2008 National Hill Climb Championships

Last weekend was a pretty big weekend of racing for me as there were two National Championship events being held. On Saturday, the National Hill Climb Championships were being held in Linsfort, Donegal over the Mamore Gap, while on Sunday the National Cross Country Marathon Championships were being held in the Wicklow Mountains.

In this post, I'll just focus on the National Hill Climb Championships. Preparation began for it (outside of training!) in the leading week when I started to try and shed a little weight from my road bike. A super light set of wheels and full carbon saddle brought my bike weight down to 6.9kg (including pedals and the Garmin Edge bike computer).

My 'pimped' 2008 Specialized Tarmac Expert

Next hurdle was actually getting there. The race was about 5 hours drive from my home in Dublin so I staged it in two sections with my Dad kindly offering to cover most of the driving. (Driving takes a lot out of me and with the marathon on the Sunday, I was trying to conserve as much as possible). Due to the distance, I was not going to be able to have a look at the climb before the race so this is all I knew.

• A very tough climb – maybe the toughest in the British Isles
• 1.9km long with 250 meters of climb
• 10 bends and 4 switchbacks

After a very friendly signon we all headed over to the bottom of the Gap – it was at this point that the rain and wind really picked up. The climb was going to be wet into a strong headwind – as if the elevation gain was not enough to contend with!

I got on the Turbo Trainer to warm up (something I don't use very often but found it perfect in this case) and got to the start line ready to go. To save weight, I didn't use my power meter for the climb but I had practiced pacing on a climb this length a few times recently so my basic plan was go a little easier (from a perceived effort point of view) then I think I should for the first two minutes and then pick it up – hopefully my power output would be pretty well averaged out over the climb.

5,4,3,2,1 and I was off up the hill. The next few minutes were mostly a blur with the odd self questioning - “why am I doing this?” - usually, this is a good sign – it means I'm pushing hard. The climb was very very steep – the hardest I've seen in Ireland by a long way and my 39x25 was two high a gearing for me to ride the hill the way I wanted. In general, especially more recently, I like to spin while climbing. About 80-90 RPM while seated and around 80 while standing. I basically had to stand almost all the climb, using all my mountain biking smooth pedalling skills to not spin out the rear wheel on the slippery tarmac while only pedaling at about 50rpm. After a lot of pain, I looked down at the Garmin to see I covered 1.55km – only 350 meters to go, but those 350 meters were like a wall. Already far into oxygen dept and a huge headwind I hit the final section which averaged out at a 19% gradient – I wish I had lower gears. I kept pushing and the crowd cheered me on as I made the final push. I crossed the line, placed my bike carefully at the side of the road (making sure not to damage the super expensive borrowed wheels) and promptly collapsed. I had no thoughts in my mind that I could have pushed harder – better gearing would have helped a lot, but I really did give it everything.

Looking down the climb

I don't even remember this bit!

The prize giving was held back in the Laurentic Bar in Linsfort where the supporting club (North Pole CC) put on a huge spread of food - the race was super well run by North Pole CC. The poor bar staff looked on at is as if we were a pack of locusts :) and it was not even a long race!

Suffer suffer suffer - picture from here by Marian Lamb

In the end, my time up the climb of 8:50 which was enough to secure second place – missing out on winning the Championship by a mere 7 seconds! (If only I was a kilo lighter...) Ronan Mc Laughlin who rides for the Pro outfit AnPost/Sean Kelly won the event – he looked smooth as I watched him pass as I returned down the hill.

There was only 14 seconds in the top 3 places

Results and a report are available here.

After all this excitement, it was a return drive to Monaghan with my Dad and then I drove back up to Dublin to start preparation for the following days marathon. It was a busy weekend.

I have to say a couple of big “thank yous” from this weekend. I really appreciate the support from Shane Connaughton from Cycleways, Eoghan (sorry – I need to get your second name) and Ross McClure. They helped me out with seriously lightening up my bike, Eoghan and Ross giving me the use of their mega light Lightweight wheel-set. Those things are ridiculous! I would be getting a pair if I did more road racing to warrant such an expense! Also, a big thanks to Dad for driving me to and from the race and supporting me around it - it was a huge huge help!

So next year – 7 more seconds... I'm getting closer :)

Pain in the butt...

Literally - I was doing a few preparation drills for this weekends Hill Climb Championships (checking equipment, checking body - both good) and when I was descending back down after a run I felt a massive sting on my inner right thigh (the bit that rubs, or is close to, the saddle). I looked down to find a honey bee stuck to my shorts.

Panic mode started - two days before an important weekend of racing and I just got stung by something that I have a known very bad reaction to. In August 2006 I got stung on the face (turned into a "Mars Bar Head") and again in July 2007 I got stung on my forehead (another "Mars Bar Head" incident). The second reaction was much faster so I knew time was crucial. I headed home as fast as I could and started to call Cycling Ireland and the Irish Sports Council to find out what I need to do as I was pretty sure I would be getting an injection of Solu Cortef. I was doing all this as I was getting dizzy and in a lot of pain. With the documents I needed I visited the doctor and got sorted pretty quickly. (The receptionist remembered me from the last two times and pulled me straight into the Doctor)

Now, I'm pretty good and the doc said I should be okay by the weekend - fingers crossed.

