Melanie Späth

My excursion into track cycling...

2011-12-17T10:38:00.000-08:00

Like that colour!

... was unfortunately short-lived. But I'll start at the beginning:

After my decent performance in the Ras na mBan and the news that I turned Irish, I was approached by the Cunga track team to "test" as a rider for the women's team pursuit. There already was a full team of Irish riders, i.e. 3 riders, that were trying to qualify for the London Olympics next year: Caroline Ryan, Ciara Horne and Sinead Jennings, but their situation was that if any one of them was put out due to injury or sickness, their chances for qualification would be destroyed. Thus, to strengthen the set-up, they were always on the look out for extra riders that could become part of the team and help towards Olympic qualification. And so it was that on a very short notice I joined the girls on their pre-European champs track camp in Newport, Wales, UK (the closest track to me as there is not (yet!) one in Dublin).

Thankfully, I did not have to invest into a track bike right then, and I got a lend of one of theirs, so it was easy to just turn up to Newport. There are frequent and cheap flights to Bristol with Ryanair (less frequent and less cheap to Cardiff with Aer lingus), from where the public transport connection to Newport is also good and frequent (airport bus and then train). But on my first trip I got a lift with the team's coach, Brian Nugent (who in his main job is the Irish Paracycling track coach, at which he has been very successful) and arrived at "track team camp central", better known as the Newport Central Travelodge (right across from Newport train station and near to a Tesco and Starbucks and the main Newport bus station, very convenient).

The next morning it was straight onto the track. I was a little bit intimidated and nervous as I've never been on a proper track before (I did a one-day introductory track session on Sundrive track, Dublin's outdoor concrete track on a crappy old rental track bike), so I had a bit of an idea of what to expect, but in no way it compared to what a real proper wooden indoor track is like, especially not on a much better track bike.

Not being used to riding a fixie, the first challenge was to get going and clipped in on one. You either clip in holding onto the railing or manage to clip in while the pedals are turning..... The next challenge was to get onto the track. Oh my god, it was even steeper than I had imagined! I think I almost got a heart attack just riding on the Cote d'Azure (the blue bit that's not even the track proper) and was ecstatic when I dared to make it up onto the black line and around. In no time I was brought up by the very patient resident track coach Chris Davis (who probably had already lost all hope of me as a future track rider at that stage) onto the next line up, the red line. Oh my god - I kinda lost all hope right then. Let's say I was just happy to be off the track again and having even floor under my feet. I was so afraid that I would slide down the track!

The Newport track

Luckily for me there was a short break and I could get onto the track completely by myself, riding around as I liked without endangering any of the other riders that probably wondered who was riding around like a complete fool. Anyhow, I have to say that this time on the track by myself helped me so much, I went completely crazy, riding slaloms up and down the track like a snake and ventured up to the very top so that in the end I was able to ride even to the most steepest bit of the track at the highest point! Wohoo!

But to think that this would be the only fear I had to conquer that day was too early. Next my track bike was equipped with proper team pursuit bars - you know, the type one uses on TT bikes. Apart from a 5min stint on Ryan's TT bike at home before, I have never ridden TT bars - let alone on a fixie around a steep track! Again my heart rate soared when I transitioned from the outside bars onto the TT extension bits (I'm sure there's a proper name for these things too). At least now I wasn't afraid of riding the black line any more. I learned a few technical things about pursuit line and position on the bike, looking into the corners etc. and had a few laps around the track, doing up and over changes too.

So I had conquered the fixie, the steepness of the track and the TT bars, but my last fear to conquer was to get closer to the riders in front of me. And while I was inching closer each time out on the track, I was still very scared to trust the person in front. I know, the person in front also does not have breaks and thus cannot come to a sudden stop, and thus my fear of riding into him/her was mostly irrational, but I just couldn't let go and get closer. Well, another day for that I thought.

The second day I was meant to try and hang on with the girls (talking about jumping in the deep end) but couldn't - they were flying!!! - but mainly also because again I just couldn't get close enough onto their wheel to get the full advantage of the draft. With a final session on how to do a standing start I had learned all the basics needed for team pursuit. In the afternoon I watched the girls do some bunch racing with the Vets while I wondered what I had got myself in for....

Lucky for me I could combine this trip with some family time and I made my way over to Swansea to visit my little sister and my brother in law where we spent a short night and watched the Wales vs. Ireland (Wales won) and then the England vs. France (France won) rugby games in the morning before taking a train back to Bristol and flying home.

Back in Ireland I thought about this opportunity of supporting the track team and decided to go for it. Such a chance seldom comes your way and it would be a dream come true. The chance for Olympic qualification for the team would be so tight that there would be many stages on the way that would decide if they are still in the running for an Olympic spot, so every race would count and I knew that this adventure could be over for me before it even started, I was just hoping that the decision either way would be obvious! After some serious talks with my husband and my supervisor we came to a solution on how I could work around the finances and time investment (since I'm still a full-time PhD student) and so I signed up for the next track camp.

In the mean-time the girls had finished 7th in the European champs, a decent result, but not quite indicative of the improvement that they have undoubtedly made since they've started training for this season.

Inching closer :)

After a few days visiting my family in Germany (this is off-season, the only time I am not bound by strict training and eating regimes!), a few hours back in Ireland (the night Dublin got flooded) to see our apartment block and car park under water and therefore a very short night I was back on my way to the airport again heading to the Newport track for a second time.

The 2nd time round was a lot less scary. Getting onto the bike and onto the track was fine, this time no nervousness was involved. I had a nice morning session with Chris and rode with the group on the track, returning to watch the evening races as I was too tired to race myself. Then the next three days I did some of the same training as the girls, watching them do their efforts, trying out Caroline's super cool TT bars (more expensive than I thought was ever possible - and I thought I was used to the cost of high end equipment), trying to hang on to them in their efforts (without much luck, dying after about a kilometer - after 4 weeks of off-season my legs just didn't want to follow). On the last day I also learned how to do standing starts out of the machine and was happy that my start times were fast enough to be able to slot in with the girls. Personally, my greatest achievement was when we did our final effort, with all of us doing a half a lap each and I was happy to be able to do a good change-over (in my opinion) - at that moment I knew I had taken the right decision to do this! It just felt so good how it all came together in this effort for us. Then, in the evening I did the Vet session, which included a lot of riding around in circles (as you do on a track) with a large group, with some pursuiting work and a final 10mile TT. This one finally felt like a real work-out after the very short but full-out pursuit and standing start efforts.

Now it was just time to go back to Ireland to actual training after the off-season and to wait and see how the girls would do in the first of four World Cups. There are only 6 events (Continental Champs, 4 World Cups, World Champs) in this qualification period, and for the girls to have a chance every world cup would count as they urgently needed those points. I tentatively booked my flight for the next track camp that would be on just after the girls' first world cup in in Astana, Kazakhstan, hoping the girls would do well.

On the day of the competition I was crossing both my fingers and my toes and my eyes for the girls to do well - they had to come at least 7th to realistically stay in contention. Excitedly I followed the live-timing and live-twitter feeds, but huh, what is that? The girls are down as DNF??? After some waiting, exchange of text messages and some more waiting there was clarity, the girls had DNF'd after a puncture (and a false start before that, thus using up their two allowed starts).

This meant the girls were most effectively out of reach for a spot for London (bar some highly unlikely scenarios). I was sad, because I really started enjoying the track cycling and it was a very exciting and interesting experience, but I can only imagine what a blow it must have been for the girls who had already invested so much of their time, money and energy into this adventure (here's a link to Ciara Horne's blog recounting the scenes of the event).

Given the same situation I would take the chance again in an instant. As I was only very shortly involved with the track team, it was all gain and very little loss for me (a bit of money spent and time lost on PhD), so all in all a great experience. And who knows - maybe I'll give track a proper try at a later stage... :)

I am still cycling!

2011-12-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

There's been a yawning absence of posts recently, I know. I even have a list of unwritten race reports about races that happened long ago that I am meant to catch up on, such as my experience of the London Olympics test event and the Czech and Italian World Cups, which were all a lot of fun.

I have been cycling since and there's been a lot of cycling related adventures: I've had a stint in track cycling (there's an unfinished post somewhere in the pipeline), I've been cycling in California, while there I raced and won the Hamilton Low Key Hill Climb again (thus again breaking the female Strava record), gone mountain biking with Klaus, gotten a Retul bikefit and ridden the beautiful roads of California (I love California).

MTBing in California

But, I'm also a student, and right now writing code takes priority to writing blog posts. On the upside, training is going well, I am on a recovery week now and I'm looking forward to a nice Xmas. Not looking forward to training in this freezing cold weather though!

My first real CX race

2011-11-08T07:35:00.000-08:00

After my excursion into track cycling had come to such a sudden end and I was not going to be going to Newport to another track camp, I was eager to do something else that weekend. Ryan was doing 2 CX races, one in Corkagh Park in Dublin and one in Moira, Ulster and I so wanted to do one too! The problem is that I don't have a track bike (my college stipend doesn't extend to biking equipment....), but Morty was so nice to lend me his bike for the Sunday race in Moira.

I watched the end of the Saturday CX race in Corkagh Park (Ryan came 3rd!) under blue skies and was hoping for the same weather and a dry course in Moira, for starters. I was not disappointed, on another blue skied day (is this really Ireland) Ryan and I made our way up to Moira and signed up for the senior race. Although the sky was blue and the sun was beaming down, the course in the park was surprisingly muddy and slippery. But no problem for Ryan's Schwalbe tires that I was using on Morty's bike. After two practice laps I was ready to go.

The advice I was given was basically to go full out from the start, and so I did. We had 9 laps to go and after about 3 laps I felt I was running out of steam, but I kept the pressure on. After my 4th lap I was lapped by a flying Roger Aiken, so I knew Ryan couldn't be far either. But he never came along - Ryan had snapped his rear mech! Either way I knew it could be tight to not be lapped TWICE, so I kept the pressure on, really enjoying sliding around the slippery corners and cutting through ankle deep mud and grass. I came down once in a slight off-camber corner, but it was more of a comical moment rather than a real crash at my slow speed. I had fun catching all the people that came into my sight and made up more and more places each lap. Unfortunately I kept loosing a few places again each time I came to the boards and my very non-elegant technique of getting over them cost me dearly, so that I had to chase back on and overtake those people each time again. In the end I had worked my way up from 25th position in my first lap to 16th in my last. Not bad for my first CX race!

Thanks to Morty for giving me a lend of his nice CX bike!

Full results are online here.

Reports on www.UlsterCyclocross.com and www.Stickybottle.com.

British Mountain Bike Series Round 5, Newnham Park, Plympton, Plymouth, UK

2011-09-26T02:26:00.000-07:00

The last Round of the British Series was held in Newnham Park, near Plymouth, and is one of my favourites of the series. I've raced here a number of times, as part of the series and as part of the Bontrager 24/12 and I've never been disappointed with the course. This year Jay and Maddie Horten pulled out all the stops and created the best course I've ridden so far there and in the whole series this year.

Taking out the notorious grassy climb and replacing it with short sharp climbs and tons of rooty singletrack, combined with a new steep, technical and very slippery, slidery descent, plus the existing swoopy fast descents really made the course a winner for me. Every painful climb was rewarded with a great challenging or fun descent, I really really loved the course.

After the 5-day stage race the week before and relaxing the training and eating regime slightly over the last while and my head already in off-season, I wasn't sure how my legs would respond in the race. Thankfully I didn't need to worry too much, as I was leading the series and had pretty much bagged the title, bar some unlikely scenarios.

British Series podium: l-r: Maddie Horton (4th), Melanie Spath (2nd), Annie Last (1st), Lee Craigie (3rd), Cait Elliott (5th) (photo courtesy of Bob Bogdan Williams)

The weather was nice and at race start I lined up next to Annie Last, British national champ and silver-medalist in the U23 World Champs. We went off and let Annie set the pace, which was fairly relaxed at the start. The group in sight of each other for the first lap, and I settled into 3rd position after Annie Last and Lee Craigie. While Annie pulled away at the front and slowly got out of sight, I was battling with Lee. In the 2nd out of 4 laps I tried to get ahead of Lee on the climb, but she caught me again on the off-camber descent (I defo need to work on those this winter!). Then, on the 3rd lap I attacked on the short climb before the long technical and slippery descent. But Lee wasn't giving up and I could see her closing in on me again on the last steep climb in the lap. I kept the fire lit for the last lap and stayed clear until the finish, bagging a 2nd place behind Annie and sealing my overall series win. What a great way to end the season!

Full results are available on timelaps.co.uk and a report is up on britishCycling.co.uk.

Thanks to Conor for the support in the feedzone.

2011 An Post Ras na mBan

2011-09-20T02:01:00.000-07:00

I am primarily a mountain biker who does a bit of road racing. But there is one road race a year that I make sure I am around for and in good form, the women's only international stage race "Ras na mBan".

This year the format has increased to 6 races in 5 days (from 4 races in 3 days), to celebrate 25 years of women's stage racing in Ireland. More than 50 riders from as far as the USA had signed up for it this year. I had the honour to be riding for the Womenscycling.ie team, a very strong team as it turned out that had all the bases covered.

Our team!

Day 1: Molls Gap (57.4km)

This stage always acts as a great test of legs and opens them up well for the next days to come. There was less attacks this year, but nonetheless the bunch broke up over Molls Gap with 18 riders in the front bunch sprinting for the line. I'm proud of my pocket rocket sprinter teammate to take the sprint.

Day 2: Valentia Island (90km)

I knew this stage from the Ras Mumhan earlier this year. Two good climbs and a lot of dead, windy and exposed roads. My strong teammate time trial specialist broke up the bunch over the first climb, but the bunch stalled at the bottom, so it all came back together. There were attacks all the way up the 2nd climb on Valentia Island and my pain threshold was really being tested when Olivia Dillon attacked over the top of the climb. I started to chase her, accompanied by 3 more strong riders and it took us a good while to reel her back in. We only got back to her after we had long gotten off Valentia Island. The breakaway bunch worked together and increased the lead all the way back to the finish, where I managed to place 3rd. There was now 5 riders well ahead of the rest of the field in general classification.

Day 3: Healy Pass (80.5km)

My favourite new stage, 3 big and a small hill. I was meant to take it easy. I think I took it a bit too easy at the start and was too far back when the bunch started to fracture on the windy roads down the first descent. I worked my way back up to the front and went over the top of the legendary Healy Pass just after the leaders. The technical descent was savage and I chased and chased and chased and found myself eventually with the same 3 riders +1 as yesterday, trying to chase down Olivia Dillon and Linda Ringlever. Just when we were close to them Olivia attacked Linda. When we caught Linda, none of us were in the mood of putting in a chase effort and so the time gap to Olivia kept growing, giving her a safe lead over the rest of us.

Day 4: AM: Gortagowan Circuit (66km)

One of my other favourite stages in this race: 4 laps of a tough little energy sucking circuit, including a potholed windy and tight climb. I tried to control the speed at the front as much as possible in each lap, as our plan was to give our pocket rocket sprinter another chance for a stage win. Only for she was boxed in she would have had it in her, having to be happy with 3rd. On the other hand, a gap opened in front of me, so I sprinted too and got 5th place.

Day 4: PM: Time Trial (3.1km)

Well, I made a few rookie mistakes (for example starting in the small ring....) and was not at all happy with my performance afterwards, thinking I had completely embarrassed myself. But Ryan's super skinsuit, shoecovers, aero wheel and pointy helmet must have made up for my mistakes so that I still managed to come a surprising 3rd, moving myself up into 2nd on GC with a lead of 12 seconds. My time trial champ teammate won it with a 4 second lead over 2nd and me.

Day 5: Coomaciste (93.5km)

The last stage was all about making sure I stayed with the front people and followed any dangerous attacks. Nobody worried too much when several people low on GC got away at the front and the bunch was enjoying a leisurely pace. Until we found out that the gap had grown to over 4min! Then even Olivia was getting worried and the Irish team and my team were made to work in front to reduce the time gap. Linda, 12sec down on GC on me attacked towards the top of the hill, but I made sure she didn't get far. My team mates did an absolutely fantastic job, killing themselves in front to bring the breakaway back eventually, sacrificing their own chances for a stage win. The bunch stayed together so that I maintained my 2nd place overall, my best result in the Ras na mBan so far. Next year I'm gonna get that leader's jersey!

Better support than in the men's Ras!

My team really did an amazing job, especially on the last day and I am grateful for it. You might not believe it, but I actually had the easiest ride that day, staying out of the wind and using up my teammates' strength to keep me protected and bring back the break. Thanks to the Pocket Rocket sprinter for sacrificing her chances for winning the sprint, thanks to the TT champ for sacrificing a possible solo breakaway, thanks to world champ pilot for a super domestique ride to the bottom of the mountain, congrats also to our newest rider for riding such a strong race, thanks to our mechanic for reading my wishes from my eyes and giving my bike more love than it has ever experienced, thanks to our manager for keeping us happy before, during and after the race, and thanks to the magic hands on my tired legs and knot in my back.

Results, reports and pictures can all be found on www.rasnamban.com.

Roll on Ras na mBan 2012!

3 wins in 3 races in 3 days!

2011-08-31T12:23:00.001-07:00

Well, last weekend was a very successful weekend, racing-wise. Here is a short run-down of the events:

Friday: Irish Hill Climb Championships

It's not really an official championships for us women, only for men, but we can do it anyway. My husband Ryan won the title last year, so he was under pressure to defend his title (here's his report on how it went). I thought I'd give him some company, seeing that this time the course was literally around the corner from us, not in the furthest parts of the country as the last three years. The climb was a 2.3km stretch up Kilmashogue Lane, starting off softly, but becoming bloody steep before giving some respite on a false flat before turning into a horribly steep wall before flattening out again at the top. I never really go higher than the Kilmashogue car park in training, it's just too steep!

