Beautiful Winters Day

I was out on a road spin today in glorious sunshine. I did the same spin as I did on Saturday except today (with roughly the same effort) I was 20 minutes quicker. What a difference the sun (and less wind) makes.

Around by Blessington Lake

Sunrise

Mel and I were out pretty early this morning on the bikes - early enough for an amazing sunrise. The trails and weather were excellent today. Trails were dry and fast while the weather was two jersey warm...

A few pictures

A couple of photos from the last few days.

Mel and I rode around Djouce for a while on Sunday morning before I headed off for Balinastoe. It was an 'atmospheric' day.

A river climb at 8am - not exactly what I want to be doing.

Funny picture - about 80 Euro in Tanzania. I just took it out from an ATM

A fine November day...

Since coming home from Tanzania the weather has been amazing. Really warm and dry for this time of year. I was out on a spin this morning and took this picture. Amazing fun descending on the path (not really sure where it was due to the leaves) between the trees...

2007 Irish Marathon Championships

Before I go and start a few posts about my holiday, I'm going to mention the last race that I took part in this season - the Irish Marathon Championships. In addition to the Cross Country Championships back in July this was one of my other major goal races for the season. I was well prepared for it and had been looking forward to it for some time.

The race was held in Carlingford like last year over a different course. The marking last year was suspect (to say the least) and I was a little scared that something might happen in this years race. The race started at a gentle pace with neither myself or Conor McConvey going particularly hard as neither of us wanted to go off the front and possibly get lost. The race trundled along for the first hour with the lead group getting whittled down to about 4 or 5. On the biggest climb of the day Conor and I broke ahead only to have to stop at the top to find our way (at which time people started to catch us again). We headed after the markers but eventually the markers ended – my fears had been realized – we were off the track. By now our group was 4 with James and Joe joining us. We turned around and started heading back up the 100 vertical meters we just descended eventually bumping into the rest of the people that were behind us. The lead 'group' was now 12 strong. I'll cut the rest of the post pretty short as I'm still pretty pissed about what happened and I want to try and not rattle on too much. Basically, another few kilometres later the trail brought us into an adhoc campsite (who camps in the middle of trail). The Scouts that were camping there told us all to head left and sure enough, there were markers showing the way. We ambled along for another few kilometres (I was at recovery level speed for much of this :( ) then Conor, Joe and I broke off from the others. Shortly after this the 3 of us split up (slightly) – this was the final split of the race. I rode in second place for the final 10-15km having to stop and check directions from time to time. I eventually finished about 2 minutes behind Conor, Conor having just won his first Elite National title – or so we thought. The second place meant that I was selected for doping tests – an interesting procedure. Peeing into cups and being followed around – ahh, the life of an Elite cyclist ;)

Conor and I reaching the masts in first - don't the bikes look well!

Weather conditions were a bit crap!

Mel riding away...

Sean and Mel after the race

Afterwards, we found out that pretty much everyone in the race did a slightly different course – the lead 12 cutting out a section of singletrack. (The campers told us to turn left when we should have gone right – they even moved markers to fool us!) This meant that the “powers that be” decided to unchampionship the event. I was pissed about this for more reasons then I will mention... No one who raced had any qualms about the finishing order. I'm actually glad that Conor beat me in the race, I would have been devastated to have won and then the championship robbed. I feel bad for him...

There is a report available here.

Anyway – that was my last race of the year. A real let down from an organization etc... point of view. Marathon courses should not be run over open mountain. I love having a huge big lap, but ONLY if it is well marked and marshalled. The 8 laps in Coed Y Brenin was pretty boring, but at least I could race! I was glad to be heading to Tanzania 2 days after the race.

Coming home tomorrow...

Our trip to Africa has almost ended. Today Mel and I went down to the beach and we are heading out now to pick up some final bits of shopping then it's me packing up the bikes and Mel packing up everything else (who has the best deal?) before we head off for a final dinner over here with Paul and Ellen. My fingers are crossed that Mel and I will be bumped on our return flight home with BA due to them losing my bike for 4 days on the way here. It would be a great way to end the trip :)

Sunset in Zanzibar

EDIT: In the end, BA bumped Mel and I to World Traveller Plus for the way home but somehow managed to leave (well, it was Heathrows fault) our bags in London. They arrived safely the following morning. Still - I was happy with how BA treated us.

Another picture from Kili

Only a week left in the trip - back in Dar at the moment and going to Zanzibar tomorrow morning.