Crazy!!!

I did a loop of the upcoming marathon course yesterday morning. The course is pretty good and reasonably weather proof. One of the climbs is a killer and I suspect that unless it stops raining for the next few days (currently raining) I'll be walking sections. It is not very long though and the rest of the course more then makes up for it...

Anyway, getting back to what I thought was crazy - I stopped off at a part of the marathon course where I joined in to drop off a bottle and some extra clothes I didn't want to carry (hidden nicely in the trees). I rode for two hours (the loop) and arrived back to find this:


Seriously - who the hell does this? I'm in the middle of nowhere and someone dumps all their crap (There is a link to report such things). The recent weather is bad enough to push me out of Ireland let alone this type of thing! It's not even that unusal. I also passed a truck pilled high with 5 burnt out cars that they just picked up from the forest.

Seriously - people in this country (any country) that cause any issues should have to do a mandatory 500kms a week on a bicycle - then they wont have any energy left to get up to badness :) Grrrr

Fuel for a 100km marathon

This is the fuel I used during the marathon in Drumlanrig. 8 bottle of TorQ (about 500-600ml in each) and 8 gels... Yum yum :) My saddle time was around 5 hours.

Coming up...

More here

Spot the difference

1

2

Number 1 was yesterday, number 2 today... Seriously - it's the SUMMER time... Grrrrr

Met Eireann proubly anounces todays weather as "Showers or longer spells of rain, with some very heavy or thundery downpours." - that has been the outlook for the last week. I can deal with training in crappy weather all winter - that's fine - but the summer has to be a bit nicer! It's warmer, yeah - but much wetter.

2008 Bontrager 24/12 Report

I should have written this ages ago but work has been busy... Anyway...

In 2006 I took part in a race ran by Epic called the Epic Blast, I wrote about it before but it was basically a sprint run down a long downhill course that also had XC type sections. The reason I bring this up was that this was the most fun day I had racing since I started... Bontrager 24/12 has given that day a run for it's money!

It all started a few months earlier when Matt from TorQ asked us if we would be interested in taking part in the mixed pairs category of the 12 hour race. Apparently, this was going to be the 'big' category as most of the UKs leading couples were going to take part. The sound of all this (and the fact that it was not 24 hours) intrigued us so we agreed to take part.

Roll on a few months and Mel and I found ourselves outside Plymouth on the grounds of Newnham Estate in glorious sunshine. A preride of the course brought huge smiles on our faces so no matter what happened, we knew we would have fun. (It also helped that if it did rain, the course would be pretty weather proof – unlike Vietnam... I mean, Mountain Mayhem...). After a few false starts we eventually found some accommodation (don't even ask about the original one we booked) and ate a great Indian meal.

Birds eye view

Morning arrived with blue skies, a bone dry course and a high probability that we wont get rained on. (There was a deep river crossing to keep the dust down though!)

At the start, Mel and I decided that I would do double laps and she would perform single ones until I started to slow. This would hopefully equal out our energies over the event (having done a couple of adventure races, one of the most important things is to always make everyone equally tired). That didn't mean Mel got to chill out for an hour at a time though, as we had no support, she was going to be prepping for me as much as she could when I was riding, the plan being that all I had to do was sit down when I got back, eat and before I start my next lap fix anything on my bike (mostly, this was just oil the chain... but I'll get to that later) grab the bottles she prepped and go.

Ian and I at the start of the race

At 12pm the race start. A short start loop brought us around onto the lap proper. I spent most of the first lap telling myself to take it easy – it's easy to get carried away but when I'm going to be riding close to 8 hours I had to really hold back at the start. My plan was to ride well within myself for as long as possible and much further into the event (8 hours or so) put in a few fast laps if needs be. I have done a lot of long races recently so I thought that I should be strong enough at the end as long as I take care of eating and drinking. I also knew that Mel would be fresher so that we can also switch to single laps.

Coming around after the start loop - Ian on my tail

Our competition in this race was going to be tight with Kate and Ian Potter, Jenny Copnall and her partner Richard as well as Phil Morris and Madie Horton. The four main teams stayed pretty close throughout the first few hours but it was the Potters who we had the main tussles with. (They were having there own inner competition too to find out who the fastest Potter is – Kate's blog has all the gory details :)) There was never more then a minute or so between us and 6 hours in, I was really starting to wonder if they would ever slow down! Kate was as fast as normal, but Ian was really pulling off a blinder. I was most impressed with Kate in one of her laps though, I started a little behind her and caught her on the climb, I contemplated in trying to get her to hang on to me and then try to up the pace and get her to follow but I threw that idea out and rode my own lap. I arrived into the arena after my lap to turn and see her just behind! Impressive stuff.

