo and we headed home with the aim of finding a restaurant on the way. A fine Indian in Tullow called Krish was exactly what I wanted. Never is my life easy as by the time we got back to Dundrum we had to quickly pack as we were off to the London Cycle Show early the next morning.

At the finish

So at the end of all that I think I had the most interesting job of the day – I have to say a HUGE HUGE thank you to Mel for being my support (in every sense) for the day. I'll admit that for the first half I was fine but the final 50 kilometers you really pulled me through (which you probably didn't realise, as afterwards you thought I was fine throughout). It is not nearly as glamorous a job as what I did, (if you can call riding through rain and mud glamorous) but is just as important – thanks :) I know I will have to return the favour at some point.

Stats from my Garmin Edge 305.
Time: 8:17:19
Moving Time: 8:09:46
Distance: 130.2km
Climb: 3900m
Average HR: 149
Max HR: 180

Drink: 4 liters of various flavours of TorQ Energy
Gels: 6 TorQ gels
Bars: 6 TorQ bars, a flap jack, a muesli bar
Calories used: 7709 (taken from Ascent Software)

Lots of records for me.
Longest bike ride time wise, longest off road ride, biggest day of climbing (just about), most calories burned in one day, most TorQ bars eaten in one day and lowest mental point I have had on a bike. Probably more too...

Wicklow Way Record Attempt - Part 2

Leading on from my last post, I started to pedal along the Wicklow Way. I followed the first sign, then followed on along, a little bit more, hey wait – there are no more signs. I had taken a wrong turn – in Marley Park. Not 150 meters into the huge ride and I made a mistake (which I noticed a few minutes later). I returned back to the parking lot, reset everything and at 10:22 I started off on my trip to Clonegal.

The trip through Marley Park went fine the second time along and I started up the Kilmashogue Hill Climb. The climb had been rerouted since my sub 12 minute time trial up it last year, needless to say, I was not going to go very fast up it anyway. It would be the first 300 meters of elevation gain over the whole 4,000 meters and really my warm up. The previous few days of rest meant that my heart rate rose up pretty quickly and I felt pretty good. The extent of the ride that I was hoping to accomplish was still only hitting me, but at this point, I felt pretty good. A nice morning and an epic ride in front of me.

I rode across the side of Two Rock and really tried to dodge the puddles – I really didn't want to get my feet wet and looking back on that, it's kinda funny (more on that later). As I descended down to the road from Johnny Foxes to Cruagh I met Mel standing taking photos – she asked how I was, but 40 minutes into the ride I had no issues. Life was still good :)

This actually is more technical then it looks ;)

I'm the little red dot in the middle of the picture

The pass over Prince Willies was unremarkable – I would usually try to ride as much of the newly laid slab path as possible but as I had a long ride ahead of me which was against the clock, I took the safest and quickest option and just walked the top section. I used to really love that descent but I now find that I'm a bit of a chicken on it since it was 'resurfaced' – hopefully, if I get a non 'whippet' bike I'll ride down it a bit quicker.

Mel on the way to our meeting point at Lough Tay

At the bottom of the descent Mel and I met for our first designated stop. It was simply a quick hello, a new bottle, bar and gel and off I went. The following section was uneventful to the goats track that runs alongside Djouce mountain. The last time I had ridden along it, about a month ago, it was a real joy. Reasonably dry and fast – well, fast enough for a mostly uphill trail. Today, it was wet and soggy – hopefully not a sign of things to come! I ended up having to walk a few sections but got through it okay. I met a few groups of school children hiking along the way who had a great laugh at my “Eat Me” shorts – I don't think they got the whole TorQ Bar side of things. When I hit the boardwalks, the thing that had almost stopped my attempt before it started hit me, the wind. Previously it was just an annoyance – now, riding along the narrow boardwalks, it was pretty dangerous. I took it pretty easy and half way through it, when the boardwalk turned further south the wind moved to being a direct headwind – controlling the bike became a lot easier at that point. At Lough Tay I met Mel for the second time – again, a fresh bottle, another gel, a gel there and then, but no bar this time (I still had one in my pocket). I had covered 34 kilometres, 1350 meters of climb and was only 2 hours 20 minutes into it – the most technical terrain was behind me. I knew all these trails very well so it had not really felt like I left home yet. The next 25 kilometres or so I had ridden twice before, and from there on it would all be new to me.

Lough Tay

After a quick road descent I hit more fireroads and cruised along towards Oldbridge – pretty uneventful really. After Oldbridge and some dual track climbing I hit what was probably my favourite sections of the day. A fast open grassy descent and lots more twisty quick single track that eventually drops you down to Glendalough. A real pleasure to ride and worth the trip in itself. As I arrived in Glendalough, with about 3 hours 30 minutes of riding in my legs I thought that this would have been a great spin to just stop there, have lunch and get a lift home. Not today though, the 30 minute climb out of Glendalough awaited.