Another picture from Kilimanjaro at around 4,000 meters.

On Holidays...

Mel and I are in Tanzania at the moment on Holidays. I'm up in the mountains at the moment but will write something about the Irish Marathon Champs and what ew have been up to when I get back to Dar es Salaam (where my brother lives).

Mel and I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro last week. At 5895m it's pretty high. This is Mel at 4600m. It was DAMNED cold!


Tons more higher quality pictures on the way :)

Another picture from Coed Y Brenin

Cait took a few photos of the marathon race last weekend. I thought this one was pretty cool.

First lap

One of the brake pads from the weekend...

Not much left... Luckily, rotors are still perfect

British Marathon Champtionships and BMBS XC Series

This weekend saw me take part in the penultimate weekend of racing for the year. I was heading over to Wales for both the final round of their National XC Series (BMBS) (UCI C2) and the final round of the Trek Marathon Series (100km) which was dual rolling as the British National Marathon Championships, so a lot of racing hours was going to be logged...

The race was being held in the Welsh MTB mecca that is, Coed Y Brenin. Getting their was easy, Richie Felle, our bikes and the Silver Bullet (my Peugeut 205) made our way to the Irish Ferries ferry from Dublin to Holyhead in Wales, once there, it was a relatively short rainy drive (about 1.5 hours) to our B&B that was about 10 miles to the race course. After checking in and having a quick nap we headed down for the preride. The course for the XC race and the marathon had been billed as being the most technical course of the year but upon finishing my first lap – it was anything but. The XC lap was 10.5km long and only about 1.5 to 2km of singletrack. Coed Y Brenin has TONS of amazing singletrack and yet it was almost completely on fireroad. I mean, it's one thing to do all the climbing on fireroad (a lot of the time that suits me) but a lot of the descending was on fireroad too! There were a couple of techy sections on the course and a really fun final 4 minutes but just way too much fireroad. It also didn't help that it rained the whole time and made everything very slushy. (One thing though, with the constant rain the course for both days held together well with it all being 100% ridable – the HUGE puddles and rivers we had to ride through meant that not too much got to clog up the drivetrain)

Race morning arrived but my legs didn't feel that up for it. They didn't feel bad, just not that good. After the warmup we were all ready to start. Not much really to add from the race... I didn't feel very quick, my legs feeling pretty dull but I did have a few good fights during the race. The last lap James Fraser Moodie and I had a great tussle (me losing out to him just before the line) exchanging positions throughout the final lap. I finished up coming in a respectable 17th. I wasn't overly happy with the ride but I had one more long day on the bike to look forward to the next day so I simply refocused on it. Results of the XC race can be found here and a report here.

On Sunday I got up to a very soggy, rainy morning – the type of morning that when I'm at home I would reschedule a spin to latter in the day... Not today as it was going to be 100km of a (mostly) unchanged XC course. The rain continued to pour down right up to and past the start of the race. It was actually my first off road race that I left arm warmers on for! The pace at the start wasn't too fast (probably because no one warmed up because of the weather) and I was able to stay with the leaders for most of the first lap. Three quarters of the way around, the people in the group I was with allowed a gap to open in the single track and unfortunately, I couldn't chase back once we hit the climbs again. The second lap started with me in a small 4 person chase group and something worrying started to happen. My front brake starting to lose power. Another few kilometres and I had no front brake. (I had checked the brake pads on the front the night before and they were fine – I replaced the rear ones) For the next 4 laps I only had my rear brake to stop me. Luckily the course was not too technical so good brakes was less critical then normal but I would say it still added a minute or two to each lap time. Mid way through my sixth lap, disaster struck – on a fast descent my rear brake lost all power. Now I'm flying down a hill with no brakes... Time for some old school foot on the front wheel braking... With the smell of burning rubber I was able to stop and check out the situation. Brake pads (and back plates) were completely gone on the front and rear brakes. A nice walk/run back over to the start meant that I lost a ton of time (it was about 4km...). Robin, who suffured double punctures in the race, was able put on a set of pads on my front brake but I was going to do my last two laps with only a front. (Well, I did 4.5 with only a rear, only a front should be faster...) Before I left, Robin mentioned that I was as high as 5th but had now dropped to 8th (I think). With this, I had my motivation set to go hard for the final 80 minutes or so. The last two laps were uneventful enough – I felt good throughout and was even able to push hard on my last lap. I finished up the race in 5 hours 30 minutes for a decent 7th place. Having looked at the details from my Garmin, I probably lost around 20-25 minutes due to my braking issues... I could have had a 4th or 5th... You live and learn. Results from the marathon can be found here, as well as a report here.