Fortunately, we didn't have any mechanicals that caused major problems but I didn't get away scot free. I started my 3rd lap (about an hour into the race) and noticed I had very little travel on my front fork – as the next few laps progressed, very little turned to none. So I did another 5 laps without any travel – although the course was not technical (and my high volume Racing Ralph tires were amazing) my hands and wrists were really starting to get sore. This was until I rode through the bomb hole section and heard a massive pop and loads of liquid in my face. My heart dropped thinking that I just sliced my wheel and the liquid was the Stans fluid in the wheel. The feeling of riding on the rim didn't arrive but the front felt spongy – I looked down to find a chunk of the left leg of my fork missing – I actually felt relieved – I was 5km from the finish and didn't fancy running or changing tires. The compression and lockout adjustment was gone (litrally) but I now had a full 100mm of bouncy travel again! (Oh, and a fresh oil shower every-time I hit a big bump)

Anyway, back to the race – everything was neck and neck until around 8 or 9pm when we started to edge ahead of the Potters, not much, but a minute or two per lap and we also switched to single laps. The night laps came and I got to do some of the most enjoyable night riding I'd ever done – it was my first time using our Exposure lights – they were amazing – so light and bright. Mel seemed to be buzzing after every lap too (according to the people at the TorQ stand).

I finished my last lap (13) at about 11:50pm to find Mel waiting to go out on her last lap. We probably had enough time that we didn't need to ride another lap but Mel had the biggest smile when I seen her that I knew she wanted another lap. I handed over the baton and headed to the TorQ stands were Matt and Sasha prepared diner (YEAH – real food - thank you, thank you, thank you!). Mel finshed her lap (8th for her) and we all sat around chatting, eating and enjoying a glass of wine till late. The end to an amazing day of racing. Perfect weather, competition, course, organization and company...

With a little bit of sleep, Mel and I got up the next morning to blue skies and decided to head out for another 'recovery' lap (you would think 21 laps between us was enough!). The fact that we were doing that, after so many laps really shows how much we loved the course – it was so fast and so much fun, the weather was perfect and we got to cheer on the 24 hour folk.

Mel the next day when we went out on a 'recovery' ride

I know I have gone on a few times before about this but the TorQ nutrition products are simply amazing for this type of event. I've raced a few long races recently and know a few things about nutrition but I was still amazed that I came in after my last lap feeling better (with more energy) then I had 12 hours earlier – incredible.

The mixed podium (Maddie and Phil had to leave early)

Both of us have to thank TorQ for their support and encouragement during the event, our competitors (especially Kate and Ian) for giving us such a nail biting race and Martin (InEvent) and Keith Bontrager for putting on the event – you'll see use there next year.

There are lots of photos available here and here and some we took here as well as some reports here and here. Results are here. As usual (and she beat me to it this time) Mel's report can be found on her blog...

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.

2008 National XC Championships

Last weekend saw me take part in one of my goal events for the season – the Irish XC Championships. Since the World Marathon Champs two weeks earlier, my training has been all about resting up and peaking for this race A few days before hand I put in a couple of very hard (but short) efforts and my body seemed to be reacting well so I was pretty confident that I was well prepared for the race.

The race itself was being held in the Kilruddery Estate near Bray, the same location as the first round of the K-Capital series this year and last year. However, the course was going to be very different. No significant climbs (boooo) – just lots of long kickers. A 5.5km lap had around 120 meters of climb. On the preride, I tried to learn as many of the sneaky lines (there were a lot!) as possible and prepare mentally for the super fast start the next day. About 100m after the start, we hit singletrack with no opportunity for passing for over half a lap. The course was 95% super fast singletrack and a lot of fun to ride – they need to make this place into a bike park! The rest of the day I spent relaxing watching movies.

Race morning arrived to find a perfectly dry course (2 or 3 puddles) – there was even dust in places. Around 1:30pm we all lined up – I knew the first 30 seconds was going to be crucial and as it happened, I think I had my WORST 30 seconds of any race this year. My UCI points had given me a nice front row ticket but missing a pedal and various other mistakes meant that I hit the singletrack in close to last position. The next lap I spent panicked trying to pass people and bridge back to the leaders (where I hoped/expected to be) but it just did not seem to be working out. By the start of the second lap I had caught up to Lewis Ferguson and we rode the next few laps together. He was riding the fireroads (not much) strong but sitting up in the singletrack which was pretty frustrating. A massive sprint was put in each time getting into the singletrack, but once there the pace dropped – he would eventually drop out after the 4th of 7 laps.


I think with my start and the resultant frustration I was never able to raise my game properly to start pulling back major time and work my way up the results. I did push hard on the final lap though to catch Joe McCall and pull myself into 5th but it really was not a ride I'm proud of. My body was well rested (first time I did a 'proper' taper/peak) but things did not seem to fall in place for me – I would love to rerun the race again this weekend!

Results are here and there is a short report here.

Anyway, I have already hit a good few of my season goals this year, and there are more big events coming up for me to focus on so I'm not too down about it all!

Not really a major event, but something I have been looking forward to is the Bontrager 24/12 race this weekend in the UK. Mel and I are taking part as a mixed pair – hopefully both of us will be able to show good form and get a good result.

2008 Marathon World Championships

Last weekend Mel and I headed off to what was for both of us going to be the “first time” for a lot of things. The first time racing in heat (and it wasn't even that hot), first time racing at altitude, first time racing on the continent and more importantly, the first time taking part in a World Championship. I would be the sole representative from Ireland while Mel was part of a much bigger group from Germany.