The evening of the hill climb was lovely after the rain had vanished and a huge crowd was out on the climb (thanks to all our friends who came out and cheered - it felt like an Irish Alpe d'Huez in parts and added a great atmosphere to the event! I even saw a "Go Mel" written on the road!!!). I went too hard at the start (even with my powermeter), averaging over 380W for the first 3min, then died a slow death on the flat part, trying to recover somewhat, then really suffered on the "wall" and the last flatter bit to the finish. Then I collapsed into a heap. It took me 9min and 8secs to cover the climb - first girl by over a minute and a half. My overall wattage was only 326W, a sign of my bad pacing. I believe I could break the 9min if I paced myself better.

Results here.

Fist one done!

Photo courtesy of Max Power

Saturday: Lakeland GP in Enniskillen/Last Round of the Women's League Race

After a very unrestful night - I was way too wired after the coffee, caffeinated ZipVit Gel and Hill Climb race adrenaline to be able to sleep. I actually got back up at 1am to do some computer programming until 3am, then lied back down, tossing and turning and waiting for dawn. Ryan and I had to get up early to leave for Enniskillen anyway, so the wait wasn't too long.

The race was a 70km mostly flat lollipop loop, with a 5km drag around the 35km turn-around mark.We girls were sent off with the over 50 men. I was tired and happy to sit in (I actually didn't really have a plan and decided to play this race by ear, seeing how I feel). The pace was steady and I followed any attacks, but nothing stuck and it was into a headwind anyway. Once on the drag a few of the men attacked. I wasn't that concerned, but decided to up the pace a bit and see what happens. The next time I turned around, only Sandra Fitzgerald was on my wheel and we had a sizeable gap! I kept up the speed and dragged us up the incline. Once over the top we worked together - I knew Sandra to be a good time trialist, so it was good to have her with me. We had a gap of over 1.5min after the climb, so it was about keeping up the speed, in case the bunch got themselves organized on the descent and flat towards the finish. At about 5km to go, just when I was thinking of how to play the finish - I didn't know if Sandra would be a good sprinter or not - Sandra punctured. So I soloed easily into the finish. Sandra was able to get a quick wheel-change and held off the bunch for 2nd place.

2 out of 2, I'm on a roll!

Results and report on www.cyclingulster.com and www.womenscycling.ie.

Podium pic

Sunday: Lakeland Warrior 100km MTB Race

When you're tired from racing and it's raining and you still got to do more training, there's nothing better than another race. So Ryan and I decided to do the first installment of the 100km Lakeland Warrior 100km MTB race, organized by www.26extreme.com. The race was mostly on forest roads, so great for a tired mind and a great test of endurance. I tried to stick with the lead group of men, but I was still feeling yesterday's race in the legs, so dropped back after about 5km after which I was mostly on my own until the finish. At 50km we popped out at a beautiful viewpoint over what looked like hobbit land with lots of lakes and wild landscape - I wish I had had my camera with me!

I had a great endurance session and finished in 4h 33min, just half an hour behind Ryan, who won the race. I was 6th overall. This is defo one I'd go back to! Results here.

So I'm one up on the win-count on Ryan this weekend - hehe!

What if....

2011-07-23T09:20:00.001-07:00

... I had taken a recovery day yesterday.
... I had ridden a TT bike.
... I had worn a TT helmet.
... I had not drank from my bottle 3 times.
... I had put my head down 2cm more.
... I had tucked my braid into my skinsuit.
... I had not worn my non aero mtb gloves.
... I had dug that little bit deeper.
... I had not eased off before the finish because I thought I was already at the finish.
... I had not been caught behind a lorry.

These are all the excuses that I could come up with for why I didn't win today, in my first ever proper TT (I've done a few uphill and very short ones, but none that was longer than 10min). This is what happened: The weekend came up and I am down for a 3 hour ride. I've trained every day since Tuesday (see Strava), with Thursday a bit lighter (only 1 hour endurance on the turbo trainer due to rain), but I was slowly getting tired. I needed a motivation to keep going hard. In the absence of a road race nearby I went to do the next best thing, the 10-mile TT organized by Sorrento in Kilpeddar, only about an hour by bike from my place. On Friday evening I tried out Ryan's Merida TT bike to see if I could use it, but it's a bit too big and I felt a 15min spin on it was not long enough to get used to it, and the riding a total of about 3hours on an ill-fitting TT bike seemed not the best idea, so I decided to use my own road bike instead. Unfortunately Ryan also had his TT helmet with him in the Portaferry 3 day - only to find out that no TT equipment was allowed.

Anyhow, on an amazingly beautiful and summery warm Saturday morning (if Ireland was just always like this in the summer!) Cait and I made our way to Kilpeddar Village, where the TT was being held. Going towards Bray from Enniskerry you could barely believe you were in Ireland, with views of the glistening sea below, deep green forests and beautiful views. Summer is here! (at least for today).

Cadel Evans riding into the yellow jersey in today's individual TT of the TdF

The course was basically 7km southwards on the N11, turning via 2 roundabouts either side of the tunnel and returning northwards for the remaining 9km on the N11 back to Kilpeddar village. There was a record of 24min to be beaten, to be rewarded with a bonus of 150Euro sponsored by the Women's Commission for the person who breaks the previous record (24min flat), on top of the winner's prize money, but that was fairly far back in my mind, because I was pretty tired and this was just meant to be motivation to put in some hard training. But I had a good start and got myself into a good rhythm. My Garmin told me I was good on time for matching the record time (probably went out too hard). I could see my minute girl, in the distance. I was fine going into the first roundabout of the turning point, but unfortunately for me, a lorry had just pulled in in front of me from the next entry and I got stuck behind this lorry between the two roundabouts. I was happy when the lorry went straight at the 2nd roundabout and I could speed up again leaving it at the 3rd exit. I had lost some time, but my minute girl was still in my sight and I chased her, and I eventually caught her. I caught another few of the earlier started girls and when I looked again, I was STILL pretty much on time for matching the record. I left the N11 for the final km to the finish and went hard. I saw the people and thought I was done, easing off, when I realized that these were just spectators and that the finish line was another hundred meters or so in front, digging in deep again. When I looked at my Garmin, I knew it would come down to a matter of seconds if I had broken the previous record or not. I had not expected that. And the worst of it all was that I knew I had left some seconds on the road.

In the end my time was 24min and 1 second and 42 hundredth of a second. The winning time was 23 min, 59 sec and 78 hundredth of a second (with full TT gear), a difference of 1.54 seconds.......

....... between me ...... (Photo by Paddy Doran)

...... and the winner Sandra Fitzgerald (Photo by Paddy Doran).

That's less than 2 flippin' seconds between about 200 Euro and me..... Argh! What if.... (refer to excuses above). 1-Mississippi, 2-Mississippi. That's it.

But I learned my lesson. You should always give it your best, even if you don't expect to do well and even if you're tired. Or I could just buy myself some speed (TT bike, helmet, aero wheels, gloves).

Anyhow, my priority is next week where I'm off to the Olympic Test Event, competing against the World's best Olympic hopefuls. That is what I am focusing on, that is where I want to give it my best. Roll it on!

Oh, and mountain bikers can be good time trialists too (see Cadel Evans - he got himself into the yellow jersey in today's Tour de France individual TT!). Well done Cuddles, it's about time we're being taken seriously!

Full results on women's cycling.

For the geeky: for the 24min and 1 sec:

- Average Heartrate: 171pbm
- Average Power: 290Watts (way below my threshold of 305-310Watts)
- 2 sec over 24min is 0.14%

Irish National Champs Race - Killruddery

2011-07-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

For the first time since I race in the Elite category, I was going to be in the country when the Irish National Champs were on - all previous years I would have been in Germany on that day, racing in the German Champs (as you race in the national champs of your nationality), but the German champs were ran in June, which I missed due to a shoulder injury acquired at the pre-ride for the Offenburg World Cup the week before the German Nationals.

Photo by Vc Glendale

To be eligible for a National Champs title, you have to have had that nationality from the start of the year. I have received Irish citizenship only a few weeks ago, so although I am now Irish, I would not yet be eligible for the title this year. Nonetheless I was allowed to take part in the race as a non-contender. It would also make for an interesting show-down between Cait, who was last year's national champ and I. She's been nipping at my ankles for the last few weeks now and beaten me in a couple of club races and some of my Strava records, so I was excited to measure myself against her in a proper race situation.

Photo by Cieran Maunsell

I was happy I was allowed to take part, because the race was organized by Team WORC in one of my favourite race venues, Killruddery, which is private land, so it's off-limits to mtbers outside the event. The course was great, almost all of it twisty, windy singletrack, featuring a fun bombhole and the "tombstone" drop (although this was taken out of the course later on). After a short grassy start you entered never-ending tight singletrack, so on pre-ride day I made sure to learn the corners well. The tight, twisty singletrack is something that suits Cait, but there was very little climb in the course and the flat suits me. So no advantage either way.

Photo by Cieran Maunsell

On race day there was an awful wind and a few spits of rain before 5 Elite ladies and a Junior lined up at the start for a total of 4 laps. I must have missed the 30sec warning and was about to grab my bottle again for one last sip when we were told "Go! Go now!". Until I got going, Claire had sprinted off into the front, followed by Cait, Ciara and then me. I overtook Ciara before entering the singletrack and then stuck to Cait's wheel. The speed was comfortable and I was enjoying myself. On one of the short climb sections both Cait and I overtook Claire. A few times Cait managed to open a small gap, especially when I messed up on some of the technical rocky sections, but I made sure I didn't loose her out of my view too much.

Photo by Cieran Maunsell

In the second lap then I caught back up to her on the twisty singletrack section and was pondering where it would be a good idea to attack, deciding that probably on the fireroad to the tombstone forest or the short climb within the tombstone forest would be a good idea. But just as I was pondering that, Cait dropped her chain and had to stop to put it back on. I didn't hesitate and took my chances, overtook her and went full gas to open up a gap. Whenever I looked back, I could see Cait behind me, about the same distance as I had been behind her in the 1st lap. In the 3rd lap the gap increased, and I took the last two laps a little easier, keeping an eye out for Cait behind me, ready to speed up again if needs be, but she didn't catch back up.

So I won the race, but as I'm not eligible for the National Champs title this year, it went to Cait, who came in just a minute behind me. Next year! ;)

l-r: Ciara MacManus, Cait Elliott and Orla McClean (Photo by Cieran Maunsell)

Thanks to the officials allowing me to race, thanks to Team WORC to have put together such a nice challenging course, to Stew for his help on the day and to all my sponsors, particularly Cycleways, ZipVit and KCNC for their loyalty and ongoing support.

Full results available here.

British Mountain Bike Series Round 4, Margam Park, UK

2011-06-27T06:25:00.000-07:00

The female Irish Elite (Irish National Champ Cait Elliott and I (yes, I'm Irish now!)) contingent arrived on a Friday night in Wales to cold and wet conditions (i.e. summer in Wales... it's like summer in Ireland).

The pre-ride on Saturday wasn't any better. Bathed in clouds and mist, with a constant drizzle, Cait and I pre-rode the challenging Margam Park course.

It became pretty clear that this was going to be a tough course: There was lots of tough climbing in it, about 250m per lap, and the wet conditions paired with the riders transformed the course into a muddy, slippery affair. The climbs were unrelenting and the descents were slippery, cut up and rutty chutes, and the lap finished with a drag through a boggy grass field. But we were promised sunshine and 24 degrees on Sunday that might dry the course out a little bit, although it was hard to hang onto that belief with the 13 degrees and miserable weather on Saturday and no signs of improvement.

Sunday, 6:50am and we got up for breakfast. One look outside the window and it was the same grey wet day weather as the day before. Subdued we ate our breakfast, feeling disappointed to have had that hope for good weather, then packed our stuff and then - you wouldn't believe it, the sky suddenly turned blue and the sun came out of nowhere and shone onto us in full force, bringing a big smile onto our faces :)

14 Elite women lined up at the start, again with a guest appearance of CX pro Nikki Harris. I knew from the start that I was going to have a good race. My heart rate in my warm up went up easily and it was high standing at the start line (this happens when I'm nervous and I'm usually nervous when I know I have a chance to do well). The gun was shot and I had a good start, racing up the first fireroad climb in 2nd or 3rd position. While Nikki opened up a gap from the start, Lee was 2nd into the singletrack climb and I was third, being closely followed by Cait. Nikki steadily pulled away from us chasers and I stayed on Lee's wheel until Lee slipped on the muddy ground. I took my chances and overtook her to get into 2nd place and didn't look back. I could still catch glimpses of Nikki ahead of me, and kept the pace up. I could still see her going up the first singletrack climb in the 2nd lap, but that was the last I saw of her. I knew I had to be careful on the climbs on this hot day not to blow, so I settled into my pace, taking it steady on the climbs and staying focused on the super slippery descents.

Actually, the descents were so much fun, it was like mud-surfing down on two wheels, always on the edge of control and always arriving with such a big "I can't believe I made it down upright"-grin at the bottom. At least the fun of these descent took some of the pain out of the climbs, especially the last long soul-breaker of a climb to the top of the hill with the sun burning down at 30 degrees only to think you've made it to the top arriving to a false flat and into a head wind (at least it was a little respite from the heat - yes, heat, heat! in Wales!).

I was super enjoying myself, thinking I only have to keep up this speed and I'll have 2nd place safe, when the mud had clogged up my gears so much that all my low gears started skipping in the 2nd last lap. It got so bad in the last lap that I had to walk some of the climbs because none of my lower gears were working any more and I got a fright when I looked down and saw Lee Craigie appearing on the bottom of one of the climbs. I ran as fast as I could and descended like a mad-woman and the next climb I looked back I could still see her at about the same distance. I knew if I was just able to get to the top of the last climb ahead of her, then I will be fine. But try that after 1h and 45min of racing, with no low gears! It took me every mental capacity to make myself believe that I can make it to the top without getting off the bike and running (and thus loosing time). I was imagining a big bungee was pulling me up at the top while I ground my lowest working gear. Exhausted I arrived at the top and glanced back - no one in sight. I knew I had 2nd place bagged then. Now it was just about not making any stupid mistake on the last long and fun singletrack descent all the way down back to the finish.

This was one of the best races I have had in the UK Series this year. I felt good, felt like my training was catching again and I was getting back into form. The course was great, a real mountain bike racing course that required fitness and skill to succeed. And the weather was so good that you could barely believe we were in Wales.

This 2nd place means that I'm still leading the British Series with a comfortable enough lead over 2nd place :)

Cait also had a fantastic race, coming in third just a couple of minutes behind me. Robin also secured a respectable 2nd place in the men's Elite event, only loosing out to Oli Beckinsale, so it was a very successful weekend for the Irish contingent!

Results can be downloaded from Timelaps.co.uk.

Thanks to Mike for organisatory help and for feed-zone support. Thanks to Mark and Charlotte for coming to support the race. Thanks also to the guy who helped me untangle my chain before the start of the race!

British Mountain Bike Series Round 3, Wasing Park, UK

2011-06-14T12:31:00.000-07:00

(l-r): Mel Alexander, Maddie Horton, Nikki Harris, Mel Spath, Cait Elliott
(photo credit: Cait Elliott)

I wasn't so sure how this race would go, still trying to make up for lost form due to inconsistent training because of sickness and my shoulder injury. I had ventured out for the first time on the mountain bike on the Tuesday the week before since the injury but it was a big mistake and I only hurt my shoulder again, starting back at square one with healing. Sticking to the road bike for the rest of the week I was getting quite concerned with how little it had improved by then, but painkillers and a lot of Arnica cream showed a huge improvement a few days later. I still had to be super careful of sudden movements with my arm, but at least it was getting better.

I knew from last year that the course in Wasing would be fairly safe, no big rocky descents or too rooty sections and should be a walk in the park in the dry. My pre-ride on Saturday on a beautiful sunny day went very well. The course was even a little easier than last year and consisted mostly of a mix of nice flowy forested singletrack with interspersed bits of fireroad. It was fairly flat, and so there would be very little time to recover once the race went underway....

I was so hoping for the beautiful weather to hold up for the race on Sunday, but unfortunately it was drizzling when we got up and raining properly by the time our race was started. 13 women braved the conditions in the Elite women's category, including CX ace Nikki Harris. The race was started, but I felt as if my legs were made out of concrete. The long hours of back to base building endurance riding the week before were taking their toll.... Anyhow, I knew I wouldn't have the punch, so I didn't panic and just rode along steadily. Apart from Nikki Harris pulling away from the start, the race stayed together closely for the first lap and I came through the feedzone in 5th position, but there was only 20 seconds difference between 2nd and 7th place, so all was still possible.

There was still 5 laps to go, but the rain was slowly starting to give the course a slippery cover and I had to stay super focused to avoid any slips or crashes to not risk hurting my shoulder again. With Nikki Harris out in front, Maddie, Cait and Gabby were still in sight and Mel Alexander was not far off behind me either. Slowly I worked my way up into 4th place behind Cait, while Maddie managed to pull away from our little chase group. Then Mel Alexander attacked and overtook both me and Cait. I knew she was in good form, so I couldn't let her go and started to chase her. I stayed on her wheel for a while, and finally managed to overtake her into 3rd place in the penultimate lap. I stayed focused and increased my gap over Mel, hoping to be able to catch up to Maddie too, but the gap to Maddie was too big, so I rode a conservative last lap to finish in 3rd.

Despite the horrible wet day I had a good race, and I was happy with the result, considering the lack of current form. Good start into my come-back!

Thanks to Mike for tech-support and to Rob for feed-zone support.

Full results on Timelaps here.

Report on IrishCycling here.