Just after a 'field' section

Mel was following me in the car for this road section

I took it pretty steady up the climb and enjoyed my surroundings. This region of the world, really is beautiful and I was so glad to be in the position that I could go out and spend time in it – I really am lucky and so thankful for my health. The trees where changing colour, it was not too cold and it wasn't raining...

Glendalough

Food, glourious food...

As I started on the boardwalk section above Glendalough the wind (and rain!) picked up and it was the first time I put on an extra layer above my base and jersey, a Gilet. The boardwalk and the following grassy section and super technical descent was much tougher than the last time I rode it but I reached the fireroad with no incidents so a fast descent down to our third meeting position was upon me.

I arrived down to Mel in Glenmalure, 4 hours, 20 minutes into the ride still feeling pretty fresh. My legs felt okay (considering), I was eating well and although it was raining a little and windy, I was pretty warm. I had covered around two thirds of the climbing which was on the most technical terrain – a sub 8 hour seemed to be on the cards and I felt good. Again, a bottle, bar, and gel with a quick kiss good luck and I passed the half way point of my task and started the climb up Slieve Mann.

Half way

Moving into the second half of the challenge, and hitting 1,000 words is a good point for me to stop, and leave the next section until another day.

Wicklow Way Record Attempt - Part 1

[This was going to be a pretty long post so I'm posting in three parts]

I had heard about the Wicklow Way long before I got into cycling or properly into outdoor activities. To me, it was basically a super long walking trail that people hiked over 6 to 7 days covering some of Irelands most beautiful terrain, indeed, one of the first outdoor activities Mel and I did together was hiking a 6 hour chunk of the Wicklow Way together.

A couple of years ago when I did get into cycling the idea of doing the whole thing over a day or two was hatched. Upon further research I found out that a quartlet of talented Irish riders (Beth McCluskey, Eoin Keith, Paul Mahon and Peter O'Farrel) held the record at 12 hours and 4 minutes. At this point, my longest ride had been a tiny 2-3 hour ride covering only 30-40km and the idea of covering the complete thing in a single day was astonishing! An idea was there, but it would be a while until I did anything about it.

It was the start of this year when I really started to seriously think about riding it in a 'single serving'. I had been getting pretty good results in marathon type events and liked the idea of attempting a challenge that would really push me physically and mentally. When I'm riding well in a 'short' cross country race, I push myself as far as I can physically and mentally (if I'm not asking myself, why am I doing this?, then I'm not pushing hard enough!) but I felt a super long challenge would push me in different ways. Since the course is so long and demanding, I knew that I would not be able to attempt it during the season as the time to recover would be simply too long – as it was, I took part in races most weekends and felt that I would need longer than a few days to feel fresh again afterwards - so I forgot about it...

On Sunday the 4th of October I completed what was going to be my last race of the season. A Marathon World Cup in France (report coming soon). After that, I went into 'off-season' mode and started to enjoy a few of the things I mostly stayed away from over the last few months, pastry breakfasts and beer mostly :)

By Wednesday I was pretty relaxed and recovered from the marathon and the weather was nice – an idea popped into my head, what about doing a Wicklow Way record attempt on Thursday. I had not really planned anything for it but I was still very fit, the weather looked okay and Mel (who would be my support) and I were flexible enough with our jobs that we could free up the time to go for it. 15 minutes of writing up posts on various forums to make the attempt official (stating start time and projected times etc...) and I had backed myself into a corner where I had to do it :)

Final prep

I keep my bikes in race ready mode (I'm very particular about having everything perfect) as much as possible so getting the nutrition ready for the attempt and going through maps of the course was really the only preparation that I needed to perform. Mel was going to meet me at 7 locations along the way for food support and probably a lot more places to take photos. I headed off to bed for a relatively late start from Marley Park at 10am (The park only opens at that time) - the last thing I did before I slept was ask myself - "Am I mad?"

The course itself is best described on this website – but basically, it is almost all off-road with a large amount of climbing – around 4,000 meters over the 130km course. I had ridden the first half several times and was very comfortable with it but the second half remained a mystery. Apparently, it was the 'easy' section – or at least, a great deal less climbing than the first half.

Mel had many tasks, feed support, photography and timing

I felt very lazy as Mel drove me over to the start of the Wicklow Way – it's less than 10 minutes from my home on the bike but I thought I should conserve energy as much as possible. We arrived, I set up my bike and we hung around taking a few photos. The first section would see me weave through the park before I tackle the first climb – the Kilmashogue Hill Climb. Technically, cycling is forbidden in the park and I had tried to contact the ranger in relation to this to let him know my plans and seek advice – unfortunately, I was unable to get a working number. My plan was then to ride very slowly through the park (a slow jogging pace) and dismount and walk if I meet groups of people – there were more than enough kilometres in front of me that this was never going to be an issue in the long run.

So which way should I go?

Mel and I

Really, am I mad?

I grabbed my first bottle of TorQ Energy, a bar and a gel (I planned to consume about that much every 1 to 1:10 hours) and off I went.

And off I go

More to come...