Birds eye view

After a few additional excursions (wrong turns) Mel and I arrived around 2pm in Villabassa, Italy after our flight and drive from the airport. The scenery was amazing and the temperature was perfect - I really miss these conditions. The storms they had during the week had gone and the trails had gone back to being dusty dry. Word on the street was that it was a very untechnical course – almost all fireroad, dual-track but with a sprinking of singletrack. I signed myself in (last on the grid due to mistakes made when I was signed up – grrrr), built up my bike and headed out to ride the first 10km of the course. Sure enough, the first 10km was a mix of stoney single track and tarred bike path. About 2km in there was a steep 500m long climb – I knew that this was going to hurt the next day!

Our hotel's view

The next morning Mel and I woke up to glorious sunshine. We ate breakfast and my legs felt pretty good. As I was going into this as a purely learning/reconosince experience (for next year) I was not very nervous and remained pretty relaxed – I think Mel was a little more nervous. We arrived at the start area with plenty of time to soak up the atmosphere – a real buzz in the air, a certain pent up nervousness – I guess this is what World Champs feels like :) Mel headed off to start her race and I relaxed at the car getting a few more calories on board and watching the TV helicopters fly around. With 40 minutes to go I headed out on a quick 15 minute warm up which had my following Cristoph Sauser – I think this will be the only time I'll be hanging on his wheel for the day.

With 20 minutes to go we were all setup in our pens and were called up to the grid for the start – as I mentioned earlier, some external mistakes meant that I ended up been gridded a further back then my UCI points should allow – it is a really long race (120km, 3800m climb) so there is lots of time to move up but the various groups in the race form so early that this was going to be an issue. I really didn't want to burn myself too much trying to make positions up at the start when I would have to ride for 5:30 in the heat and at altitude.

Exactly on time, the race started at a frantic pace – there was no tootle off, it was 100% from the gun. 3 minutes in and we hit the tarmac kicker that I knew would cause pain – sure enough, my highest HR from a race this season was hit at the top (I was pretty well rested so my HR could get up pretty high). A short downhill and a flat tarmac section brought us to the base of the first major climb. We would climb 900 meters up mostly stony fireroad (loose enough that it had to be done mostly seated) – towards the top, it was stony and loose enough that I actually used the granny ring! The first time I used it on the bike. And it wasn't just for a minute or two, it was about 10 minutes! Mad... The climb topped out at about 2000m and I could sense the lack of oxygen efecting the power I was putting out. I'm pretty good at knowing how hard I'm pushing and I felt for most of the climb I was 1 or 2 gears lower (at the same cadence) then I would usually climb. The other thing was the heat – I was really roasting for the first 2 hours. The Irish jersey only has a quarter length zip and I was praying for a full length one. As we crested the top, the nutrel feel had glasses of water I quickly threw over my head. Next was a super fast fireroad descent that dropped us into some amazing singletrack. The singletrack was not technical but super super fast – I wish I could have preridden it just to know if there was anything I should look out for – you really could ride it as fast as your brain would let you! Scary!

I think from this point on most people settled into a rhythm and for the next hour or so I rode in small groups over the mostly (as in, no climbs bigger then 200m) flat section to the next major climb. At that point, I felt my wind shielding buddies and made my way steadily up the climb picking off another few riders. The following descent was similar to the last but with less single track and felt like it went on for ever.

Start/Finish area in Villabassa

The final major climb of the day started out on tarmac for the first 300 vertical meters followed by another 350 meters on fireroad. One thing that I noticed was that I climbed better on fireroad then the people around my in comparison to when the climb was tarmac. Maybe they train a lot more on the road bike. Hammering over the top of the mountain and a further few climbs I picked off about 4 or 5 riders eventually finishing up in 68th position. For the last 4 hours of the race no one passed me and I only passed people – a sure sign that I didn't go hard enough (was too far back?) at the start – well, at least I had pretty good endurance. I finished feeling tired but fine – pretty dehydrated and really looking forward to eating!

I met up with Mel, had my TorQ Recovery and headed to the Pasta Party to fill up on carbs.

Pasta, Pasta, Pasta :)

Two tired bodies in our Irish and German kit

The race was a great learning experience and I really enjoyed riding with so many great riders – it is really what I need to be doing to bring myself on. I need to be really pushed to pull out the best out of myself. There were many things I learned and realized (or some I knew before had but just had to deal with). These are a few of them.

• Next time I arrive at an amazing region of the world – I'm staying longer!
• Preriding the singletrack would have helped – not from a technical point of view, just from a mental knowing if there is anything dangerous to look out for so you can stay off the brakes more.
• We NEED a support person – I'm not doing one of these again without a person at technical/feed stations – this caused a lot of stress before hand and wasted lots of time during the race. (Thanks to William Berjgefelts buddies who dropped off bottles at the various feeds – I really appreciate it!)
• Make sure registration occurs properly – 136 riders ahead of you is a lot! The further back you are the higher the chance of crashes and getting behind someone who lets a gap open up.
• The mess up at last years National Marathon Champs caused me about 50 positions on the grid! Grrrr!
• For the last 4 hours of the race I only passed people, no one passed me - I guess I didn't (couldn't/ was too scared to?) go out hard enough at the start!
  