Rás Dhun na nGall

2011-06-06T04:35:00.000-07:00

After sickness and injury I thought: what better training than some hard racing? This weekend the German National Cross Country Championships were on, but my shoulder wasn't healing as fast as I had hoped and I knew that I wouldn't be able to be competitive offroad. So I found a great alternative: a hilly road stage race in Donegal, the Rás Dhun na nGall, put on my the Four Masters Cycling Club. I actually think Ryan talked me into it (it's a nice hilly race!) and Cait got convinced too and so Cait and I both ventured up to Donegal for a weekend of stage racing. My shoulder was still bad and I have only been able to go out on the road bike in the week before (thanks Stew for a really windy spin over the Sally Gap!), so at least in road racing I'll get in the intensity I need now.

The Donegal Race is a 3-day stage race with 4 stages, one of them a short TT. All the stages were basically loops around race central Ardara (apart from the TT), making logistics very easy.

Stage 1: (Friday, 3rd June at 7:30pm) - 52km.

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/31752062

Finishing with the bunch in stage 1 (photo by Marian Lamb)

There were 9 women signed up and we got a 5min head start over the bunch of about 130men. We were riding easy until the men caught us at about 45min into the stage and then it was just a matter of trying to stick with the men's bunch and try to not get shelled when they sped up to react to attackes. Only Heather Wilson (Irish Road Champ 2009) and I managed to stick with them until the finish. My shoulder held up well. So far so good :)

Time: 1h 24min, Norm Power: 256 Watts, TSS: 100.3, IF: 0.852

Heather and I after stage 1 - both of us finished with the bunch (photo by Marian Lamb)

Cycling Ulster report, pictures and full results of stage 1 can be found here.

Stage 2: (Saturday, 4th June from 9am) - 5km TT

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/31752258

The spectacular scenery of the TT course did not make the suffering less! (photo by Marian Lamb)

We were started off in order of race number. My number was 8, so I was off 8 minutes past nine. Anybody who knows me knows that I am not into early morning sports if I can avoid it. Especially not after a late race the night before. Cait (number 9) and I stayed in bed as long as we could and rode over to the course. I didn't have enough time for a recce and it was pretty cold at the start. Heather was my minute girl and I could see her ahead of me up the climb. At one stage I thought I was getting closer to her, but then the course steepened up (around 15% at times!) and I think it was just imagination. I finished with 8min 13 secs, 13 secs slower than Heather and 7 secs faster than Cait (3rd place). Not bad for an early morning uphill TT with too high gears, but also a reminder that I am not in peak form at the moment.

I stole Ryan's skin suit for the TT.... (photo by Marian Lamb)

Time: 8min 13sec, Norm Power: 318 Watts, TSS: 15, IF: 1.061

Cycling Ulster report, pictures and full results of stage 2 can be found here.

Stage 3: (Saturday, 4th June at 2:30pm) - 82km

This time round we got a 10min head start ahead of the guys. We rode well together until the men's bunch caught us. I managed to stay with the guys in front of the bunch for a short while but dropped back on some of those scary 70kph fast descents. A few times I was able to make it back up into the safety of the bunch, but then, on the descent between two consecutive hills the elastic snapped and I did not have the power to make it back on. I really suffered and tried to hang on to Cait, who was riding very strong and who was hanging on to the wheel in front, but who also had to let go eventually; only Heather was able to hang on until the end. I did see a group forming from another few dropped riders in front and a handful of single riders in between, so I used the singletons as steps in a ladder to get to that chase group. It was hard chasing, but eventually I made it and was able to stay with them until the finish line in Ardara. I lost over 6min to Heather, but finished ahead of Cait in 2nd place again.

Happy riding in the women's race (photo by Marian Lamb)

Time: 2hour 31min, Norm Power: 237 Watts, TSS: 157, IF: 0.789

Cycling Ulster report, pictures and full results of stage 3 can be found here.

Stage 4: (Sunday, 5th June at 12pm) - 98km

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/34418884

In the morning we were greeted with lashing rain. Non-stop rain. No indication of any clearing up. I put on arm-warmers, knee warmers, shoe covers, a base layer, two jerseys and a rain jacket for the race - that's Donegal summer for you..... It was freezing again at the start. We got about 15min head start and Cait and I drove the pace at the start, reducing the women's bunch to 5 women. The 5 of us worked together well, keeping a good pace. At some stage I got so cold that I had to stop and let the women go to put on my rain jacket that I had so confidently taken off after the start- I couldn't do it on the bike, as I had frozen rigid and lost all feeling of my fingers.

Still riding on (photo by Marian Lamb)

We held off the men till about 60km into the race. The men's bunch had been split into lots of little groups by that stage and when the lead break passed we chased hard to catch on. Again Heather was the only one who was able to stick with the lead group. Both Cait and I had no matches left for their pace. More and more groups passed, but most were too fast when they passed. Eventually a group passed whose pace was more to my liking and I caught on and from then on it was easy riding to the start of the last tough climb. As every other stage, I finished 2nd behind Heather, 8min down on this stage and 15min min down on overall GC. Thanks, Darragh, for the lift back down!

Suffering through atrocious weather conditions and tough roads (photo by Marian Lamb)

Time: 3hour 17min, Norm Power: 226 Watts, TSS: 185, IF: 0.752

Cycling Ulster report, pictures and full results of stage 4 can be found here.

Although the weather was atrocious on Sunday and driving back was a bit like swimming through a monsoon I really enjoyed the race. I really did notice the recent lack of consistent training due to illness and injury, but hope that this is the start of some good consistent training for the 2nd half of the season, aiming for a good result in the two European World Cups in August.

Proud as punch for 2nd place (photo by Marian Lamb)

Have a look at Cait's account of the race for comparison :)

Dalby & Offenburg World Cups

2011-05-26T03:26:00.001-07:00

The Dalby and Offenburg World Cups were on consecutive weekends and I had planned to be well prepared for them. I love both the course in Dalby and in Offenburg - I had raced 3 races on the Dalby course so far and Offenburg is my favourite World Cup course! While Dalby is flowy singletrack interspersed with technical sections, Offenburg is challenging almost all of the way and contains some scary drops and descents.

Anyhow, unfortunately it doesn't always go to plan. After I had done the Ras Mumhan in April, I had a recovery week, but I never really felt I was recovering properly, I didn't seem to get my strength back.

After that recovery week I did an Irish NPS in Davagh Forest, which turned out to be a fantastic event: lovely venue (although as remote as it gets - how did they even find this place???), fantastic course - just the right mix of single-track and fireroad, great weather and all the works to make it a great event overall (bouncy castle for the kids, a great layout of post-race food and tea etc.). The only thing that was missing was my competition. Cait was out of the country and Ciara was commissairing. Non-the-less I had a good race: I set off with the Senior 1 men and had a good battle with one of them for a few laps until I steered into the only boggy hole of the otherwise bone-dry course and muddied up my bike so much that my chain got stuck and I had to stop to clean some of the mud away, leaving me to chase, but by then he was gone out of my view and I rode a more steady last lap.

Lined up in Dalby on my new S-Works Epic (photo by Mr.&Mrs. Elliott)

The week after the NPS I still wasn't feeling great and power just wasn't there. Then I started getting a bad throat ache and cough. I didn't take it too serious (sure it's just a bit of a sore throat, right?), but it was getting worse with a painful chesty cough that seemed to worsen as the days went on. I should have taken more care of myself then, but only went to the doctor when it was a full-blown serious chest infection. In the end I was off the bike for 9 days, with 2 days trying to turn my legs on the turbo, but anything over low endurance was too painful for breathing. Not great preparation for two of the most important races of the year. I started back into training on the Monday before the World Cups, with the lungs still not at full capacity. Only on Thursday, in the Epic club race my legs seemed to come round somewhat, which moved the decision dial towards going to Dalby.

Riding some of the raised trails in Dalby (photo by Mr.&Mrs. Elliott)

I had a bad start in Dalby, being slowed down by a crash in the frantic pace just after the start and so had a bad position at the queue that formed into the single track. The pace was slow for the first lap until the racers started to separate out towards the end of the first lap. My aim was just to ride the course well and finish unlapped and I kept my pace steady. I was a bit too timid on the descents and lost a bit of time, but I felt I lost most time on the long steep climb, just not feeling able to dig deep. In the end I finished 57th on the same lap as the winner, just inside the points, and a place down from last year. Staying in the same hotel as world cup winner Julie Bresset didn't make me go any faster.

Results and report are up on cyclingnews here.

Hotly pursuited by US racer Krista Park (Photo by Mr.&Mrs. Elliott)

I was hoping that my form was picking up again after Dalby, with my lungs improving by the day and looked forward to the Offenburg World Cup. I met up with Cait and Carla from WXC racing for a training ride on the course on Saturday morning. I was feeling fairly good and enjoyed the buzz of trying to follow the world champs training on the course. While the course rode very well, some of the roots were still slightly slippery from the rain in the night and I had a bad run into the famous Wolfsdrop descent, missing the only safe line down and crashed. I was able to roll off (years of martial arts experience paying off eventually!) and didn't get hurt, but I was a bit more nervous when we came to the same descent the 2nd time round. Trying to avoid the root I hit the first time round I cycled again straight into it and crashed again. Unfortunately my martial arts skills didn't help this time to take the impact and I got some nice cuts and bruises on my knee and elbow and hurt my shoulder. As the cuts were quite deep I got medical attention, but fortunately didn't need any stitches. But a while later my shoulder really started to hurt and I had to abandon any thought of more training. I was hoping a bit of rest and Arnica cream would do the trick, but I could barely lift my arm in the evening, making taking clothes on and off a real challenge.

Cait recorded me crashing the first time round - this one was not the one that did the damage....

The next morning I took some pain killers, hoping that would help, but they only made me feel whoozy and didn't do anything against the pain. I still picked up my timing chip and tried to do a warm-up, but when I realized how bad I was I couldn't kid myself longer and reluctantly turned back the timing chip before the start. There was no way I could have raced in that state. And so I had to be happy to be a bystander for once in a world cup.

I'm just hoping that that'll be the end of the string of bad luck and that I can get in some consistent training again.

2011 Kerry Group Ras Mumhan

2011-04-26T05:44:00.001-07:00

This is the 2nd year in a row that I'm doing the 4-day "Kerry Group Ras Mumhan" stage race. This is also the 2nd year in a row that I'm the only female taking part in a 160 rider strong peloton. Why am I the only female? Well, most of the riders are A1 or A2 riders, the stages are long (over 100km every day, nearly 500km in total) and tough, with lots of hills. So why am I doing it? Well, I like Kerry, it has beautiful countryside, and is one of my most favorite places in Ireland. I also think it's great training, trying to stick with 160 strong male riders. It's also very safe racing - all the riders who do this race know how to ride their bike and there is very little shouting and nervous jostling going on - it seems more controlled in a way. Finally, the stages are great, they are hard and they have climbs in them, so it suits me and the peloton tends to break up into smaller, more manageable groups. I don't like mass bunch sprints.

Anyhow, this year, in contrast to last year, we had fantastic weather. I've been told more than once by some wise old Kerry men that a bank holiday Easter weekend with nice weather is as rare as a Dutch man winning the Ras Mumhan ;) And nice it was - sunny blue skies - together with the rugged Kerry countryside and coastline - heaven! Nothing of that constant rain and gale force winds from last year, great!

Stage 1: Good Friday April 22nd. “The Slide through Sliabh Luachra”, 105km and 3 climbs

A nice stage, very hilly, hard roads. Riders were dropped left right and center from the start. After about 40min of hanging in there I was hit by the same fate with a few others and first we were two, then three, then more and more so that in the end we had mopped up enough riders to have become a sizeable groupetto with a nice chaingang going until the finish. Happy days! (except that I was shattered already after this stage...).

Stage position: 19th last of 147 finishers, 2.29'57"

Stage results here, GC here.

Kamil Pasek from Black Rose Racing and me proud at the Conor Pass Finish

Stage 2. Easter Saturday April 23rd. The “Dance around Dingle”( “Damhsa an Daingean”), 130 km and 4 climbs, finish on top of Conor Pass, the only Category 1 Climb of the entire race.

Again the speed was superhigh from the start, and I tried to to hang in there. After a river crossing early on in the race the bunch started to line out and split. At about 15km into the race and going around a corner down the hill we were greeted by a big bunch pile up that took up the whole width of the road. There were bikes and bodies everywhere! Having arrived after the crash had happened, we were lucky and could pick our way slowly through the bikes and bodies. I tried to hang on to the group that came through around me, but they were going that little bit too fast. Not to worry, a slightly more comfortably speeded group came through a few min later and this was the group I stayed with. We were going well until we got lost. A quick discussion with the commissaire and a solution was found and we were rerouted in a way that meant we hadn't actually lost much time (except maybe from the faffing around and from people loosing motivation because we had gotten lost). This group didn't work that great together and I did a bit too much work in front on the way to the bottom of the Conor Pass climb, so that I had to let some of the group go faster up the hill. Nonetheless I pushed hard and was very proud of myself at the finish :)

Stage position: 26th last of 136 finishers, in 3.45'22"
Stage results here, GC here.

Proud of my husband's 2nd place in today's stage! Except he missed the prize presentation too!

Stage 3. Easter Sunday April 24th. “ The Waltz around Waterville”, 142km route, same as last year, 6 climbs.

This year the start to this stage was slightly slower and I was able to hang in with the bunch until the first king of the hills. I even got over the top in not too bad a position, but unfortunately I lost the next wheel in the line out and had to chase hard to catch back on. I wasn't the first person to get dropped, in fact, a whole load of people were still behind me. Up the next climb I was joined by 2 or 3 other guys and we all chased hard for about 20min or so to catch on to the next bigger group that we had in sight. A last little push and we were on. This group tried to get a chain gang going, but there were some that didn't want to participate, upsetting the pattern, so that in the end there were two strong guys that motorbiked us most of the way round. The roads were hard and energy sapping and this was the longest stage with 142km - I was happy when I rolled over the line at last (especially since I had lost one of my bottles and was running low on water....).

Stage position: 14th last of 126 finishers, in 4.08'03"

Stage results here, GC here.

Stage 4. Easter Monday April 25th. “The Puck Fair Polka", 114km stage, 2 laps circuit followed by 10 laps of the town with a cat 4 climb at the line each time.

I knew it wasn't happening even when I got up. This was confirmed when the flag was pulled in after the neutral start and the speed went up crazy. I couldn't hang on at all. There was nothing left. Battery empty. Didn't get charged up last night. Sorry. At least I wasn't the only one not feeling it and eventually two really nice Killorglin lads caught up to me and pulled me around the two big laps. We were not allowed on the small circuit, as the peloton had already completed a lap. Not that I wanted to go around anyway....

Stage position: 14th last of 124 finishers, in 2.58'57" (actual riding time was less, as they added on the time of the circuit laps we didn't do).

Stage results here, final GC here.

And that was my experience of this year's Ras Mumhan, over 13hours of racing in 4 days. I finished much higher up than last year (counting from the last person up: from 3rd last to 16th last), so that's a plus. I also finished with a groupetto every day apart from the last day, so I was happy with that too. I was not happy with how drained I was on the last stage and I am STILL recovering from the race today (it's 5 days later!). But hopefully what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and I'll have some great form come the Dalby and Offenburg World Cups!

Thanks so much to Theo English for his great massages after each stage - they did great things to invigorate my tired legs after each stage.

Thanks also to the race organizers, especially Mary and Michael Concannon for a great course and safe racing.

New bike - 2011 Specialized S-Works Epic

2011-04-21T03:14:00.001-07:00

2011 Specialized S-Works Epic

It's that time of the year that I give an update on my new bike for the 2011 season, courtesy of Cycleways/Specialized.

I have the privilege again this year to ride the new 2011 Specialized S-Works Epic. As in previous years, I've taken the liberty to slightly modify the stock version with help from my component sponsor KCNC. I have changed the following things:

KCNC Seatpost
KCNC Bar
XTR Brakes
KCNC Front skewer
NoTubes Podium Front Wheel

For tires I use my usual setup of a 2.1 Schwalbe Rocket Ron on the front and a 2.1 Racing Ralph on the rear.

My new amazing XTR brakes :)

The new 2011 Specialized Epic also has evolved from last year's edition: it has a different rear triangle: it's a lot thicker and thus stiffer. It also uses a bolt through for the rear wheel, which means changing a wheel is a bit more complicated (which is not really relevant since I can't use any of my other wheels anyway and I don't have a spare yet), but also adds even more stiffness to the rear end. The frame around the rear shock area is different too.

Many thanks to my sponsors for their loyal support - Cycleways, Specialized and KCNC and to Stew and Ryan for helping me with getting the right bits and setup - thanks guys!

I didn't get a chance to ride my bike before taking it over to the 2nd round of the British National Series race in Dalby last weekend, so the pre-ride of the Dalby course doubled as a test or virgin ride for my new bike. I was super happy with how it rode, it even eclipsed last year's bike. It reacts super quick and you can really feel the added stiffness of the modified rear triangle. And the XTR brakes are just amazing! I believe that I ride one of the best bikes in town and I it's definitely not the bike that's slowing me down!

British NPS Round 2, Dalby Forest, UK

2011-04-20T00:36:00.000-07:00

This post just isn't going to write itself.... sigh

Anyhow, I made it over to the UK for the 2nd round of the British XC Series, held in Dalby Forest. It's a Class 1 race and basically on the same course as the World Cup that will be held later on in May. I've raced this course twice last year: as part of the British Series (where I had a great 2nd place) and as a World Cup (coming 56th). I like the course and find it rides really well. It actually quite suits me. There's a few tough technical sections in there that a lot of people lose their heads about, specifically a drop called "Worry Gill" that actually looks more scary than it rides and a section called "Medusa's Drop", a fairly technical steep and rooty descent that requires good bike handling skills and a cool head. There's also nice and flowy wide singletrack, a few wooden bridges, a few technically challenging and interesting climbs, and a looong steep straight up fireroad climb. I never get bored on this course, there's so much happening!