The race was a serious mudfest. Lots of photos here

Mud, mud, mud...

The huge puddles meant that the Epic stayed 'roughly' clean

In general, even with the disappointing course I had a great weekend of racing. Thanks to Richie, Geof and Paul for helping me out in the feed zone and Robin and the Pipedream crew for the brake pads!

On Saturday I'll be taking part in the Irish Marathon Championships. It's going to be the final race (don't know about the cross season yet) of the season for me. I'll have nice, new, bedded in brake pads for that...

2007 National Road Hill Climb Championships

Last weekend (I've been busy since so no updates) I took part in both the National Hill Climb Championships and the National 'B' Road Race, both of which, as I mentioned earlier, where in my home town of Monaghan.

Saturday's hill climb had a really late (for me at least) start of 3pm so I spent most of the day before hand just wondering around Monaghan. I even ended up being the first person to sign on for the race. There was a little confusion over the starting order etc... and it ended up that I was going to be the first off – not really what I wanted as I would have no 'rabbit's to chase... Also, finding out so close to the start about the starting order meant that I had a pretty terrible warm up... For a 6 minute event, the warm up should have been crucial!

Anyway – with an anchor for a rear wheel (was using my training wheels as my light wheels were still being serviced) I waited for the countdown... 50 seconds I was told.... I back pedaled a little and the chain dropped on the lower, 39tooth ring (the climb, as it was so short at 2.7km and only 150m of climb was a big ring only climb)... I thought I had lots of time – so I told myself, don't panic, I'll get it on... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.... The guy said 50 seconds when he meant to stay 10!!! Crap, I flaffed about with my gears as I started up the hill loosing a bit of time. The climb was very short with several down hill bits so it was never really going to suit me – I would have much rathered a nice long 15-20 minute (or longer) sufferfest. I crossed the line in 6:25 which, when everyone had ran was enough for a 7th place. I was happy enough considering the mistakes that I made (warm-up, gears, wheels etc...) but I believe I should have easily been another 15 seconds faster. (Also, the last heavy week of training wouldn't have helped!) Not enough to touch the overall winner, David McCann though! Fellow mountain bike, James McCluskey finished a few seconds behind me.

Sunday morning was the turn of the road race. The course was a 13km loop with about 175m of climb per lap (yeah!). We were going to be doing 9 laps so around 3 hours of racing. My plan for the race was to conserve as much as I could during the first half and then be ready to work really really hard for the last 30k or so. (Simple, I know – but I'm not that experienced in road races!)

The first few laps went by pretty easily – high/low pace takes a bit of getting used to but I was actually really enjoying the race. There were a couple of nice descents that really seemed to flow on the road bike. Half way through the race, I ended up bridging (with 2 others) a 20 second gap to a break that I thought was going to stick. A while later the peloton caught us again :( Early in the 7th lap, the break of the day got away and unfortunately I missed it. They didn't get too much ahead but by the time we started the 8th lap it was 1:30. The peloton flexed a bit (of the 50 or so riders remaining in the peloton, about 6-7 were working) we brought it down to about 30 seconds... Enough so that we could see the break. At this point I felt very strong but the others that were working with me seemed to have had enough and were happy with letting the break win. After another 10 minutes of trying to urge the peloton on I gave up with that and with about 10-12 minutes of racing left I decided to really test my legs and see if I can catch the break which had a 40 second lead at this point. I worked hard up the hills (and unfortunately, into the wind for a chunk of it) and actually caught 4 or 5 of the break but not enough for me to be pulled up to the top ten. (I finished 12th in the end) I was disappointed about missing the break and not getting a better result but I was happy with how my body and my legs felt for the second half of the race... What I lacked in this race most of all was experience. As a training exercise, it beat going out on a solo ride for a few hours :)

The official results from the weekend are here.

Chasing Cows...

I'm in Monaghan (my home town) for the weekend as the National Hill Climb Champtionships are on here this weekend. I prerode the course today and something funny happened - there were stray cows everywhere, feckin pooing all over the lovely road :( Also, each one of them thought that they could take me on the climbs so they ran with me each time. I had no problems dropping them ;)


The course is actually really short (less then 4k) and not very steep. It is actually an undulating climb with not much elevation change. A track sprinter could do well tomorrow. Not really my type of climb. It climbs 150 meters and descends 40 meters.