• I need to get used to racing in the heat.
• I need to get used to racing at altitude.

The view in the morning when we left at 5am for the drive to the airport

Mel has a report up here and results are available here as well as another report here.

More from the Worlds...

Marathon World Championship Report coming

3,800m of climb!

Finally, 2008 Mountain Mayhem Report

I have been meaning to sit down and write this for a while but I've simply been too busy :( Ah well, the life of a full time working guy who tries to also be a full time cyclist...

When I started out with the TorQ team they mentioned that they would like to give a good push at winning the team event in Mountain Mayhem – they have gotten a lot of 4th and 5th places in recent years and this year they wanted to win. With that in mind, I was more then happy to jump on board to the worlds biggest 24 hour race.

After the stress of packing and flying with bikes Mel and I (she rode with the Extra UK team) arrived at Eastnor Castle (stunning) in England to find the TorQ RV and pitch our tent beside it. Fortunately, we were staying in a B&B in Malvern for the night before. The course had a lot of climbing and a large amount of amazing bench cut single track – it was all new so I wondered what would happen if (when) the rains came. After an excellent Italian meal in Ask! in Malvern and a great nights sleep in the B&B (with the biggest bed ever!) we woke to find a wet and soggy Eastnor. Ahh well, I changed to 1.8 Nobby Nicks in preperation for the mud bath.

A birds eye view

We had a team talk and we decided that Billy (our team was Billy Whenman, Nick Collins, Marcus Schiez and myself) would take the first lap, and the run around the start loop - then me, Nick and then Marcus and we would rotate with each of us doing one lap. That was all good until I went to my rental car to get my gear ready when I realized I locked the keys in the car (it's a longer story than this!) but the RAC came to the rescue but we switched around with Nick taking the second spot to be on the safe side.

Course Profile

The initial laps went by mostly fine – my first lap was a bit annoying. With 600+ teams there was a HUGE amount of traffic for me to lap which meant all the singletrack was a crawling affair – I wish I had gone first and hit the trails at full speed, it was so frustrating hitting this amazing single track and then having to walk. My second and third laps were grand, it rained a little before the third which made it a bit slippery so it was a little slower. Then the thing we were expecting happened – a massive storm came through, shaking everything, uplifting tents and doing who knows what to the single track. Some time around midnight I went out for my first truly wet lap. It was about 2 hours since the monsoon started and 1000s of tire tracks since then meant the trails would be a mess. Knowing all this, it really did not get me ready for what I saw. The climbs where okay (ish) but the singletrack was something out of a Vietnam war movie. The trails were unridable and huge chunks unwalkable! I honestly had never seen anything like it before. There were bodies everywhere, people crawling with bikes slung across shoulders – all this in pitch black darkness with only my lights to add some colour. I still managed to get around the course in an hour (stories of 3+ hour lap times were the norm) but had some of the sketchiest moments of my short cycling career. My next lap was in similarly bad conditions – sections of climbs that I was big ringing earlier in the day I was now pushing! The singletrack was not quite so bad which evened out to another hour long lap. My remaining laps got faster and faster as gale force winds started to dry the course (it battered the camp sites – flying tents was an issue!) and my last two laps were the most fun I had with the course 100% ridable again. Madness.

All through this a competition was taking place and our team with each lap was moving further and further into the lead of our category (open male). This meant that we didn't really have a massive urgency to do super fast laps so the whole thing was pretty relaxed and enjoyable. The atmosphere around the TorQ site was great. As we were fielding 3 teams of 4 there was always lots of people around and I never got bored (or got sleep). Throughout, I used various TorQ nutrition products - the energy drink when I was riding, a gel 10 minutes before each lap and Recovery and TorQ bars after each lap – not once in the 24 hours did I feel drained or physically tired (apart from being sleepy) and my recovery from the event over the following days went really well. I think it really stands to the quality of the products. (Which you can now also buy on Wiggle)

Cheezy podium pictures - TorQ (B) also came 3rd (Pic: Chris Keller-Jackson)

Full results can be found here. Photos can be found here, here, here and here. Mel also has her report here.

Anyway, since then, the last two weeks have been back to normal training with the last few days focussing on recover as we both get ready to race in Italy this weekend – but more on that later.

Apocalypse Now

Mountain Mayhem report coming...

2008 British Marathon NPS - Grizedale

With tired legs Mel and I both woke on Sunday morning to find another dry sunny day. (Mountain Mayhem this weekend looks like it will be a muddy one though so I must not have completely great karma) This time around Mel and I made sure we had plenty of time to make it down to the race course and at least have a partial warmup. My warmup consisted of 15 minutes riding with 3 tempo efforts – a whole lot less intense then before an XC race but then again, I was going to be riding for 5 hours!

The course

The course was a little different then the previous days – the first technical climb was removed and replaced by a much longer fireroad climb that brought us onto some really nice trail centre type single track that eventually brought us back to the top of the technical climb. The rest of the course was unchanged. Total elevation gain per lap was 330 meters with a distance of about 12.5km. For the 100km race, it would be 8 laps (obviously!)