Well, the weather was nice and I had a (very) quick warm-up. I had miscalculated the time it would take me to get ready in the morning and was already cutting it short. I make the mistake that my estimated times only ever work if everything goes by plan and don't allow for any leeway..... or maybe I'm just still getting used to the fact that Ryan isn't there any more to stop me faffing around in the mornings.....

Then I thought I had time for a quick last nervous pee and vanished into the bushes - just then I heard my name being called up for the gridding! Since I missed my slot I had to start in last position. It's not so bad with only 3 rows of women, but since my starts aren't the greatest, I need my slot in the first line to get into the singletrack in a reasonable position! I think I entered the singletrack last.... It's quite hard to overtake people on the fast descents, so only when we went back uphill I managed to make up places and worked my way up into 5th place by the end of the loooong steep climb, overtaking Mel Alexander on the top of the steep climb.

And that was going to be my finishing place for the day. I had Craigie Lee in my sights every time I went into the feedzone area and knew both Lee and Lily weren't that far ahead, but again for some reason I couldn't push myself harder to close down the distance. Again I felt I wasted the chance for a 3rd place. So from a racing perspective I didn't do so well, but on the other hand I really enjoyed going round the course - it's just too much fun sometimes than to go so hard that you're going cross-eyed. I do know that I need to get into race mode more, but at least I hope this means I've got more matches to burn later in the season.

While I was riding in my own little nomansland, Annie and Julie battled it out in front, with Julie winning by a narrow margin to Annie.

Would things have been different if I had not missed my gridding and been on Lee's or Lily's tail from the start? Or maybe then I would have gone too hard at the start and blown? I don't know, but I know I really need to stop my pre-race faffing!

(I'm embarrassed to admit that not only did I miss my gridding, but also the price presentation (it's a 5 people podium)....).

Thanks to Conor McManus for his perfect bottling support!

Women's results:

1	Julie Bresset (Fra)	1:39:57
2	Annie Last (GBr)	0:00:13
3	Lily Matthews (GBr)	0:09:03
4	Lee Craigie (GBr)	0:09:42
5	Melanie Spath (Ger)	0:10:59
6	Melanie Alexander (GBr)	0:15:32
7	Ciara Mcmanus (Irl)	0:16:44
8	Maxine Filby (GBr)	0:17:42
9	Elliot Caitlin (Irl)	0:18:06
10	Lesley Ingram (GBr)	0:22:30
11	Gabriella Day (GBr)	0:26:31
12	Jo Munden (GBr)
13	Carla Haines (GBr)
14	Natasha Barry (GBr)
15	Emma Bradley (GBr)
DNF	Jessica Roberts (GBr)
DNF	Jane Cumming (GBr)
DNF	Rachel Fenton (GBr)
DNF	Maddie Horton (GBr)
DNS	Danielle Rider (GBr)

Cyclingnews results.

Report on IrishCycling.

Race Irish NPS Round 1, Bellurgan Park

2011-04-05T03:39:00.000-07:00

(Photo from Shay Barry)

I shouldn't have. I have already raced a lot this year and trained hard and it was all catching up to me. But I had signed on online already. 20 bucks. Doing the race also meant I could do my bit of supporting the Irish MTB racing scene, show my face and give Ciara McManus, the only other woman signed up in the Senior Women 1 category, a reason to push hard. And so I went anyway, even though the good weather and dry trails at home made a long but easy mtb spin more tempting than ever.

The course in Bellurgan Park consisted of a grassy field start followed by 99% singletrack, about half of it hard cored. It also featured the oh so scary drop and, lo-and-behold, a gap jump! Both features turned out to be easy and safe to ride once you got your head around it, but could be serious mental blockers for some. I had lost my fear of drops some time ago (in the Offenburg World Cup in 2008 to be exact), but I had somehow been able to get away so far avoiding gap jumps... sad, but true. Well, I couldn't face the embarrassment of taking the chicken line (fair enough if you are a starter, but at my level gap jumps shouldn't be a problem), so I thought I better learn, fast. The first time over I was a bit shaky, but I didn't crash, a good sign. The second time was a little better, I knew when I had to unweight the bike and pull my front wheel up. And when I saw a girl from a category below me float over it I knew I couldn't pull out of doing it in the race. The third time round was even better - good enough to do it in the race to and avoid the time penalty of the chicken run (and the slagging of not doing the jump). Grand.

The rest of the course was very nice to ride - nothing too scary, but with a lot of tricky sections that could catch you out in a lapse of concentration, a few rocks here, a few wet roots there, a few short tricky descents and a few short slippery bridges.

(Photo from Shay Barry)

Ciara and I went off on our 4 lap adventure together with a huge field of Senior 2 riders. The start lap on the grass was at furious speed and once we hit the singletrack, it was one long lined out procession up the switchback climb (a course that rides nice does not necessarily race nice..... the course could have benefited from a few more overtaking sections). My aim was to go just fast enough to stay ahead of Ciara. I got into the singletrack a good few people ahead of her, so I already had that advantage. The traffic reduced itself throughout the first lap, so that for the 2nd lap I was able to ride my speed (the 2nd lap was over a minute faster than the first - just due to the traffic on the first lap, usually the first lap would be the fastest).

And so I was riding around the course hard, but taking care not to get into the red zone and to concentrate on my technical riding. Both the drop and gap jump rode very well during the race. I could see Ciara coming into the field when I was going through the feed zone, so I knew I just had to keep up the speed and I should be fine. But then, in the third lap, I came off on one of the bridges, which had become a lot more slippery since the start of the race from all the muddy tires riding over them. I got up again, looked at my bike, all fine, just the chain had gotten dropped. I put the chain back on and started riding. But then I noticed that I had no front brake any more! This meant that I had to get off the bike and run a few of the steeper descents. Flip, I thought, I should have gone harder at the start to have more of a gap to Ciara! And then, when I was just running up on the other side of a steep descent I hit my pedal on the back of my knee so badly that I lost all feeling and control over my foot - it was completely dead and I couldn't even put it down without it bending over immediately. Ah no, not now! I hobbled on with left foot until the feeling returned in my right foot. Got back onto the bike and I knew I had to put the hammer down now for Ciara not to catch me! When I went through the field I could see the gap had become smaller already, so I raced up the hill as fast as I could and took it easy on the descents. Without a front brake my riding had to be a lot less aggressive than I would have liked it to be and I had to ride as smooth and consistently as possible. Then, on one of the last descents that I had to walk I could see Ciara coming up right behind me. I ran and got onto the bike as fast as I could, risked it all on the next descent by not getting off and pushed really hard out onto the field, and around it. When I saw I had dropped Ciara again on the last bit I could relax and ride comfortably through to the finish. Phew, that was close!

Me and Ciara

Anyhow, it's Tuesday now and I'm still feeling ragged from the race, even though I felt I only really raced the last 1.5 laps. My whole body is aching and I can't get myself to do an AC session today. I should have done that long ride on Sunday and taken it easy......... but on a positive note at least I can do gap jumps now!

Results on chipIt timing here.

British NPS Round 1, Sherwood Pines Forest, UK

2011-03-29T04:36:00.000-07:00

I'm yet to find a person that loves this course. It's flat and consists of fireroad and twisty windy singletrack of the type that requires narrow handlebars, great bike handling skills and constant pedaling to be fast.

The tension before the women's Elite race is almost touchable.

I didn't have a great start, but was able to slip into the singletrack in perfect position behind Swede Lene Byberg, British National Champ Annie Last and Lily Matthews and was followed closely by Maddie Horton. Unfortunately I kept loosing Lily's wheel and had to chase back on each time, tiring myself out. Eventually I had to let them go and was then working with Maddie Horton. On the 2nd lap I made the big mistake of letting Maddie into the singletrack first and let her open a gap to me. For some reason my alarm bells didn't go off and I wasn't overly concerned. Ah sure, I've got another 3.5 laps to go, I'll catch her again.... And so I got into a bit of a lull - I was riding the course, but I wasn't racing it! I finally got a bit of a wake up call at the end of lap 3 (out of 5) when I saw Jessie Roberts closing in behind me. I pushed hard again to try make up the time I lost to Maddie. I could see her each time on the long straight fireroad on the last 2 laps but she was too far gone for me to catch her again. Lene Byberg won the race just a head of Annie Last who she rode with for 3 laps before attacking and opening a small gap. Lily had been dropped after about a lap and a half and was in no(wo)mansland for the rest of the race, followed by Maddie a minute behind and me another minute behind. If we had just all stayed together and worked together!

5th in a UCI 1 race looks good enough on paper and good on the check, but not if you believe that 3rd place was a realistic possibility if you had just had been prepared mentally as well as physically. Shows you it's not just the legs needed for winning. But hey, the next race is just around the corner (and most likely on my new bike, yay!).

I also found a cool little video of the women's race:

British Mountain Bike Series 2011, Round 1 Sherwood Pines from richard on Vimeo.

Thanks to Angela Oakley for flawless feed zone support.

Right on track....

2011-03-25T07:13:00.001-07:00

...literally.

As promised, here's a short report of my newest time-sink, a day on a cycling track. As I see, Cait, who did the same session as me on the day (i.e. track accreditation followed by a track training session) has beaten me to it already on her blog, and you can read there what we did, so I'll just give a few of my own impressions here.

The sundrive track is nothing near as scary as a "real" indoor track (so I was told), as it only has very shallow banking.

Riding a bike without freehub, gears and brakes does take a bit of getting used to. There was a few times where I almost got caught out, e.g. when I wanted to shift my position on the (quite uncomfortable) saddle, which I would usually do in freewheeling mode, but your bike reminds you very quickly that you have to keep pedaling.

I thought it would be difficult to keep pedaling after a full out sprint, because whenever I do it on my roadbike I do not have the power to turn the pedal any more after the effort and usually freewheel until I've recovered. On a track bike the pedals move your legs after a full-out sprint.

I know I am very much spoilt with the bikes I ride (blog post on my new S-Works Carbon Epic coming as soon as it's customized and fully built up), but I think the track people keep such - how can I say this diplomatically - low-end well-used starter rental bikes to entice you to buy your own bike as soon as possible. I won't go into details, but I almost spent more time off the track getting my bike fixed than riding it!

This leads me to another point. From the start Ireland is at a disadvantage when it comes to developing track cycling as a sport due to the lack of facilities and resources (Ireland doesn't have an indoor track and only a couple of basic outdoor ones).... On the other hand, there's plenty of mountain biking opportunities and you can practically ride all year round. And with plenty of people doing it already, I bet there's some track talent lurking on the dirt roads!

Anyhow, after the session I was intrigued and looked up track records and made some calculations of how many seconds I could shave off merely with the right equipment, i.e. using a skinsuit, a pointy helmet, shoe covers, an aero bike with aero wheels and good tires....

Recent Road Racing

2011-03-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

While I love the long winter miles of building a base on the road bike (especially when they are spent in a warm country with nice weather), they are unfortunately not sufficient to properly prepare for the high intensity of racing. This means threshold or AC hill repeats.... - or road racing! I've found that the constant changes in power output in road racing quite nicely simulate those of mountain bike racing. And here in Ireland there's actually quite an active road racing scene - every weekend from spring to autumn there are several road races to choose from. So, instead of those annoying drills, I chose to do a few road races.

Ras Naomh Finian, Saturday, 12th March, Clonard
Course: Easy out and back course, big straight roads, good surface, a few roundabouts, flat, 70km.
Weather: Grimnest! It was freezing cold at the start, and the mizzle turned first into rain and then into snow and sleet! Breaking, shifting and drinking became difficult after the feeling had left the frozen fingers....
Race: A3s (my category) started off after giving the A4s a head start.
Goal: Get a good and hard workout.

I was here to get in a good AC workout. For some reason I had amazing legs and great determination. I basically chased everything that moved. I was very happy with my positioning, staying around the front for most of the race (I made it into at least 4 of the Irish Cycling shots!). We caught the A4s on the way out and rode through them. On the way back the speed and the attacks picked up. I started to feel the effort and started cramping up. I lost a few places going around a right-turn roundabout the longer way, like so many others and had to work hard to work my way back to the front. One person got away in front (I missed that) and the rest came in as a big bunch sprint. At that point I was so toast from the effort that I was happy to roll over the line with everybody else. Turns out I rolled over the line as first lady :) Frozen, but happy :)

After the race (which was only about 1h 45min) I went to do some mtb training, just in case I hadn't tired myself out enough in the race...

Newbridge GP, Sunday, 13th March, Newbridge
Well, what better idea than to really put the nail in the coffin and do another road race after a hard race and training the day before? Spontaneously I decided to turn up to this race and see what happens. When I started mtbing a few years back I used to race in the UK a lot, doing an XC race on Saturday followed by a 100km XC marathon on Sunday and I felt that these double sessions of back-to-back racing benefitted me a lot. Unfortunately the marathon series was discontinued, which really is a shame. But at least here in Ireland I could do 2 road races on consecutive days.

Course: 4 laps of a course, smaller roads, bigger field (about 160 riders in A3), 70km
Weather: Nice and not too cold either :)
Race: A3s had their own race.
Goal: Try and complete with the bunch.

We had a neutralized start until we reached the course. The bunch was nervous, for many their first road race of the season trying to show off their winter form. Breaks were squealing all the way to the start of the course. I was too scared and stayed at the back of the huge group. When we reached the course the speed suddenly seemed to go up and the person in front of me dropped the wheel. When I tried to chase back on my legs were saying no-no and the bunch pulled away. I regrouped with a few more stragglers and pushed on nonetheless. If I can't get an AC workout, then at least I can get a good tempo workout (I was out on my bike already, so no sense in turning back home now and starting again!). And so I went round and round the course 4 times mostly by myself.

After completing it I went home and out on the mtb again for a bit more of fun riding. In the evening I wasn't sure if I'd achieved the goal of tiring myself out enough, but when I cycled to college the next morning I was sure that I did - I was wrecked!

St. Patrick's Day Road Race, March 17th, Dunboyne
Course: Out to circuit, 2 laps, back to Dunboyne, mostly on smallish roads, 56km
Weather: Warm and dry
Race: A3s had their own race.
Goal: Get in a good training session and, if legs allow, be first lady over the line.

Team Cycleways was out in force with 3 people entering the A3 race: Stew, Sean and me - it is a bit weird seeing other people wearing "my" jersey! The general race plan (so I was told) was to take it easy on the first lap and then string it out on the 2nd lap, so I decided to save my energy and sit in on the first lap. Again the bunch was nervous and I wasn't focused, slipping back in the bunch all the time. I had one main competition in this race in the form of Michelle Geoghegan, pro-rider and thus well able to ride efficiently and defend her position in the bunch. After a crash in front of me I decided I had to get to the front to get out of harms way and worked my way up. The speed was fast on the 2nd lap and my legs were not in as great a form as in Clonard and I found it tough enough. Then somebody started attacking and I followed, but I was not quite able to stick on. Either way, I found myself quickly in front of the bunch by myself, about equidistant between the attacker and the bunch. Another lad attacked and bridged across to the guy in front - my chance to hang one, but unfortunately I reacted too late and wasn't strong enough to catch onto his wheel. So I was in nomansland, hoping for the bunch to catch me again quickly, because I was still going hard... Finally I was swallowed up again. The speed stayed high and we were on our way home. Again I kept slipping back through the bunch, with Michelle always in sight in front of me. The roads on the home straight are anything but straight and quite tight and windy, leading to another crash right beside me of a person going into a tight corner too fast (I almost washed out on the muddy edge of the road myself) and instinctively I slowed down. Big mistake, because the bunch kept going at full speed and soon I found myself out the back. I tried to chase on, but with Michelle in front in the bunch I knew that my chance to be first lady had gone at that stage, so I had to be content with letting them go and roll over the line after the bunch. Goal half-achieved!

Next up will be a short report about another new distraction - track cycling!

Leinster MTB Series Race 1, Bunclody, Wexford

2011-03-21T01:42:00.000-07:00

Probably the biggest grin ever :)

I was so happy to do a local XC race for once - no bike packing and Ryanair flight! While I'm already in full swing in racing season (I've done 5 XC and 3 road races this year so far, reports of road races will be put up soon), the Leinster League MTB Race 1 in Bunclody, Wexford was for many of the Irish MTB community the first test of their legs. For me the race was going to be a first test this year against Cait Elliott, my biggest competition here in Ireland. Last year I was able to fend her off in all races, but she's come uncomfortably close in some of them and believe me, I really pushed hard in those! Every year it's a question if she's been able to make up the small gap that separates us over the winter or not.

This year I was also a little bit more nervous, because after finishing her studies last year, she's practically turned full-time and similar to me has already had great racing in her legs from completely dominating and winning the first edition of the Andalucia Bike Race in Spain in the mixed pair category with Josh Ibbett. Not only that, but they also fared really well in comparison to the leaders in the women's pair category (Sally Bigham & Kristine Norgaard), and I have a good indication of what form both of them are in at the moment (I've seen Sally many times when out training in GC this winter and she was flying then and Kristine Norgaard showed us all what great form she is in by placing 3rd in the first Cyprus Sunshine Cup Race just before the stage race). So these were the kind of thoughts that were playing on my mind while I ventured to do a pre-lap of the course.

The course was basically a mixture of draggy shallow fire-road climbs (my favourite, something I'm good at) and slippery, muddy and rooty singletrack descents (my least favourite and something that Cait is very good at). So overall our advantages should be evened out and the course probably suited Cait as much as me, just in different sections.

A video of the sliddery descents

Since we were starting off on the fireroad climb my tactic was to go full-gas on the first (and subsequent) climb(s) and get into the slippery singletrack ahead of Cait and try and place as many other riders as possible between her and me (we were starting off with new Senior 2 Men's Category).