Dry trails gone? Back to the road bike...

I think the dry trails are gone - you should be able to see Three Rock...

It should be like this...

Finally some dry (ish) weather...

The last week has been reasonably dry which has been great for making the trails fast again. I had almost forgotten how to ride fast on dry trails as we have had to deal with so much slomp this year. With the dry trails I've mostly been riding the mountain biking and getting ready for the British races and the Irish Marathon championhips at the end of September.

I'm also probably going to give the National Road Hill Climb Championships a go next weekend. They are actually being held in Monaghan (Irish capital of drumlins - not mountains) on a climb that's not very big or long. I'm not sure of the climb it will be on but I know the mountain and it's only about 250m high so the race will probably be a 10 minute effort... I still have to find a nice light set of wheels to use for it? Anyone got a spare set for Saturday? Sub 1.4kg?

The view from the Hell Fire Club (believe me, this was a 'nice' day!)

Mel and I cycled home from Joe's BBQ on Saturday night, this is Mel in a good tuck on one of the descents on her commuter bike...

A Weekend of Hill Climbs - Kippure and Kilmashogue

This weekend turned out to be a weekend of timed climbing races. First off was the Team Worc Extreme Hill Climb. It was a handicapped, (small) group start road climb. The course wasn't a constant climb (see the profile) but was almost 20km long and had 748 meters of climb. Robin, James and I were the last to start so we had many 'rabbits' in front of us to catch. We worked well together for the first 'rolling' 30 minutes of the race and we started to catch some of the earlier starters from about 25 minutes in. The conditions were very windy up around the Military road so our time wasn't going to be setting any records. Into the wind for the final few kilometres before the turn off to the final ascent of Kippure I somehow ended up on the front – unwilling to put much work into the wind I cruised along at a recovery pace as we all tried to recover a little before the final steep (17% in places) ascent of Kippure. As we made the turn and accelerated towards the masts, it was James and I in contention. We ended up playing cat and mouse the whole way up... Unfortunately, I miss timed my final sprint (I thought the penultimate bend was the last) and James pipped me to the post for the fastest time of the day – with the handicaps in place, we were still a little off the overall win. The Irish National Hill Climb Championships are on in a few weeks so I might give them a go – hopefully I'll have my light wheels serviced by then as I had to ride my 'heavy' training wheels for this race.

A graph of the climb from my Garmin

After a false start on the morning spin (more about that in a later post) I ended up heading out on the Epic for an afternoon spin. This week has been mostly (race aside) about recovery so I was only going to be out for a couple of hours but I still wanted to do one hard short effort. Every time I feel like this it's good to give the Kilmashogue hill climb a go. I physced myself up for a fast time and rode half way up it for a warmup dumping my bottles and saddle bag in the ditch, rode back down and made a go for it. I went hard from the start but was careful not to over do it on the steep sections so that I would have enough in my legs to really hammer on the less steep sections. I was about 2:54 in when I turned off the road for the first time (I remember last year doing this when I was really happy if I was under 4 minutes at this point!), negotiated the closed barriers (another few seconds could be saved here) and hammered on up the hill. I tried to remain relaxed and not over cook myself but I noticed that I was riding fast – Big and 8/9 for the 2% 'flat' section. By the time I got to the quary I looked down at my watch and I was still under 10 minutes – I remembered reading a report by Robin from a few years ago when he said he was at 10:something at this point and yet he still posted the second fastest (recorded – as far as I can find) time up the climb (he did a 12:13 in 2001 - the record of 12:12 was set by Craig Brady in 1997). I put my head down and hammered the last second hopping to stay in the low 12 minute mark. I crossed the crest of the climb and hit the split button – I looked down to find 11:56 a new (if unofficial) Kilmashogue Hill Climb record. I let out a few cheers and then realized that I need to get my breath back before I fall over. My heart rate average was actually a little low for the climb (173 – my LT is usually around 178 – last year I averaged 190 up a 17min climb in the states) so I might be able to squeeze a little more time out there. The weather conditions were pretty much perfect though – dry with little wind but some fresh gravel and the closed barriers would have slowed me a bit. A great end to a recovery week :)

My HR versus the climb... The coloured bands are my heart rate zones

Dear Santa...