The race start - pic from here

The race started gently enough with William Bjergfelt and I losing the rest of the field by the top of the climb. Unfortunately, a few of the other main contenders where not in the race. I raced on William's wheel until the second climb where her increased the speed and seeing as it was a long race, I decided to not go to much into the red and I let him go. I knew from previous races that he likes to start fast. I rode pretty steady and on a rocky technical descent that claimed many puncture victims both days I passed William who was having his own tire issues. About another lap later I seen William on my tail again but again, he left me on a climb – I just didn't seem to have the legs anymore after the previous days excertions.

The rest of the race went by reasonably well – it is always around the 3rd or 4th lap that I ask myself, “why am I doing this”. I have been riding for 2.5 hours and I'm still only half way. Once I get to the 5th lap though, your mostly home and in these events, I find the last lap time... Only 12.5% to go!

A little over 5 hours later I finished up in second behind William – there really was not that much interesting things during the race apart from lapping people although I did get to like lots of the singletrack. With the pre-ride, XC and Marathon, there were sections that I rode 17 times... Gotta know them by now.

There is a report available here, race results here and Mel's report here.

As I mentioned earlier – Mel and I are off to Mountain Mayhem this weekend. Please please please let it be a dry one!

Race Winning Moves Drill...

Was out yesterday doing a new VO2Max type drill called the "Race winning move" from the Coggan/Hunter power training book.

Basically it is - hammer for 30 seconds (attack the group), settle into 3 minutes at threshold and then sprint the last 15 seconds. I was taking the initial 30 seconds and final 15 seconds a little easier then required but still makes an interesting drill.


In other news - Garmin and Saris (the makers of PowerTap) will be working together to allow the Edge 705 'listen' to the wireless powertap. Finally, I'll be able to unclutter my road handlebars. I'm also still waiting to pick up the disc brake compatible PowerTap for off road use. That should be really interesting - I would love to see my power files from an XC race. Currently with the Garmin and Ascent software I can break down my race and check my times on various sections of a race, descents/climbs see where I tire. With the power, it would be another dimension.

Hopefully I will get the report up for the Marathon race from last weekend tonight - this weekend it is Mountain Mayhem :) Busy busy busy...

2008 British XC/Marathon NPS - Grizedale

Last weekend saw Mel and I head in the silver bullet to the Lake District in England for the third round of the British National Points Series in XC and Marathon racing. This time our travel plans brought us via an overnight ferry to Liverpool followed by a 2.5 hour drive to the race grounds in Grizedale. For the final 15km, I was really glad to have GPS – the roads were crazy. All very small and windy. The area itself was amazing – beautiful rolling hills, old cottages and not a hint of buildings from the last 100 years.

Getting back to business, the preride went fine. The XC course was pretty hilly (about 275 meters per lap over the 9km lap – I would be doing 5 laps) and reasonably enjoyable. It started off with 2 km of rolling/climbing fireroad followed by a pretty steep technical single track climb which brought us to a man made trail centre type traverse/descent to another fireroad climb (and some fireroad descending!). After this was a technical descent that I actually got to really like, although it claimed a huge number of puncture victims, a bit more fireroad and then a really nice single track descent back to the start/finish area. I liked the climbing in the course but I'm not much of a fan of trail centre type courses.

A birds eye view of the course

As I had taken last week week as a mostly recovery week my legs felt pretty good during warmup on race day – I was also pretty motivated after my first two XC rounds in the UK this year. The race started (8 minutes early!) and I made sure to keep myself out of trouble in the first few bends. The pace quickened as we approached the single track climb and sure enough some people made a mistake and I ended up running chunks of the climb! I stayed in contention (or at least could see) the lead group for much of the first lap but then settled into a group of riders (Christopher Minter, James Fraser Moodie, Billy Joe Whenman and Anthony O'Boyle) some riders came and went but it was mostly that. On one of the laps, I passed Robin by the technical zone, he had a puncture – I didn't think of it again until I seen him at the start of the climb on the fourth lap – he passed and I latched on. I paced myself off him and ended up passing 5 riders in the space of half a lap. This, I think was the most important part of this race, or any race I did in the UK this year. I was simply not going hard enough, I was taking it too easy and not being aggressive enough during the middle of the race. Robin even said I looked like I was sleeping as he passed. I eventually lost Robin on a descent (kinda hard to stay with this guy when the trail turns downward!) but kept the pressure on and eventually finished a British NPS XC best of 9th position.

Mel and I after the race

The course did suit me reasonably well, it being pretty hilly and I enjoyed the race. With that – it was back to the B&B to fuel up and get ready for the following days 100km marathon on a very similar course...

A report can be found here and results here.

Reports soon...

Another weekend of racing :)

Better get on my bike...

Please don't make the lovely dry trails wet...

More long spins

There was no racing this weekend so Mel and I got to enjoy some long training spins around the Wicklow Mountains. The weather was amazing all weekend with Saturday being possibly the nicest day I've had in the mountains in Ireland since I started biking – sunny, warm, not too humid and everyone you met on the trails had a smile on their face. Surprisingly on Saturday's off-road ride, in the almost 5 hours of riding I only met two other mountain bikers! Many many walkers, but only two mountain bikers, usually I meet many times that – I guess everyone was off somewhere else.