I knew I had enough racing in my legs to pull off a fast start and was hoping for Cait to go overboard by trying to stick onto my wheel on the climb (which I assumed was going to be her tactic, followed by and nipping into the singletrack ahead of me). So we went off and I did put in a big effort on the climb up and my plan seemed to work. Of course on the first lap on a tight muddy singletrack there's always going to be a bit of a hold-up and after dropping the chain and a few mistakes on my part Cait had caught up with me, so it was focus, focus, focus to stay ahead of her and blast up that 2nd fireroad climb. I lost (what seemed like) an awful amount of time still on the smeary singletrack descents, making a good few of mistakes (I should have changed to a Nobby Nic on the rear) but got out ahead of Cait and made up lots of places again before hitting the next singletrack descent. For the whole first lap I could see Cait still behind me whenever the singletrack double-backed on itself and I knew I had to keep the pressure on.

I was very happy with my climbing and took it a little bit easier on the 2nd time up so as not to be so much in the red zone on entering the single track. And for the rest of the race the play was repeated - I overtook a few people on each of the climbs and lost the places again on each of the descents (each time dropping a little bit further down on the overall Senior 2 Men's ranking). I was quite disappointed with my bike handling on the singletrack, I wasn't doing my amazing and supersmooth S-Works Epic any justice today, and thought I was too timid and rode too rigidly, deciding to run a lot of the sections instead of riding them, but on the upside I was very happy with my speed up on the climbs and my general fitness. After the fast first lap I was able to get into a good rhythm each time on the climbs and felt I could have gone even harder if required and because I was riding the climbs more controlled I was less tired going into the singletracks and rode them better each time round.

In the end I finished about 2 minutes ahead of Cait - she definitely has gotten faster, so hopefully that means we've both improved over last year. So while both of us had the podium guaranteed (there were only 2 of us in the Senior Women's 1 category, sad, I know), I still had a really good and hard race, and yes, I am quite happy and relieved that I was able to hold Cait off for another race (but it's getting harder each time!) ;)

Another victory for Cycleways!

Thanks Oisin Fitz and Aine from MAD who did a great job of doing my bottles this race. And thanks to the encouragement shouted along the way! Thanks also to Racing795 for putting on a very well-run race on a nice but challenging course.

Results are up here, I would have placed 9th in Senior 2 Men's - not bad considering the shamble I made out of the singletrack descents!

The next race against Cait (why am I getting so much fun out of this?) is going to be in Sherwood Forest, UK, for the first UK NPS this weekend. The course is fairly flat and generally suits me well, so I'm looking forward to it!

Cyprus Sunshine Cup #3 Race, Amathous

2011-03-10T08:09:00.000-08:00

Start of the race (Picture by Marius Maasewerd)

It's amazing how different one's perception of a race can be from another racer! When I read Annika Langvad's blog post about how the race went for her (she won it), I first thought she was talking about a different race....

Anyhow, for me the race started with a blistering pace and I was being squeezed in by riders from either side, so I dropped back to avoid a crash. The start loop was up a short climb and very fast along on fire road and road circumnavigating the complete race arena. I found the pace very fast from the start and did my bestest to hang on to the bunch - it was like a road race: a person in front of me dropped a wheel and I had to chase! Finally, on the road section I was able to make up a few places and catch onto the group in front before we hit the singletrack and that was more or less where I would end up position wise. Because while the course is great fun to ride, with about 95% singletrack (time-wise), it's not that lovely in a race when you can't get by some girl that would rather push you down the hill than let you pass her (I only witnessed the quite physical elbows-out battle between the two girls in front and thought better than to get involved myself, apart from shouting at the girl that was holding both of us up). So we had to trail behind her for a whole lap before we had the chance to pass her.

However, the course was such a savage course, full of short steep power-sapping climbs and it was quite warm and humid too and I felt I was tiring towards the end of the race, starting to loose concentration and making more and more mistakes. In the last lap (which actually came one earlier than I had expected) I had to really focus to keep the pressure on as a few riders were closing in on me, but fortunately I could hold them off.

I finished in 14th place, which is OK, but I was a bit disappointed with my race, I didn't feel I had enough power and was beaten by a few people that I would have beaten last year.

Report and full results on cyclingnews here.

Thanks to Bas for doing my bottles - isn't it nice in mtbing that conflict of interest is being largely being ignored and people help you out everywhere?

Taking deep breaths at Afxentia Stage Race, Cyprus

2011-02-27T07:42:00.000-08:00

Well, the 3-day stage of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup is just over. And what a mixed bag it was. First up, on Friday, was the time trial: one loop of the XC course. The course was different this year, with more singletrack, more steep climbs and more speed changes. They did keep the super steep descents from last year though. The other difference was that the weather this year was a lot more true to the races' title, it was actually reasonable warm and the sun was out! In fact, due to the rain overnight the course conditions were perfect, the ground was really nice and very grippy.

Stage 1: Time Trial

After last week's shock to the system and my realization that I may not have enough racing fitness as I had hoped to have, I knew that this short, sharp effort would be a tough one. It's always hard to judge how well one did in comparison to others before you see the times, but I was happy enough with my ride - my heart rate was pegged throughout and I found I rode the first half really well on the technical parts, but lost concentration on the second half of the ride and started making small mistakes on the singletrack. Unfortunately about half the girls were sent the wrong (time-wise shorter) way, so that the times are not all correct. In the end I was down as 20th, a good while off Annika Langvad, who again showed off all the girls with an amazing performance.

Stage 2: Point to Point

Then it was just resting up for the XC point-to-point loop on Saturday, one of my favourite courses. The only annoying thing is that you have to endure lots of fast and hard fireroad riding before you can finally indulge in the nicest and longest singletrack climb and descent here in Cyprus. This year we also started further down the mountain in the village Kapedes and the climb up on the tarmac to the start of the fireroad was hairy, to say the least. Some girls really don't know how to ride their bike in a bunch. People were barging through everywhere in a fight for positions and almost pushing you into the ditch, erratically changing positions from one side of the road to the other and not staying in their line. So to stay out of trouble I went to the front. The pace was actually not very fast, and Ryan thinks with all my road training I should have attacked off the front to try and get a bit of space before entering the fireroad - now that would have been an interesting move! We hit the fireroad still together, but the pace soon picked up and the bunch started splitting up. I overshot on one corner and had to break really hard and lost a few positions. But my aim was to not go too hard at the start anyway, so that I don't blow up on the long singletrack climb, like last year. And it mostly paid off. On the climb I was able to overtake a few girls and was working my way up the rankings. Unfortunately I got stuck behind a slow Ukranian girl who really didn't want to let me pass (of course this was at a stretch where the track was too tight and the sides too steep to pass without pushing her into the ditch), so I did my best to control my anger and finally passed her at the first opportunity. I passed more girls on the way to the top and when I came out on on the top on the bit of road that connects the two singletrack sections I could see Anne Terpstra and Laura Turpjin in front of me - I knew then that I was going well! I felt great too, feeling that I had paced myself well up to the top, possibly even left too much in the tank. I absolutely loved the singletrack descent, but lost a bit of concentration when I came off the bike in one loose corner. I knew the girls I had overtaken on the climb couldn't be too much behind me, so I kept the pressure on and kept up the speed on the last 5km towards the finish. I was very happy when I saw the 500m sign and went underneath the bridge. I prepared myself for the last short steep climb - but wait, why is Mike at the top gesturing me to go into the middle loop of the XC course? It was an extra 1.5km that we had to do that I had not expected! Finally I finished in 12th position, which I was really happy with.

However, when I stopped after the race to chat to a few people before I went on my cool down, my chest started tightening up and I couldn't get any air. I started panicking which made it worse, so people called a lady from the ambulance. She tried to get me to go to the ambulance, but I didn't want to move because I had to concentrate hard to get my breathing back. After a while the heaving and wheezing died down and my breathing went back to mostly normal. This was now the third time I had this happening, so I will get it checked out when I come back to Ireland. Another thing I was unhappy with was that again some girls were sent went the wrong way, with some girls having done the very short loop that I had expected, the middle loop of the XC course or even the outer loop of the XC course.

Stage 3: Cross Country

Then on Sunday was the last of the stages, a regular XC race on the same course as the time trial. The pace was blistering from the start. It was so fast and hard in fact that my breathing problems that had plagued me after the race yesterday returned and got so bad that I had to stop for a rest after the start loop. I could barely get any air and had to let all the riders pass one by one. I told the marshal that I wanted to pull out of the race, but he didn't want to take that and told me to take a rest and catch my breath. I was weighing up my options in my head. I would have stopped if it had not been part of a stage race and counted for the overall cup. So I waited until I my breathing returned back to normal and decided to try and finish this lap and re-evaluate then. Unfortunately the course with all it's steep ups and downs and speed and acceleration changes was not suitable for riding easy. But I got around and decided to keep going and finish the race. I focused on getting into a rhythm and stay at that speed for the rest of it. It felt like I was going only at 80%, so I was surprised then that I could pick up a few more riders. In the end I finished the race in 16th position and 11th in the overall - thanks to my good time from the point-to-point race I didn't loose too many positions. But needless to say that this race is ranking high on the list of most frustrating races. But it could have been worse, I could have been the strongest rider and leader of the race and missed the start, therefore missing out on 160 UCI points in the only HC stage race, a heap of prize money (Some blank looks were exchanged when the race leader, Annika Langvad, was called to the start line but didn't turn up! Anyhow, the race was started without it's leader and it turned out that Annika Langvad simply arrived too late to the race due to not being aware of the change in start times that was communicated on the manager's meeting but not updated on the website (luckily I heard about it!) - see here for her emotional blog entry).

Until I got the breathing problems during the race in stage 3 I had been in denial about having any problem at all - sure, who cares about breathing problems AFTER the race is over and sure a bit of heavy breathing and gasping for air, isn't that normal after a hard race effort...? But today, when I went out on my training ride today with Frederik and my house guest Henrique, I couldn't keep up with them and go my own pace because of my breathing again - I felt like I was dying to keep up with them and they were not going very hard....

Obviously I am now a bit more concerned about this, especially since it has started to affect my performance. The obvious guess is that it's exercise-induced asthma, something that seems to afflict half of the professional cycling community, so I'm planning to get tested for that.

All the results can be found on cyclingnews.

Big thanks is due to the Orange Monkey Team for helping me out in the feed zones!

1st race this season: Cyprus Sunshine Cup #1 Voroklini

2011-02-20T11:02:00.000-08:00

Well, I got the season opener out of the way. Unfortunately I wasn't going as well as I had hoped to and I was quite disappointed with my result. I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to repeat my performance from last year (a 4th place) - with the scramble for Olympic points and double as many women signed up (with 10 out of the 30 ranking in the world's top 50) the competition was going to be tougher from the outset. Annika Langvad lead from the start and pulled away quickly, finishing with a huge gap of 5min to the next person down, Blaza Klemencic. Third was Kristine Norgaard, a further 4min down. Then, from 4th place onwards the girls came in closer time gaps, and unfortunately I was towards the backend of those.

I didn't have a great start, with two girls closing in on me on either side so that I dropped back to stay out of trouble, but the main thing was that I just didn't have it in me today. I pushed as hard as I could, but just couldn't give any more. In the first or second lap I was still towards the front end of a chase group, but one by one I was overtaken by the girls behind me, loosing more and more ground - I felt I was going backwards! In the end I came in with a gap of over 16 minutes down on Annika - last year it was only 6 minutes.....

Of course I ask myself what has gone wrong - surely I am hoping to improve year by year, and my power figures show that I have gotten stronger - so why am I not doing any better in the results? Has my training been wrong? Have I started intensity too late? Should I have done more mtb specific training? Is my sickness from last week still holding me back? Was it wrong to fly out so close to the race (last year I came a day earlier)? Is it because I don't have Ryan here to support me? Or did I just have a bad race? I don't know. But I know it's early in the season and I've got plenty more chances to have a better race - the next one will be the 2nd round of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup, a HC stage race in the Macheras Mountains next weekend! :)

Thanks to Ninko from the Milka team for his mechanical help and Frederik for feed zone support.

Full results and report can be found on cyclingnews here. Photos from Marios Spyrou.

Short results:

1	Annika Langvad (Den) Easton Rockets	1:45:39
2	Blaza Klemencic (Slo) Felt Otztal X-Bionic	0:05:07
3	Kristine Nørgaard (Den) HMTBK	0:09:08
4	Janka Stevkova (Svk) CK Epk Dohnany	0:11:08
5	Anne Terpstra (Ned) MPL Specialized MTB Team	0:12:17
6	Rie Katayama (Jpn) Specialezed JPN	0:12:18
7	Laura Turpijn (Ned) Dutch National Team	0:12:55
8	Tatjana Dold (Ger) Easton Rockets	0:14:14
9	Iana Belomoyna (Ukr)	0:15:36
10	Asa Erlandsson (Swe) Swedish National Team	0:16:06
11	Melanie Spath (Ger) Cycleways	0:16:49

Oh god, I'm racing tomorrow!

2011-02-18T23:57:00.000-08:00

It kinda is like Christmas, you've been waiting for it for so long, prepared for it for so long, seen all the lights and heard all the jinglebells, it's been creeping up on you, and then all of a sudden it's there: the start of the racing season (and you haven't even bought all the Xmas presents yet (read: done all your intervals)).

I just can't believe that I am in Cyprus again and meant to race my first race this season tomorrow. It always seems to happen so quickly. And it still somehow amazes me how one can plop oneself into a completely different surrounding in such a short time. Feels surreal sometimes. And if I was flying home on Monday it would feel like "blink, and you missed it". But I am not flying home Monday, I am doing the complete Cyprus Sunshine Cup this year again. And without Ryan too, so I hope I won't be too lonely in my huge apartment that I had rented for the two of us. But I don't think it will be too bad - lots of people again are staying in Kalavasos and the neighbouring village Tochni, including the Rabobank Giant team. Anyhow, I better get going on my pre-ride in Voroklini - I am here to race after all!

Gran Canaria Training Camp

2011-01-23T09:27:00.001-08:00

This was the 3rd year that Ryan and I went to our Gran Canaria training camp in January to get our long base miles in.

View from the top of the island - Tenerife in the background

With lots of sunshine, temperatures of about 16-26 degrees Celsius and plenty of smooth roads up the central mountains it's the perfect choice for us, especially since we live in Ireland, where the weather can be quite miserable in January (although this year the January was quite mild, the sunniest and driest one in a decade or so according to the news....). It's a lot easier to do 4-5hours of training a day in good weather and it's great for your motivation and mood too. To be honest, I can only take Irish winters with it's generally grey skies and miserable cold weather when I can avoid it.... And we're not the only people taking advantage of GCs roads and sun: We met old friends Sally Bigham and Dave from the UK training, the world marathon champ Alban Lakata, a load of UK MTBers on their training camp, pro-roadies and triathletes and even the current TT world champ Fabian Cancellara was sighted by Ryan (and overtaken by Ryan on a climb as he likes to point out... ;)))! As Sally says, it's a mecca for cycling and you're sure to have a group spin to go on or to meet somebody you know out on the roads. It's fantastic!

Out on a group ride with the UK boys ;)

Anyhow, the plan was to get a lot of training done and so I did. The 3 weeks I was there I trained about 23.5hours the first week, 27.5hours the second week and 23hours the third week. The first week of training was really hard, after having had a whole week off over Christmas (apart from one day cross country skiing which completely wrecked my legs, and a long run). But by the 2nd week I was back into the swing of things and I felt good. My training load was bigger than ever this year and I was not nearly as tired after the spins as I had been the previous years - I think my body is adapting! :) The last week though was the best for me, I joined the UK contingent of mountain bikers - many of whom I knew from racing in the UK - on their group spins. I had so much fun riding my bike with them (don't get me wrong, it was still really really hard), I could so do with the pro life-style - now just have to get that PhD finished!

Beautiful valley in GC

All of my rides from Gran Canaria are up on Strava (my Strava profile here, ignore the distances, my Garmin is currently reading wrong distance, but climb and power are accurate) - Ryan and I both populate the Strava database with lots of new climbs - now we hope that we've got some people challenging those before we return the next time. Both Ryan and I managed to win the January Strava KOM challenge :)

Gran Canaria really is the perfect place for winter training and I'm already looking forward to next year (or maybe even this year again?)!

The Stick

2011-01-23T08:59:00.000-08:00

Ryan usually gives out to me about not doing enough massaging and stretching etc. and I usually come up with some lame excuses (I've got to work on my PhD, I'm too tired, can we not ask Stew to give us a massage...?), but deep down I know he is right and I should be doing much more of this. Ryan has always been a fan of trying out new tools, but I usually lack behind in my enthusiasm for such things.

Until Ryan got The Stick.

The Stick is basically just a slightly flexible stick with 2 rubbery handles holding in a bunch of loose plastic mini-rollers in the middle.

As soon as Ryan got The Stick I started using it too. And I liked it so much I wanted one for myself. So Ryan gave me his Stick and got himself a new one. We now have a 20" Marathon Stick, which is the longest and most flexible one and a 17" Travel stick, which is slightly less flexible. And I like my Stick so much it came with me to my training camp in Gran Canaria and it's seeing much use here. The Stick is the first massaging tool that I do not find too cumbersome or time consuming or annoying to use and it actually feels good to massage your tired legs with The Stick. Both ease of use and perceived benefit are for me perfectly combined in The Stick. And it's handy enough to take with you on your travels.

So, get yourself The Stick, best massaging tool I have come across! (and I am not sponsored by them)

Cyprus Sunshine Cup Flat share 18th of Februay to 7th of March

2011-01-14T02:36:00.000-08:00

As every year I'll be taking part in the Cyprus Sunshine Cup. I've booked a flat for 2-4 people (twin bedroom and sofa) in a beautiful old house in Kalavasos, a rural Cypriot village. Ryan and I have stayed in the same place for the last 2 years. However, it's not sure if Ryan is going to be able to come or not, so I'm looking for a possible flat share from the 18th of February to the 7th of March to keep the costs down.