I know it's a bit early for Christmas but I think I know what I want...


It's the new 2008 Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL... Probably costs around 7,000 euro - but I can dream. Picture is from here.

The view from Kippure

Descending (and climbing) around Kippure today was crazy. One minute beautiful sunshine, the next, mist, cold and time for thermal arm warmers. At least it wasn't raining...

2007 Outsider Annacurra Adventure Challenge

The story of this race started a little over a year ago when Mel and I took part in the first running of the race. After almost four and a half hours of racing and sitting in second place in the mixed category we ended up missing out on the second place due to a mistake I made – I missed two punched checkpoints... To say Mel was a little annoyed is an understatement.

A year later, and a lot fitter (well, I was, Mel was a little banjaxed due to her last Adventure Race and a lack of training due to her studies) we planned to return to the Annacurra Adventure Challenge and banish the ghosts from last year. First though, I had to get the bikes and gear ready, a process that started at 6pm on the Friday and didn't finish until almost 2am! Enough to almost push me away from heading down to the race at all! Anyway, we woke bright and early (why can't all races have a nice 1:30pm start?) to see a wet miserable day await us. Undeterred, we headed down to Annacurra.

At 10:30 the 50 teams (or so) started the race by a run around the local GAA pitch (to split us up I assume) before we got to our bikes to start the first 16km mountain biking section. From the very start, some of our preparation started to pay off. Due to the difference in our fitness levels we were going to use a bungee device between my bike and Mel's as much as we could. In the end, we used it for all non technical climbing stages throughout the event – even the running. This allowed us to pool our fitness and stay with the lead group for most of the first stage, just drifting off the back on a long slightly technical flat section.

By the time we got to the running section we were around six minutes behind the leaders. Me being a mountain biker, the running section was going to be the hardest on my body – the last decent run that I went on was this race last year... (Although I did do five short, low intensity runs before this event to lower the pain...) Wet conditions meant that the run was reasonably technical – it was short at 6.5km but it contained 575 meters of climb! Considering Mel's injuries (tendonitis in both ankles and the onset of cramping) and my allergy to running we didn't lose too much time on the run and started into the third stage very positive.

A climb just after the stage 2/3 transition

The third stage was a 25km mountain biking section. The section contained a lot more technical riding then the first stage and would have suited us more seeing as we are more mountain bikers then adventure racers. Throughout this stage I was very very attentive to our location and the location of the next checkpoint. It was during this stage last year that I missed the two punches that robbed us of the second place. After about three and a half hours we arrived back at the finishing area for the short course.

A quick refuel transition

After a quick transition (grabbed a few gels and fresh bottles from the car) we headed straight back up the hill for a long climb followed by a fast descent back to the finish. The bungee was vital here as Mel was starting to tire and the cramps were taking over. (I think I heard her curse more in the last hour then I had anytime before) For me, I put my head down and tried to remain focused on getting to the top of the hill as fast as possible. Funnily, about a kilometer from the top we caught Eoin Keith's elite adventure racing team. They looked to be in a bit of bother but I knew that they would catch us again on the running section so I tried to put as much distance between them and us as I could. Unfortunatly, they did catch and pass us on the running section and the final descent didn't give us enough time to catch them again (they were 20 seconds faster then us...).

We arrived back at the start to find out that the first and third (the one we had a final battle with) teams had missed checkpoints (the bane of last year) so we were actually catapulted into second position overall. In addition we finished first mixed team. All my goals for this race were met.

Big mucky smiles after the race

The event was very well run with the course marked out excellently – the weather was terrible throughout and all the off-road was shlomp – but thats Ireland this year... I know we had smiles on our faces throughout and I had to remind Mel afterwards that we rode through torrential rain at one point (she seemed to block that out).

A great feast was put on for us after the race (I think we must have looked like a swarm of locusts to the poor ladies who were helping out with the food) and we enjoyed chatting and sharing stories with our fellow racers. Overall, an excellent event and a great day out - many thanks from Mel and I to the Annacurra team and Outsider magazine and I'll be there again next year.

First and second placed teams

Photos are from here and results can be found here.

Another reason to fly to California...

Not only does Palo Alto have nicer weather then here (On Tuesdays club race I wore full winter gear - two jersies, arm warmers and my thermal jacket!) but I also have a new niece to visit. My brother Kieran and his wife Cynthia just had their second child - Ella. Together with Orlaith the Sherlock family has been extended by two this year.