Saturday's route had me start off around Djouce where I did most of the Djouce Challenge course taking in most of the single track Djouce has to offer – from there it was to the top of Djouce mountain (never been up there on a bike) and from then I followed the Wicklow Way to Glenmalur. Mel and I were supposed to meet their but lack of mobile coverage spoiled that so I ended up climbing the Shay Elliot climb and then heading up to the top of Mullacor (another climb I did not do before – it was amazing!) then back down into the valley holding Laragh and then the road to Roundwood where the car was waiting.

Saturday's Profile

Sunday was another big day – I don't usually go on too many rides much over 4 hours but this weekend was a little exception (the weather and the fact I'm not racing for another 14 days egged me on). This time the road bike was calling so I went on a similar ride to my longest road ride I did in Ireland last year. Basically riding over and then around the Wicklow Mountains taking in most of the bike climbs. I didn't feel particularly fast at any point until the final hour (of the almost 5.5 hours on the bike) when I had to hammer home to be in time for a dinner party Mel and I were attending. Overall – a great weekend of riding.

Sunday's Profile

Purple for off-road and red is for the road ride

2008 Irish NPS Round 3 - Magheramorne

I almost didn't make it up... Last year I remember doing the third round of the NPS, driving for hours there and back and riding like a pleb and burping both my tires. If I was going to travel up to Magheramorne Quarry (close to Larne, Northern Ireland) again – I was going to do things differently.

With that in mind, Saturday started off with an active recovery type road spin with Mel, with a couple of power intervals thrown in to open up the legs. Almost 700 Watts for 60 seconds in one of them was a new personal best although it has been a while since I tried that on fresh legs. On my warm up for the efforts I 'dragged' Mel up a climb getting her a new personal best up one of our training climbs (5 minutes climb). It took a while until she was back on good terms with me again – lets just say she suffered a bit :) After that, we headed to my family home in Monaghan for a relaxing evening - it would also break up the drive up to Larne the next morning.

Not very good detail in Google Earth

Nice and early we arrived up at the Quarry to find the course pretty much identical to last year. While warming up I did a 22 minute 'tootle' lap of the course – we were only racing for 6 laps so I knew it would be a short race. Most of the usual Elite suspects were present with the addition of Lewis Ferguson – I hadn't seen him in an XC race this year – apparently he is turning into a bit of a roadie... The gun went and we were off – after a slight tussle over the first minute and a half I moved into the lead before the first section of single track. That gave me the lead for the rest of the race. I kept the pace reasonably high for the first lap but approached the drops and technical sections pretty cautiously (I was in the lead – no need to rush). The second lap I eased a little only to see Lewis crash off (I think he was a DNF) and then it was just Peter Buggle and I. The next couple of laps we simply cruised around – neither of us wanting to go too hard. It was then that I knew, like in the first Irish NPS this year, that we were going to have a blazing attack at some point. I decided that I would keep it steady, be nicely hydrated and gelled up and attack hard just into the last lap – no real climbs on this course (a thing I'm strong enough at) so it will be on the flat. I didn't know what Peter planned – but if he went, I was ready :) Then, surprise surprise, Joe McCall caught onto the back of us midway around the 5th lap. I was pretty impressed with him catching on as he was pretty far back on the third lap but he did look like he was working hard so I didn't worry too much. The last lap came around and about 200 meters into the first single track I noticed Peter and Joe were about 15 meters back – I thought that now is as good a time as any to go, so I thought about the crappy race last year (anger – going to the dark side) and I put the throttle down... I still kept it pretty careful on the very rocky sections (no burping/flats for me) but most of the rest of the lap I was flat out.

The start

I ended up crossing the line 38 seconds up on Peter and around a minute on Joe. I enjoyed the race and was glad it wasn't too long or hard. I've been working pretty hard in training and I didn't really want a 2.5 hour race effort at a 'C' race at the moment. As I will be abroad racing for two of the other rounds of the NPS it means that I will probably be giving up my Elite Irish title this year. :(

Many thanks to Aine for helping out in the feed zone and taking the pictures!

Mel had another good ride but for most of the race she had to contend with the Expert men for competition – she (like me) can't wait to the next UK NPS.

Anyway, results are up here and there are some photos here (some I grabbed for this blog)

No Racing = Long(ish) spins

With no races this weekend I was able to get down to some long spins. Saturday was a mountain bike ride following the Wicklow Way to the Ballinastoe Trails, a couple of loops of that with a loop around Djouce and home via the road. A bit under 5 hours made it a lovely day.

The MTB Spin

Profile for the ride

On Sunday I got out to do one of my long road loops - basically 3 major climbs over about 120km with about 2100m total climb. The first time I did this loop (about 20 months ago) it took me about 4:45 - Sunday it was 4:09 at an easy enough pace (except for the climbs - did those at a hard tempo)

Lollipop loop

On another note, one piece of kit that I have been using that I really like is the new Specialized BG Pro SL shorts. Basically a pair of bib shorts made for warmer weather with a slightly less bulky chamois. They stay in position and fit me perfectly. For a long time I basically rode the cheapest bike shorts I could find - I still have lots of them which I wear on shorter days but the comfort of a good pair of shorts when riding for longer then a couple of hours is really worth the expense...