This would suit another 1-2 riders who also take part in the Sunshine Cup (or anybody else who wants to come over during that time frame for a holiday). The location is perfect for off-road riding and the flat very big and you can roll the bikes straight in from the road. It also has wifi included.

Kalavasos also has a bike repair and rental shop for road and off-road bikes and a lot of riders from other teams stay in this and the neighbouring village, so there's plenty of opportunity to hook up for rides too.

Let me know if you're interested and I can give you more details. melanie dot spath at gmail dot com

Race - Mt. Hamilton Low Key Hill Climb

2010-12-21T01:09:00.000-08:00

Well, I don't usually do much racing during the off-season, but Ryan has been raving about this low key hill climb (LKHC) series in California, timing his flights precariously according to the dates of the races (and winning most of those he managed to do), so when I arrived in California for the first time ever, I could not miss this opportunity to do one (actually the last one of the 2010 series) too.

Mt. Hamilton Observatory

The LKHCs are mass start events up some hill. There are no number plates (you get a little red sticker with a number which you shout out at the finish, similar to the Epic Club races) and announcement of the winner or awards ceremony, no prices, etc. as the name suggests. About 140 (less than usual due to very cold weather) men and women lined up (including a mixed tandem) and after a few words regarding safety and the word "GO" we set off up the hill. I knew from Ryan that the climb would be 29.6km and guesstimated at least an hour and 20min long for me, the women's previous record was 1h 21min, so I knew to take it steady from the start. Thankfully most men did the same and there was no crazy race off. It was important to stick with a fast group though, as the hill climb included two significant descents (about 4km descent after the first 10km climb and about 1.5km descent at the about 17.5km mark).

Mount Hamilton Profile

I managed to stick with the front group (the group Ryan was in!) for the first 10km but it broke up during the first descent. After the descent I tried to work my way up again to the front bunch, but couldn't make it. In the end I stayed with 2 guys that were about my speed. After a while one of the guys dropped back and the other guy and I were ding-donging until we were almost at the top. Then, with about 200m to go we had to take a sharp right-hand turn on a small road up to the Observatory for which I was not prepared and went straight ahead. The other guy (who knew which way to go) took his chance and attacked and came in just ahead of me, grrr! But I finished with a time of 1h 20min, a minute off the previous record. I was first woman and 17th overall! This also meant that I had beaten the existing Strava record and got a T-shirt! I had felt very comfortable on the climb and did not make myself suffer. Needless to say, I am very happy with how my climbing is coming along :)

Last push to the finish line

Ryan won the men's category :). The view from the top was amazing, the sky was clear and the sun was shining, but it was FREEZING COLD with snow lying about in places. I grabbed a few cookies and some juice and my Strava T-shirt and layered up to survive the looooong descent back down.

I also found out later that I was "the top single-climb scoring rider on the day" with the highest points of the season, not bad on a climb that has 2 descents! :)

Results and a report can be found here on the Low Key Hillclimb website.

Wheelsuck!!! (Pic from here)

Winter training

2010-12-20T08:12:00.000-08:00

I know I'm due several blogpost updates, these will come when the Xmas craze and business has quietened down a bit. While not much has been happening on my blog, a lot has happened offline and I'm well into my winter season training. Luckily Ryan and I have been able to spend a good chunk of our long preparatory miles in good(-ish) weather in California so we were able to avoid the first big freeze that kept Ireland in a cold grip. Training over there went very well, warmer weather and good company made the long base rides so much easier and so much fun. I've been on a few group rides with some very good riders and I absolutely loved it! I really can see myself turning pro after my PhD. Even the really hard rides and long tough climbs don't feel that hard when you've got some great people around you pushing you on. But unfortunately our time in California was limited and we both had to return back to Ireland after a few very good training weeks. We were lucky to return when the snow had mostly melted in Ireland and only got stuck in London for 2 hours due to dense fog.

Current view from our bedroom

Anyhow, the fairly mild weather on arrival back home has given way again to the 2nd big freeze. With temperatures of up to -12 degree Celsius, snow and ice, training outside has become dangerous to impossible. I ventured out on my mountain bike once when the weather wasn't too bad and the snow had mostly gone, dressed up like a Michelin (wo-)man in thick layers of clothing and using my new ski gloves and insulated bottles with hot juice (they both worked fantastically!), but wiped out twice on frozen puddles on the mountain. Luckily I could find areas that were rideable, mainly within the forest and it was OK as long as you kept off the open mountain. However, I felt quite restricted in my clothing and reduced dexterity in the ski gloves wasn't helping for the technical bits either. At least I was kept warm till the end.

Saris 300 Pro Indoor Cycle

But anyway, with the snow back and the temperatures colder than our freezer I've decided to stick to training indoors, made possible to the recent, very smart (in hindsight) investment by my cycling husband into a Saris 300 Pro Indoor Cycle. This machine has revolutionized our indoor training. While Ryan claims he's bought it primarily with me in mind (he used to very much dislike using his turbo trainer), we now fight over who can use the machine! It's a really heavy thing and very sturdy and set up or change between Ryan's and my settings is minimal. In addition, it's so quiet that you have to stop outside the door and listen carefully to be able to hear if the other person is actually using it. This is a big plus for me because I was always worried of annoying our neighbours with the noise and vibrations that a conventional turbo trainer creates and so basically prohibiting early morning and late night sessions before. And the best thing: It comes with an inbuilt power meter, so it's possible to have really specific workouts. And Ryan thankfully also invested into a new fan (after battling with the old broken one for a while). So, while indoor training on a stationary machine will never beat the specificity and joys of outdoor training, this is one of the best alternatives I have found.

2010 British Mountain Bike Racing Series Round 5 - Newnham Park, Plymouth

2010-09-28T08:52:00.000-07:00

The last race of my season was the 5th round of the British Mountain Bike Racing Series, held in Newnham Park, Plymouth.

The line-up was impressive, with 17 Elite women from 8 different nations signed on, including Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesjaa (NOR), Rosara Joseph (NZL) and Amanda Sin (CAN). Word was also that my old rival, marathon specialist Sally Bigham would be riding this race. The fact that I was gridded 7th just showed the high calibre of women taking part.

On a beautiful sunny day we lined up. The 6.5km course featured two cold deep water crossings, two punchy granny ring climbs and two supersteep descents, a few bomb hole sections, some fast singletrack descent, a bit of fireroad and another bit of grassy flat.

We set off and the speed wasn't too crazy up the grassy slope and I managed to stay with the front group. However, soon Gunn-Rita and Rosara opened up a small gap, followed by Sally Bigham and Emmy Thelberg. I wasn't able to stick with them and soon found myself on my own. Lap 2 ticked by uneventful, but on lap 3 I was caught by Amanda Sin which I had to let go, but I could overtake Emmy Thelberg, so I stayed in the same position. Every lap I could still see some of the girls ahead on the grassy climb, but I couldn't close the distance, so that I finished the race in 5th place.

International podium: l-r: Amanda Sin (CAN), Rosara Joseph (NZL), Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesjaa (NOR), Sally Bigham (GBR), Mel Spath (GER)

While this is a good result considering the competition, I felt I hadn't left it all out on the course and had arrived too fresh at the finish. Gunn Rita won the race with a very close 2nd from Rosara Joseph, but the biggest impression was made by Sally Bigham who placed 3rd in her first ever national level cross country race with a gap of only 1min 15sec to Gunn-Rita. Another person to look out for since she's thinking of doing some more "just for training"....

And so the season has ended for me. I had planned to race in the Irish National Marathon Champs as a non-contender, but a college deadline had me firmly placed in front of my laptop on the sunny Sunday of the race. Well done to Cait Elliott though who found her legs and raced to another national marathon champs title.

Thanks to the guys from the WXC team for feedzone support.

Elite women top 10:

1 Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjaa (Nor) 1:45:14
2 Rosara Joseph (NZl) 0:00:09
3 Sally Bigham (GBr) 0:01:15
4 Amanda Sin (Can) 0:05:59
5 Melanie Spath (Ger) 0:06:37
6 Lily Matthews (GBr) 0:08:23
7 Maaris Meier (Est) 0:09:58
8 Emmy Thelberg (Swe) 0:11:34
9 Melanie Alexander (GBr) 0:12:01
10 Elliot Caitlin (Irl) 0:13:24

Full results can be found here.

Thanks also to Martyn Salt and the team from InEvent for running such a consistently well organized and high-quality racing series in the UK. Pity not more of the Irish or mainland European racers are making it over for it - it's are well worth it. I'm already looking forward to doing them next year!

Ras na mBan 2010 - Sneem, Kerry, Ireland

2010-09-22T02:55:00.001-07:00

(l-r) Mel Spath (Usher IRC), Olivia Dillon (Irish National Team), Natalie Creswick (Shred Racing Rapha Condor)

When I signed up for the Ras ma mBan this year I tried to find my blog post from last years Ras and noticed that although I had them all written, I hadn't actually put them up because they weren't quite finished!

Anyhow, after a good race last year, I was looking forward again to this years edition or Ireland's premier women only 3-day stage race, again held in Sneem. Due to the tireless work of the women's Commission, led by Valerie Considine, the race is gaining on popularity and the number of race entries this year was the highest ever. Again, Louis Moriarty offered us a great deal to stay in his hotel, Sneem Hotel, so we knew we'd be taken care of to the highest level.

Riding along

This year the race organizers have introduced a new County Rider Classification, adding an extra incentive for the Ireland-based riders to do well. The stages were the same as the year before, so I knew what to expect.

Stage 1: Friday, 17^th September, Road Race, 60km – Sneem – Kenmare – Sneem, map here
The main feature of this course is the long drag up to Moll's Gap and that's usually where the action happens. My legs felt good in the morning and the bunch stayed together until the start of the climb. My aim for this race was to do well in the queen of the hills (QOH) competition, so I went to the front and went for an early attack, but nobody went with me and I was soon caught again. The speed on the climb increased and more attacks followed, most of them short-lived. However, half way up the climb somebody attacked and a strong group of 6 people started pulling away. In this group were the US-based Irish National Road Race Champion Olivia Dillon (Irish Team), Linda Ringlever (Moving Ladies), Alli Holland (Shred Racing Rapha Condor), Matthysse Mathilde (PSUK Cycle Race Team), Natalie Creswick (Shred Racing Rapha Condor) and Gillian McDarby (Usher IRC).

At the front

That's when I made my first stupid mistake. Gillian from my team was in the forming breakaway, so instead of making it into the breakaway myself (which would have been easy since I was at the front of the bunch and they weren't far gone), I sat up, happy that Gillian had made it and that we had a team member in the breakaway. But unfortunately Gillian was dropped from the breakaway soon after, at which point I decided to try and chase them down, hoping I'd get to them before the climb was over. I didn't catch them before the descent and kept chasing, making it into within 22 seconds, but then my legs started cramping up and I had to ease off. Finally I was caught by the bunch and stayed with them to the finish. The leading group of 5 had created a gap of over one and a half minutes and my queen of the mountains jersey went out the window. I wasn't at all pleased with myself. At least Gillian had a good sprint and won the county rider jersey.

Results of stage 1 can be found here and a report here.

Tough road conditions on stage 2

Stage 2a: Saturday, 18^th September (morning): Road Race, 80km – Sneem – Tahilla – Killarney – Sneem, map here
This stage is always my favourite since there is a lot of climbing in it, we climb the same hill 4 times, on a narrow windy country road with lots of gravel and stones on it. There was QOH points to be gotten on the 2nd and 4th lap. While there were a few attacks, the bunch stayed together during the first lap. In the second lap I attacked myself (too early) and was chased back down. I attacked again (this time at the right time) for the QOH and got over the line first, wohoo! The third lap there was a sprint prime that Alli Holland won, but the bunch was still together going up the hill for the last time. Towards the top though, Olivia Dillon, Alli Holland, and Natalie Creswick attacked and I was just at the right spot at the right time and managed to hang onto their tail.

Going for the QOH on stage 2

We quickly created a small gap and the speed was super high, so there was no chance for me to go for the QOH. I thought it to be better to try and hang on anyway, since it looked like we were increasing our lead. How exciting it is to be in the breakaway! We hurtled down the hill, again I had no clue when to chase and when not, I just stayed with them and hoped we'd stay away from the bunch until the finish line, because (although I think I'd have a good sprint) I am way too scared for a bunch sprint. And we did! I was superhappy with my performance, my heart rate profile showed I had a higher heartrate on the descent than on the climb, lol. The result meant I had now climbed into 6th place overall and was first county rider, with a lead of 17 seconds over the next few people who arrived in the bunch.

Results of stage 2a can be found here and a report here.

Stage 2b: Saturday, 18^th September: (afternoon): 5km TT
The TT is so short that I was pretty confident that I won't loose my lead of 17secs. Olivia Dillon set an amazing time of 2min 53 secs, with the next closest rider at 3min 7secs, but as she's based in the US, she was no danger to the county rider classification. My time was 3min 10 secs, enough only for 12th place. I went as hard as I could, but I forgot to get into the drops and my legs were dead after this mornings ride, so I can't be unhappy with that.

Gasping for air after 3min of pain

Results of the TT can be found here and report here.

Stage 3: Sunday, 19^th September: Road Race, 90km Waterville loop, map here
Since the QOH competition was pretty much won by Natalie Creswick, I was told that it would be the best idea to hang in there and try to defend the county rider jersey. This meant I had to leave the pain inflicting on the climb to the other riders, boo. But it made sense. I had to look out for Rita Boyle, who had gained 2secs on my gap in the TT and was now only 15 secs behind me. The other two dangers were Jenny McCauley and Catherine Devitt. To be honest, my legs were so tired at this stage that I was happy enough to just sit in. I made sure that I was positioned towards the front to be able to react on any dangerous attacks (I'm actually quite pleased with my positioning overall - it only took me 3 years to get there... ;)). One English rider managed to get away on the flat loop after the first of the two ascents of Coomakiste, but she was caught again on the 2nd ascent. The bunch fell apart on the 2nd ascent though, so that a smaller group formed on the descent on the other side. The Rapha Condor girls tried again and again to get away, as did a few others, even Cait went for it at one time, but all were chased down again quickly. I kept an eye on my opponents. I knew Rita was very strong on the TT and thought she might try to get away and time trial it home from the last little drag onwards. However, we stayed together and started descending on the other side.

Leaders before the last stage

But then disaster struck: A person in front attacked and Rita Boyle reacted a little too quickly and fervently and, after touching wheels with Olivia Dillon in front, lost control over her bike and went down hard. As I was just behind/beside her, I could see it all happening and prepared myself for a fall, or at least for riding over an obstacle, going into a defensive mountainbike position. Rita's handlebar and wheel went down just ahead of me and I tried my best to keep my bike steady when my front wheel rammed into her handlebar. I managed to stay upright and kept on rolling. Something felt strange though on the bike, a little too flexy perhaps, but I couldn't detect any fault, so I kept riding on.

Misty weather on Sunday's stage

There were a few more attacks on the slightly downhill home straight and I had to chase down Jenny a few times too. At the end again, I declined Olivia Dillons leadout offer (I know, my brain was really not working at that stage any more) and decided to go in front myself, as I am scared of bunch sprints. So basically, what I do is I just ride as hard as I can until everybody overtakes me to the line. Anyhow, my aim was to defend the county rider jersey that day and I had achieved my aim. I was very happy :)

Later on I found out that I had broken 3 of the carbon spokes and scratched the fork in that incident with Rita - thank god the bike held up!

Short results and a report of the last stage can be found here.

I took that cup home again

I am very grateful to Stewart Carr for lending me his amazing Lapierre road bike - I am so happy I didn't crash myself, the replacement parts could have been a lot more expensive!

Thanks also for Florence, my roommate, for the sports massage after the time trial - it really helped!

Thanks to the Usher team for their excellent support and thanks to Mick Usher for the useful advice.

Thanks to Louis Moriarty and the staff at Sneem Hotel who make our stay there a very comfortable and luxurious experience.

Thanks also for Declan Quigley and Eddie Lynch for the lift down to Kerry and back.

Louis Moriarty and me

2010 Ulster XC Champs - Tollymore Forest Park, NI

2010-09-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

The week of this race was meant to be my last hard (20h) training week, after building up from 16h to 18h the two weeks before, but halfway through the week my legs packed in, so I decided to take it easy for the rest of it and use the Ulster XC Champs as my last high intensity session before the Ras na mBan one week later. Ryan and I both went up to the beautiful countryside of the Mourne Mountains - memories of my Mourne Mountain marathon adventure welling up. And during the race I remembered that I raced mtb here years before, in 2006, as a non-contender in the open National XC Champs, when I was still a beginner....

Waiting for the start with the juniors (photo by Martin Grimley)

Anyhow, we arrived in the lovely forest park (why don't we have more of those around Dublin???) on a nice sunny day and got ready for a practice lap. Word of the mouth was that the course would have been fantastic in the dry, nice and fast and flowy, but the wet weather beforehand had made it into a muddy slidery course - damn, I got the wrong tires on my bike! The practice lap confirmed it, I think I washed out about 10 times and came off the bike about 5 times. There wasn't much climb but there were many corners, with the course sweeping and swooping around the trees, so it felt a little bit like cyclocross.

Mr. & Mrs. :) (photo by Martin Grimley)

Unfortunately I was the only Elite woman signed up, which is a bit disappointing, as I was looking forward to having to push myself hard. So my aim for this race was just to ride as smooth as possible, and practice clean cornering. However, when the race started, some of the later categories caught up with me and I had a bit of a battle with Mick from EPIC for most laps. The race itself was good fun, with me concentrating on my skill and I felt I was conquering the course more and more with every lap. Some nice features of the course included a steep switchback climb, that I almost made a few times and a fun bomb hole.

On a lonely podium (photo by Joanne Callum)

In my last lap I got an extra incentive to go a little faster when I saw Ryan catching up with me, so I sped up and made sure he didn't get me. While the racing was less exciting, I really enjoyed riding the course and still got a great workout out of it since the fairly flat nature of the course meant that there was not much time to recover. I'll do this one again next year, but hoping for more competition then!

Full results can be found here.

Da Cooley Thriller, Carlingford

2010-08-29T02:00:00.000-07:00

And now a report about my latest adventure: the “Da Cooley Thriller”, held last Saturday in the Cooley Mountains around Carlingford. I was a little reluctant to go racing up there again, painfully remembering getting lost on its course (as did many others) due to poor marking a few years ago. But a long time had passed since then and I had a 4 hour mtb spin in my training plan, so I decided that doing the race would be making the training that little bit more interesting. And so Oisin, who gave me a lift up, and I arrived early in the morning in the beautiful picturesque village of Carlingford at the race to some very breezy and quite fresh weather.

After the briefing the ~200 riders for the short and long course set off through the village towards the ominous looking mountains. It was a bit of a rolling start and I wasn’t quite sure where the race proper started. Unfortunately I was stuck somewhere in the middle of the stream of riders squeezing through the narrow roads of Carlingford, mainly keeping an eye on Cait Elliott, who was my main competition in this race. I should have been positioning myself better to the front, so that I didn’t have to fight through or be pushed around by a mass of overexcited roadie-goobers in world champion gear and with funny dangerous bar ends. Finally the people strung out a bit on the first bit of climb and I was able to work my way up through the riders. But then we hit some simple single track and the people ahead of me started walking!! It turned out that there were a good few roadies doing this race – not one I would have chosen for my first mtb race experience because I knew it was becoming a lot more technical than that!

Oisin and I (photo by 'manuel6b')

Once we hit the tarmac it was important to keep with a group to be sheltered against the strong headwinds up the hill. I managed to stick onto a good group for a bit, got dropped on a climb, fought my way back on and kept going with them up towards the masts. We were making good progress on the windy road. My legs were feeling fantastic and I knew that this race would be a good one. Just before the last off-road ascent towards the masts I stopped at the first feedzone for a handful of haribo provided by the organizers. I overtook a few more people on the ascent, grabbed my bottle from Dave and started the long downhill section. I had a lot of fun and witnessed two spectacular looking (but harmless) crashes of two riders. The weather kept up mostly, the trails were sweet, the climbs were hard and my legs were pedaling without effort. I really loved the singletrack, just technical enough to keep you on your toes not too scary so that I was even able to enjoy the spectacular views around the Cooley Mountains. Time flew by and I had to watch my clock to not forget to take a ZipVit Gel (new recipe flavours are fantastic) every 45minutes. There was so much nice singletrack that it was hard to find a place to even drink!

The last descent back down to Carlingford (photo by 'manuel6b')

Finally, after endless amazing singletrack I arrived at the second feedzone station at Windy Gap, where Aine provided me with another bottle and I gobbled up another handful of sweets. Then it was up the last climb – I remembered it to be long and draggy from the last time I did it, but today it was over in no time and I found myself on the last long and fun descent through the ferns towards the finish. I couldn’t believe that it was over when I arrived after 3h19min of riding, as first Elite women and 9th overall. I felt so great I could have done another lap. I wish I had had those legs during the World Marathon Champs. Married life is good for you!

I really really enjoyed this race – maybe I should switch to marathon racing? The trail marking and race organization were perfect, with free and tasty pasta provided after the race, and early results were even up that evening with full results the following day. The ghosts from a few years ago have been well and truly chased away and I definitely will be doing this one again next year!
Thanks to the organizers for putting on such a great event on such great trails, thanks to Oisin for the lift, thanks to Dave Gill and Aine Conneff for feedzone support and thanks to the weather gods for keeping the rain at bay.

Results can be found here.

More photos here and here.

Gym Time

2010-08-25T02:00:00.000-07:00

Due to time constraints and changeable weather I’ve recently spent less time on the bike while I increased my time on the treadmill in my local gym. It was often easier to fit in an hour run in the gym than a 2hour bike ride in the rain (although the weather is all lovely now again). I also love the complete control one has over a training session in the gym – no winds, rain, coldness or darkness to endure and no thinking about which way to take – it makes it easier to “switch off” and just think of nothing. And if I can’t find a zen state I can at least watch TV (this is something special for me since I don’t have a TV at home)!!

A week ago I decided to try out my first spinning session which the gym offers free of charge for members. Thought I could show my fellow spinners what a great cyclist I am...... haha....

Anyhow, the music was put on and the (quite cute) instructor shouted instructions at us, “Warm up on a low resistance”, “Put up the resistance”, “Pedal faster”, “We’re going up a long hill now…”, “SPRINT for one minute!!!” etc. all to the beat of dance music. We basically climbed a 20min hill at a low cadence and out of the saddle – and I couldn’t stand up for the whole time! I know cycling while standing isn’t my forte, but my-oh-my, I have never cycled up such a long steep hill! All the other girls were able to keep it up – thank god I didn’t tell them that I am a cyclist! (I have the suspicion though that my resistance level was a little higher than the ones of my fellow spinners….). I was barely able to complete the sprints and was completely wrecked when the session was over. I cannot believe how hard such a spinning session can be and I also cannot believe the buckets of water I sweated during this session.

I am definitely adding spinning sessions to my bad-weather/darkness/coldness/winter alternative training repertoire.

For more information check out Rockfitness Gym and check out the special offers page for great deals!

We will!

2010-08-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

Best cake topper ever!

One of the other reasons why we've been so busy is because Ryan and I got married on the 19th of August. We were very happy how everything worked out on the day (including Sky Diving incidents and Wedding dress DIY disasters). Our wedding was a very special few days full of joy spent with our families and friends.

Just married :)

2010 World Marathon Champs - St. Wendel, Germany

2010-08-09T04:14:00.000-07:00

I know I am a little behind with my blog updates, but the last while has been super busy and I am only now starting to catch up now with “normal” life. Here's my first update:

After the fantastic experiences of the last two Mountainbike Marathon World Champs Ryan and I were really looking forward to this years edition. It was even more special to me since it was going to take place in my home country, in Germany. However, this years profile could not have been more different from the last two races that took place in Italy (2008) and Austria (2009).

Race Profile

While the previous two years featured huge climbs up big mountains with just as long descents (over some amazing single track each time), this year’s course was characterized by countless tiny ascents and descents. The course maps also looked very different – this year’s looked like somebody had eaten spaghetti and gotten sick all over a map – it was very compact and consisted of tons of little loops that seemed to use every fireroad there was. The pre-ride showed that each climb was not more than a few minutes and that most of the course would be on fireroads – up AND down…. Not something that fills a true mountain biker’s heart with joy…. It looked to be a very fast (road) race.

2010 World Marathon Champs Course

I was still hoping for my legs to come around for race day – they hadn’t been great all week (I still haven’t figured out this whole peaking thing) and even on the day before they were just feeling heavy and leady and full of lactic acid. On race day then we lined up and were off. And I knew from the start that my legs weren’t happy to go hard. The fast nature of the course meant that the girls stayed mostly in one big bunch and it was important to stay with them.

At least the pre-ride was fun!

However, I was struggling from the word go, not enjoying myself at all. I stuck with them for as long as I could – thank god the speed wasn’t that high, but then a lapse in concentration meant I was spewed out at the back. Just like in a road race there were gone instantly and even though I could see them just a short distance ahead of me I could not for the sake of it close the gap. And so I had to content myself with riding around the very long and not all to interesting fire roads around the woods. I wasn’t too happy with it, but my spirits were dropping even further when I noticed I was running out of drink around 20km before the next feed station. It was a warm day and I was suffering badly, not a situation you want to be in.

Walter, Ivonne, Mel, Werner

I finally arrived at the 2^nd last feedzone, completely dehydrated, happy to take on the bottle from Walter. I was hoping to finish before Ryan, but he eventually caught me with about 7.5km to go. But I wasn’t the only person to suffer – I caught another female rider who had completely blown her lights 3km before the finish and couldn’t answer any attack – I doubt she even noticed what was going on around here, so I wasn’t even the worst off. I was glad when I arrived in the finish. I finally placed in 31^st place out of 43 starters, a few places down from the last two years in a smaller field, so not a result I am proud of. But unfortunately my legs just weren’t up for it. Now 2 weeks of recovery and social time with my wedding coming up!

Thanks to Ivonne Kraft for being so nice and organizing superb feedzone support for Ryan and I in form of Werner and Walter.

Selected Results:

1. Esther Süss (Switzerland) 4:33:47
2. Sabine Spitz (Germany) +0:01:57
3. Annika Langvad (Denmark) +0:02:54
4. Elisabeth Brandau (Germany) +0:07:51
5. Birgit Söllner (Germany) +0:07:54
6. Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjaa (Norway) +0:08:12
7. Kristine Noergaard (Denmark) +0:08:59
8. Sally Bigham (Great Britain) +0:09:56
...
31. Melanie Spath (Germany) +0:39:42

Full results and report are available on cyclingnews.

2010 German National Championships - Bad Salzdetfurth, Germany

2010-07-22T07:06:00.001-07:00

11th place in the Germany Championships, 2 places down from last year and about the same percentage off the winning time as last year. Am I happy with that? Hmm, not really. I had hoped to improve, get an 8th place, or at the very least I had hoped to be in the top 10 again. But it wasn't to be. I went into the race mentally unprepared. Traveling around Europe each of the 3 weekends beforehand for racing and college didn't help either. It also didn't help that the race was on Saturday and not on Sunday as in previous years. I only found that out shortly a few days before the race, long after I had booked the flights, so that I arrived on Friday evening with the race on Saturday afternoon. There was practically no time to get adjusted to the German heat (35 degrees on Friday), but at least on race day it was a little more bearable. The afternoon start time (4pm) made it hard to time the eating correctly too. I also let myself intimidate by all the big racers who arrive in their big personalized vans with a big tent put up in a special "star" area, with their entourage of supporters - masseur, mechanic and coach, parents, friends and family, their warm-up bike on a turbo and giving out autograph cards to anyone who asks. I arrived by myself, in my rental car, after a flight and a long drive, building up my bike myself and trying to sort out my rubbing brake pads using my tiny multi-tool, running around until a few hours before the race in the hope to find somebody I know that could do my bottles, warming up on a deserted road at one end of the village, being held up by some other star's photoshoot on my way to the start line. At the start line I am trying to find Andy, Elisabeth Brandau's coach, who had agreed to do my bottles, to give him my car keys.

When the race was off our "neutral" start turns out to be a scramble for positions. My head is not in the race and I find it hard to push myself. I am already falling back in my first lap. It takes me about 3 out of the 6 laps and Mona Eiberweiser falling back into my sight for me to finally switch on racing mode. Every lap I can see a few people ahead of me on the long climb. Finally I overtake Mona in the 4th lap. My racing head is finally screwed on and I focus on the next person ahead of me - Nadine Rieder. I come close to her on the climb in the 5th lap and know I can get her in the last lap. But when I come through the feedzone at the start of the last lap, my feedzone person had left with all my bottles. I was completely dehydrated in the hot weather and needed that last bottle more than ever. On the last climb I came really close to Nadine, but couldn't close the distance before she went into the long descent and out of my sight.

So, I got 20 UCI points out of this race. Was it worth the expense (~500Euro), time (4days) and effort involved? Not in this instance. Maybe I'll skip the national champs next year and do something fun, like riding around the Alps, Sauser-like. Now at least there is a bit of a breather till the next race, so there will be less drills and more fun in my spins.

Full results are available on datasport.

P.S. The course by the way was great. It was mostly dry, having dried up again after some earlier rain. I really liked it and would ride it again out of competition - some of the climbs were fairly steep, but most of them were manageable. The downhills were not overly technical, but good fun - bermy with a few little drops. We even came down the hill into a resident's backyard, with the course going through his house and out the front door! There was also lots of obstacles - several bridges and humps and steps that added to the fun. In Germany the courses tend to go straight through a village, so loads of the locals were out in the sun enjoying a beer and cheering you on. It also helped that they print your first name on the race numbers - feels like you've got your own fan-club and I have to say that the German spectators were absolutely fantastic, cheering on everybody on the course.

2010 British Mountain Bike Racing Series Round 4 - Dalby Forest, Pickering

2010-07-06T02:48:00.000-07:00

Photo by Michael Grainger

This is now my third visit to Dalby and much in contrast to Ryan I've always had pretty good races here, placing 2nd in last year's BMBRS race and a good performance in the World Cup opener in April. I like the course, technical and challenging with lots of flowy single-track, and the forest park and surrounding villages are just picture-perfect postcard places.

The course was basically the same as in the World Cup, only that Dixon's Hollow, the BMX track was taken out. While this made the course a little shorter I think it added more consistency to it. The conditions were mostly dry, grippy and fast, and it was a pleasure to revisit the likes of "Worry Gill", a slippery "Puncture Alley", the tricky "Bus stop" and "Medusa's Drop". My confidence in technical riding has recently received a boost after taking a skills course and I rode all the technical bits without blinking an eye-lid. And the great thing is, the more confident and controlled you go down these things, the easier it gets!

Medusa's Drop (Photo by Michael Grainger)

The Elite Women's group benefited from notable absences of some key racers, such as Annie Last and Lily Matthews who were off to Israel to prepare for the European Champs. The favourite for the race was New Zealand's Rosara Joseph who has recently had some very strong results. My plan was to hang on to her for as long as possible and aim for 2nd place but there were a few other strong girls who all could have had a good chance for 2nd place. So we set off at a blistering pace. Unfortunately I couldn't get up to speed fast enough so that I got into the single track after a bunch of people. This was basically the chance gone to hang on to Rosara, who opened up a gap almost immediately. As soon as we got out of the forest again I passed all the people ahead of me to get into the singletrack first behind Rosara, who had already gone out of sight. Both Cait and Lee were chasing and breathing down my neck, so I focused on riding the technical bits as fast as possible and opened up a small gap.

Negotiating roots at Medusa's Drop (Photo by Michael Grainger)

After the first lap I was half a minute up on Cait (and down on Rosara by 1.5min), so I kept the pace up and worked on increasing the the gap. It all went well for the next two laps which I rode mainly by myself, taking the climbs easy and concentrating on having a technically clean and controlled ride on all the descents. In the 4th out of the 5 laps my calves started cramping up, so it was all about keeping up the speed and pedaling smoothly, avoiding to have to put the feet down. It was still all going well, but when I climbed up towards Medusa's Drop on my last lap, I could see the green jersey of Cait coming to the bottom of the climb - she was catching up! I started making mistakes, cursing myself and having to walk up sections with Cait approaching below me. With screaming legs I went up hard the long climb for the last time. I kept looking behind, but I managed to keep her at bay. I finally finished in 2nd position, 50sec ahead of Cait and 6.5min down on a flying Rosara my best ever result on paper :)

Results from the XC race can be found here and a report on British Cycling here. Thanks to Rob for doing the bottles.

Podium (l-r): Lee Craigie, Mel Spath, Rosara Joseph, Cait Elliott, Maddie Horton

On Sunday Ryan and I took part in the Yorkshire Enduro Event - a great way of getting your training in after a hard race. The course was 4x15km laps of yesterdays XC course with a long extension in the middle that featured some nice bermy descents, a beautiful singletrack switchback climb, a good bit of fireroad, a nice long boardwalk section with little drops, a fast rocky and slippery gully descent followed by a rocky slippery gully climb. I rode most of it at endurance speed, feeling yesterday's race still in my legs and finished off with a hard last lap, finishing first women of the 4-lap event after 2h 50min.

Results from the Enduro can be downloaded here.

2010 Irish NPS Round 6 - Dunmore Mountain, Co. Down

2010-06-27T14:35:00.000-07:00

Focussed (photo by Owen McManus)

This course was last year's Irish National Champs course. This means Cait knew what to expect and from what she told me it was going to be my kind of course.

I arrived with just enough spare time for a practice lap. It was a great warm summer's day, but also fairly windy. The course was on an exposed open mountain, with just a few shrubs and lots of grass, rocks and dirt tracks. The course went up and over and back and down and over again the same mountain several times. I have to admit, they really used the small area well. Most climbs were short and sharp power climbs, with only one prolonged climb in three stages. Cait was right, it was my kinda course :)

Lovely dry trails (photo by Owen McManus)

Only Cait Elliott, Valerie O'Neill and myself had signed up for the Elite women's race. I was looking forward to a good battle with Cait, who has progressively become faster over the last while. I myself wasn't so sure how I would do today. My training has been sketchy last week with the last 2.5 days spent in hot (33 degrees!!) Madrid for a conference, only having arrived back late the night before. But as soon as we went off I started enjoying myself. My plan was to take it easy, stick with Cait and then attack on the last out of the 5 laps. But when I went up the hill I felt good and so I decided to try and put a gap into Cait and dug a little deeper. I managed to get away on the long climb. The open exposed course meant you could easily see where your competitors were. So I could see that I had put a good few seconds into her at the end of the first lap. After that first hard lap I took it easy and went a comfortable speed, concentrating on riding the course well.

I could see that I extended my lead lap by lap so I could relax more and enjoy the course and concentrate on applying the things I had learned in my skills session the week before with Robin. The course wasn't overly technical apart from a few nice descents, but a good flow and good bike handling skills on this course could definitely shave off a few extra seconds. And the more I think about it the more I liked the course - it was so much fun to try and ride it well!

On a lonely podium :) (photo by Owen McManus)

After a fun 5 laps I arrived in the finish as first Elite woman, about 3min ahead of Cait. Looks like my trip to Spain meant I was a lot more recovered than usually going into a race. Now I just have to keep up my fitness for next weekend's British NPS in Dalby!