Delivery Companies...

Over night delivery - yeah right...

As my friends say - Dominos or Four Star Pizza should sort the "last mile" delivery problem. They always find my place :)

Speaking of annoyances - why the hell does Tesco have to change around the isle orders on a weekly basis. Only it is so close I would change to a different supermarket. I was able to do our weekly shop in less then an hour (including walking over and back) in the past but now it takes 1.5 as I have to find that the eggs which have moved four isles and the orange juice that I didn't buy because I couldn't find it... Ahhh...

2008 British XC/Marathon NPS - Drumlanrig

8 hours of suffering (and loads of driving) – that was my weekend – but I loved it!

It all started on Friday morning when Mel and I packed up the Silver Bullet (my little car) and headed to Belfast to catch the Ferry over to Scotland. We left with loads of time so our trip to Drumlanrig Castle was pretty chilled. This trip was for the second round of the British NPS Cross Country and Marathon series.

A slightly damp course (but warm humid weather) welcomed us on our preride. The track was basically 90% twisty, rooty, rocky single track with about 180 meters of climb per lap. The Elite men were to do 5 laps of the 7.5km course but with an hour to go, it was upped to 6. (Dohh) The course is very similar to the Epic Club Course except a lot longer and a little more technical.

Mel riding a particularly beautiful section

Race morning arrived and I felt pretty good – my legs felt fine in the warm up and my heart rate was responding. After the last gridding nightmare I was at the start with lots of time and had as good a position as I could ask for without being officially gridded – all good so far. The race started fast up the hill and from the start I felt pretty good – my legs were working and half way around the lap the leaders were still well within sight. Now comes my unlucky (stupid?) bit. On one of the fast fireroad sections I was passing another rider on the inside (I let him know where I was, lots of room for both of us) and some how my front wheel slid out – I couldn't believe it. I was unhurt (slight cut) but the front rotor on my bike was taco'd. I could see it swerve horribly and knew it was taking away all my power. (I guess a mistake I made here was not to calm down and try and fix it properly – it was so bad, you would try to spin the wheel as hard as you can with your hand and it would stop in a quarter turn!) I rode on anyway and caught a few that had passed by but coming into the start/finish area, another spill – I just couldn't believe it – I picked myself up and then suffered through the next two hours of the race. I wish I took my spare wheels with me (didn't think I would have room as I was picking up some new equipment from the UK) and switched them as I genuinely felt very strong but I think the wheel robbed a lot of the power. Two crashes in the first 7km of the XC race (neither were after hard efforts, I was pretty recovered/concentrated during each crash) and 0 crashes in the remaining 137km of racing I did during the weekend...

Second lap - still hammering in groups

See the slight cut? Picture from here

So that was Saturday, a 19th place and my body felt toast. I was really wondering how I could do another 100km the following day. Regardless, Mel and I went back to a Thai restaurant we found the previous night and filled up on rice.

I awoke on Sunday to a pretty sore back and dead legs but as the morning progressed they seemed to loosen out. Unfortunately, Mel and I seemed to mess up our timing a little so I ended up rolling up to the start line of the 100km Enduro without a warm up – ahh well, at least I was on the front row. I knew it would be more the 5 hours of riding so lots of time to get warm during the race – besides, I was saving energy! :)

We did 8 of these 12.5km laps

The race started and for most of the first lap a lead group formed with Nick Craig, William Bjergfelt and Duncan Jamieson with myself and Stuart Bowers just a little back. I didn't feel particularly bad but I knew I had put in a hard effort the day before. I let a bit of a gap open to Start towards the end of the first lap and from then on I mostly rode by myself (except when lapping). The course had more fireroad then the previous day but a few really nice additional single track sections. I actually enjoyed this course more (maybe it was all the extra power I had without the rubbing rotor!) and felt that I got a lot of single track riding practice in. In the end, I rolled in 15 minutes behind Nick Craig (the winner – he didn't race the XC race the day before) but a little over 4 minutes off a podium (damn). The race was really long at 5 hours and 29 minutes but I didn't suffer nearly as much as the previous day – I didn't (couldn't?) push as hard and my average HR was really low for a race – it was over 5 hours though so I guess that can be expected. It was amazing the amount of drink that I went through during the race – 8 gels and 8 550ml bottles of drink – no cramps and I felt okay when I finished (it would have taken a very very big stick to make me do another lap though!)

After all this – the worst bit was still to come – the drive home. A two hour rush to Stranrear, then a relaxng ferry ride, then another 3 hours from Belfast. I woke up this morning and I felt like I was hit by a train.

Thanks to Rachel Wisdom for doing the feed on Saturday's race (I need to find someone for the Marathons, stopping 8 times does not help your racing much) and well done to Robin for coming 3rd in the XC race.

Mel had an interesting weekend of racing too, but I'll leave her to talk about it on her blog (posts up soon)

Results are available here and there are reports/photos here and here.