Thanks to Shona for doing a perfect job of handing me my bottles and taking care of my amazing Specialized sun glasses and thanks to the pit crew crowd for the motivation.

Results can be found here. Thanks to Dromara CC for putting on a really well run event. And as Cait has pointed out, the names of the climbs helped breaking up the pain a little bit :)

Skills course with Robin Seymour

2010-06-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

In my whole mountain biking "career" I have never had any proper skills training. I just blagged my way through single track, roots and drops. I can't even do a proper bunny hop and my attempt at a wheelie would embarrass a 5 year old! Shocking, I know. So I decided to get some skills coaching. Who better to ask for this then technical rider extraordinaire and 15 times Irish XC Champ and 3 x Olympian Robin Seymour who has more than 20 years of experience and is one of the most technically skilled riders I know. He makes riding a bike look easy. Riding a bike over supertechnical terrain that is!

Anyhow, Cait and I both signed up for a skills course with Robin in Djouce Woods. Now, those who know Djouce know it's one of the most versatile woods for mtbing. It's easy to see why Robin is this good - he's got the best mtbing playing fields practically right in his back garden. Djouce has something for everyone, fireroads, draggy climbs, steep climbs, technical climbs, great views and some of the best deluxe singletrack hand built by above named individual. If XTC, benchcut, GC and Bulldog don't ring a bell with you, then you haven't experienced some of the best trails in Ireland yet.

The original bunny-hop :)

Anyhow, we started off and did a few front brake stopping drills, trying to get a feel for your rear wheel lifting and the force pushing your body forward. I couldn't really do it, due to a traumatic experience when I tried it once before, crashing and hurting my thumb so badly that it took over a month to heal up again. After that we did some singletrack descending. Cait and I got all the corners on benchcut perfectly, the dry weather just hiding my lack of skills. Riding over roots and line choice was another interesting topic. Soon we moved on to some climbing technique, ending with Cait and I trying to see who gets furthest pedalling up an almost vertical downhill trail. In almost perfect hovering position we both faltered at the steepest bit, with Robin bouncing up and down the trail effortlessly and making us look like total beginners. After some more fun singletrack and out of the saddle climbing, climbing using your speed, and descending like pros and going down steep drops (elbows out!) we finally arrived at my most fun bit: riding over a log. It is unbelievable that I never really knew how to lift my front wheel over something - using the pedals to pull your front wheel up - I just didn't know how it was supposed to work. But after a few attempts and detailed instruction I finally understood what I was supposed to do!!! I couldn't stop riding over that log, so happy was I that I finally knew how to do it.

And on this high we concluded a very useful and informative session. I can only recommend doing such a skills course, even if you consider yourself an experienced rider. What I got out of it most was that it's all the little things that count, a little tweak on the climbing position here, a better line choice there, your weight more to the front there etc. It is all those saved microseconds that add up in a race, as well as riding more efficiently so that you've got energy left for when you really need it. And somebody as experienced as Robin can easily see where your own personal weaknesses are and how you can improve on them. Now where do I get a log for my back garden......?

If you are interested in a skills course with Robin give him a call or e-mail me if you don't have his details and I'll refer you on.

2010 Bundesliga Race Round 3, Albstadt, Germany

2010-06-14T06:30:00.000-07:00

My trip to Germany to take part in the Bundesliga race of HC category in Albstadt, Germany:

Wednesday:

Waking up aching, nose running, eyes hurting, throat raw, lungs covered in slime. Spending day on the sofa feeling crap, sipping lemsip. Going for a ride in the evening, 10m sight up on Sally Gap, misty, windy, cold. Trying to do some efforts, failing. Getting cold, putting on all my clothes I have with me, feeling worse for wear afterward, waiting for another lemsip to kick in. Deciding I'll go to Germany anyway, frantic last minute bike packing.

Thursday:

Arriving at airport, downing another lemsip, meeting Cait at gate. Flight boring, arriving to 33 degrees and sunshine in Memmingen Airport in Germany. Lemsip wearing off. Airport wants 2 Euro 20 for hot water. Deciding I can deal with headache. Picking up rental car - got an upgrade, instead of a VW Polo, they gave me a Mercedes Benz Viano (wohoo!), automatic, with SatNav, Aircon and big enough that our huge bike bags feel lonely inside. Driving small roads towards Albstadt, pit stop for a pretzel and another lemsip.

Arriving at race place in early evening, temperature perfect for a bike ride. Building up bikes. Nose still running and sneezing still present. Local riding groups are meeting up and going for a spin, including about a 10 people strong female group. Meeting some other Elite riders out for a ride. Weather fantastic, ground bone dry. We catch a ride with some of the local organizers who show us the trail. First impression: easy course. Grass field start, very steep fireroad climb followed by very steep but fun and bermy descent, more fireroad climb, then the boring bit: 1km flat traverse on easy single track through wood, turn around, 1km flat traverse back on easy singletrack parallel to previous one. Finally some really fun and curvy descent and a bit more single track back to the finish. Climbs are too steep for my taste and height is lost too quickly on the steep descents - that's European mainland race courses for you. Loathing that first climb, loving that last descent. Bit more cycling about, then calling it a day as lemsip has worn off again. Cait got a pinch flat.

Shopping for dinner in Lidl, driving to cost-effective guesthouse in neighbouring village. Enjoying a shandy and makeshift dinner with plastic cutlery in beautiful evening warmth and peace. Another lemsip and time for bed.

Friday:

Feeling better in the morning. Still hot and sunny here, 28 degrees. Driving to Albstadt looking for somewhere to eat breakfast. Walking around market, amazed at the percentage of old people in Germany (median age in Germany = 44 years, 35 years in Ireland). Having breakfast and yet another lemsip. Today is high intensity day for me, so going straight to race course before lemsip wears off. Choosing the steep climb at the start as place for my drills. Warm-up, 2x3min, 2x2min, legs and lungs are screaming. Telling myself that pain now will mean less pain later. Using climb 2 and 3 for 2x1min efforts. Heart rate not too bad considering, but not going up as much as I would like to. Sessioning descents.

Real Italian homemade icecream for recovery food. Buying bikini and towel in pound shop, going to Albstadt's naturbad - a man-made swimming pool/lake. Soaking up the sun, working on getting rid of tan-lines (and adding new ones), eating strawberries and reading books, relaxing. Great taste of the pro-racer life-style. Time for dinner in the guesthouse, another picnic and shandy. No lemsip required this time.

Saturday:

Eating cereal with plastic spoons out of tooth brushing glasses. Driving to course. Legs heavy and leady. Thank god for recovery days. Riding another lap of the bone dry course, tootling around and watching the marathon racers go off. German championship for doctors and pharmacists. Walking around the trade and food stands, talking to people, mingling, buying more food in bigger shop. Meeting Mike, Cait's mechanic. Driving to guesthouse, shower, change. Driving back to Albstadt, hanging out with Mike, watching Gerd Rube sing "Hotel California" at the race place. People milling about drinking beer in the setting sun. Driving back, having another picnic dinner, no shandy this time, "Apfelschorle" instead (a mix drink of apple juice and fizzy water). Preparing bottles, pinning on number. Watching some WWII documentary. Sleeping.

Sunday:

Race day. Waking up to clouds and rain. Has been raining all night long. Feeling good enough after the cold. Driving over. Warming up. Mizzle starting again. Going to the bathroom, going again, and again. Locating and placing myself into holding pens. Call up. Cait is called. I am not. Maybe my name is not on the list? I am being called up absolutely last of thirty-something women. WHAT??? I am gesturing Cait and Mike. Asking the commissaire, he's only shrugging. Nothing I can do now. 1min to go. 30sec to go. Anytime within the next 15sec... Whistle is blown, we are off. Trying to ride around the girls work up my way from last position, avoiding a pile up. Hitting the fireroad, overtaking difficult. Girls riding in 2 lines. Singlefile then at the first single-track descent. Girls sliding all over the place. We are walking/scrambling. It's very slippery. Trying to walk down the next descent, girls sliding into me. Me sliding down the trail head first, cutting open both knees. Covered in mud head-to-toe, blood seeping through where knees are. Back onto the bike, biting teeth together, pushing on. Sliding everywhere, even on the flat bits. Sliding out of corner on the flat. Sliding down the tricky descent. Taking back everything I said about the course being easy. Lap 1 done. Climbing up the steep climb in lap 2. Loudspeakers and hundreds of spectators on the climbs make it more bearable. Catching some people. Music to get you into the groove. Rattles to make you go faster. Accumulating gunk everywhere. Hard to clip in pedals. Tires slick. Descending faster when sliding on bum. Lap 3, Cait still in front, but in sight. Making up a few more places on the climb, loosing a few. No idea what position I'm in. People having mechanicals. Sliding everywhere. Lap 4. I can see Cait closer now. Getting her on the flat bit. Making a mess of the descent again. Sliding down off my bike. Shoe opens, too mucky to close it again. Chain down and stuck. Stopping and yanking at it. Loosing places. Freeing it. Back onto the bike. Mona Eiberweiser behind me now - must have had a mechanical. Riding with her through finish - hoping to be pulled, but no, we have to go on. Mona pulls away on the climb. Last time up, wohoo! Legs are screaming and cramping. Kajsa coming up behind me. She gets me on the 2nd last climb, I have to let her go. Last descent, only downhill from now on. PANG! Rear wheel exploded, side wall gash! Gas doesn't help, goes straight out. Put in tube or run to finish? Only downhill left really. Deciding to run. I run. Thank god for recent running training. Not being too much slower than cycling. Loosing another place or two on the flats. Reaching last grassy loop. Riding on the flat tire. Flippin slog! Arriving at finish. Collapsing.

Bikewash queue too long, cleaning bikes in river. Cleaning ourselves in river. Cleaning knees in river. Having shower. Getting lots of stares because of cut knees. Packing bikes. Packing car. Driving to airport. Flight delayed. Watching 1st half of Germany vs. Australia. Flight boring. Home at midnight.

Results found here.
Melanie: 19th place
Cait: 21st place

Thanks to superb feedzone and tech support from Cait's team mechanic, Mike from the WXC racing team. I'll be checking the gridding beforehand next time. Being German with an Irish license seems to confuse people. Knees still leaking, but getting better. Looking forward to the next race :)

2010 Irish NPS Round 5 - Killaloe

2010-06-08T03:57:00.000-07:00

The Elite women's field

Thank god the weather was clearing up the more we drove westwards from Dublin towards Killaloe, so that we arrived in beautiful hot sunshine at the 5th round of the Irish NPS.

I knew in my warm-up pre-lap that this would be a hard race, with about 210m of climb per lap on a long and exposed fire-road climb, with a few steep kicker sections. The long descent through dark, rooty and slippery woods wasn't exactly playing to my strengths either. But every lap I looked forward to the great downhill track at the very end towards the finish.

Still smiling at the start (photo from Aine)

On the start line I was joined by Cait Elliott, Ciara McManus and Shona D'Arcy and there was a bit of chaos when the commissaire set off the Elite men road race style: 3,2,1 go! and we were meant to start then and there with the men! After frantically trying to clip in we chased the Elite men up the hill and I managed to get a tiny gap on Cait. We were still hanging on to the men when we hit the singletrack - no wonder I was feeling a little tired after that and made a right shambles of the rooty and slippery singletrack descent. I sliddered and slippered all over the place so that Cait eventually caught up with me on the last little bit of singletrack. I managed to get going again ahead of her and lit a fire to get away from her again.

On the last descent (photo from Aine)

My plan was to get a gap on the climb so that I could take it easier and concentrate on the descents. My second lap went a little better, but every time I looked behind, Cait was still in sight. So I kept up the speed and tried to concentrate on riding the slippery descent better.

In the descent of the third lap I then felt something wet spray into my face with every rotation - there was no puddles - oh no! I've got a puncture! I rode on carefully trying to avoid any sharp looking rocks and when I arrived at the techzone I checked my tire and it had sealed up again perfectly! Wohoo, long live tubeless tires :) And so I rode on without changing wheel (the slightly lower pressure was probably an advantage on the slippery descent). On the long fireroad climb I looked behind and again saw Cait behind me.

Elite Women's podium: l-r: Ciara McManus (3rd), Mel Spath (1st), Cait Elliott (2nd) (photo from Aine)

I kept the fire lit and raced on the fourth and final lap, really concentrating on not making too many mistakes on the descent and finally finished with about 1.5min to spare to Cait Elliott in 2nd place. I've included riding wet roots as a special task in my training plan.

Thanks as usual to Aine for supreme bottle support.

Results are available here.

2010 Irish NPS Round 4 - Magheramorne, NI

2010-05-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

I didn't feel too bad after the ROAR and felt fine on Sunday too. It was a long drive up to the quarry in Magheramorne on yet another beautiful summer's day. Going by the last time I raced there I knew the course should be fairly flat, with just a few kickers strewn in. I had just enough time to squeeze in a practice lap before lining up with Cait Elliott, Valerie O'Neill and Shona D'Arcy, the latter having bravely stepped up to do the Elite race for the first time.

One of the many little drops (Photo from Shane Lavelle)

The course is unlike any other XC race I've done. It's flat over black earth and loose gravel, along dusty paths, some shrubbery and up and down old and steep earth movements and derelict buildings reminiscent of quarry activity. There was some tight singletrack with some steep furrows and a good few fast bombhole descents and a few nasty kicker climbs, but any pain was usually over in less than 10 seconds. With the course being so open some of the sections required tucking in tightly against the head wind and only the lukewarm water of that murky river crossing gave a bit of respite from the hot midday sun burning down on us (this is Ireland that I am talking about).

Splashing through the welcome river crossing (Photo from Rose)

We had to do four laps and set off leaving only a dust cloud, following the Juniors who were started with us. My plan was to go out front and get away. It's nice when something works to plan. I got to the front and steadily increased my lead, mostly racing on my own, passing the occasional rider and being occasionally passed. The course was very fast and it took a while for the other categories to catch up when I rode with some Masters and Vet riders. On the last lap I got a bit of a stomach cramp but there was no danger from behind, so I could ease off a little bit until I reached the finish in first place with Cait in second and Valerie in third.

Groupshot of the Elite Women competitors (Photo from Martin Grimley)

Thanks to Aine for being my feed zone angel.
Results available here.

West Wicklow ROAR

2010-05-24T13:12:00.001-07:00

On Saturday last weekend I did the West Wicklow ROAR, a multi-sport adventure race combining kayaking, road biking and off-road running around Blessington Lakes. My coach doesn't like me doing off road running much due to the risk of injury, but I've just been longing to mix up my training a bit again and since I had no big races coming up I took this opportunity to get my AR fix in.

The race itself was broken up as follows:

2km kayak
11.5km bike
7km run
18km bike
7km run
16.5km bike

Confidently I put myself down for the Elite wave....

Photo by John Fields from ActionPhotography

I was a bit concerned about the running stages, since I hadn't done any running at all in ages, and decided to do my first run in ages by doing an IMRA race on the Wednesday a week and a half before the ROAR for some training (I am aware that this was a bit of a stupid idea....). This was more a test to see where I stand and to see if and how much my mountain biking fitness would carry over to mountain running (and also to enjoy the social side of it and meet some old friends). It was an 11.3km run, not particularly steep, but about half of it over pretty technical rocky terrain. I came in 7th lady, at 140% of the men's winning time. Not bad since this is the best percentage I've ever had in a mountain run, even when I used to run regularly! So I was happy with that, but not with the pain that I had to endure the three days after! My legs felt as if I had subjected them to a marathon with my thighs and calves giving out every time I tried to sit down or stand up or walk down stairs. I couldn't do any type of training until Saturday and had to take it fairly easy at the weekend too. Serves me right going out like this. I did a few more short running sessions to get my legs used to the sensation before the Saturday of the race.

Anyhow, Saturday came along with some glorious blue skyed weather and a heat wave and some of the other Elite ladies including old mountain biking champs Beth McCluskey and Jenny McAuley. I was hoping that all the time I would lose on the runs (I knew that both Beth and Jenny would be better runners) I could make up on the bike legs. How wrong I was....

On the 2nd run - Photo by John Fields from ActionPhotography

Well, it started off kind of on a bad leg. The kayaking leg. In this race we were provided with 2-person sit-on-tops and you just did it with whoever arrived at the boats the same time as you. I have to admit, my knowledge about kayaking does not extend much further than that it involves a kayak, water and a paddle and I've been able to get by with these basics through any adventure race (usually due to my partners having more of a clue and telling me what to do). That's bad, but the worse thing was that the person who was going to share the kayaking leg with me had as little clue as I. Anyhow, we made it back to the beach eventually.... Another mistake was to take off my shoes before the kayaking leg. I thought I'd be able to run back to the bike transition bare-footed, but all I could do was hop along the side of the gravel road to avoid the gravel digging into my feet. Next mistake was to use cleat pedals, meaning at each transition I would have to change from biking shoes into running shoes and from running shoes back into biking shoes etc. Well, I didn't have so much of a choice because my pedals have ceased onto my crank arms (I have already twisted two Allen keys), but if I was doing such a race again I will get this sorted and put on flat pedals and cut out the time of taking off one pair of shoes, tying them onto the rucksack, putting on another pair of shoes etc. Finally on the bike I was having issues with my chain not going into the big ring and had to stop to put it up manually - should have really adjusted them beforehand.....

Then of course I was running up and down the mountains with my 2L bladder full of water, although I did away with it on the 2nd run and decided taking out the mandatory kit and a bottle would be easier. It was, but my legs were still not used to this kind of terrain, some of it on the open mountain side and with wet shoes blisters were developing and the bottoms of my feet were starting to give out.

Well done to Jenny and Beth battling it out in front with Jenny taking the win only 2min ahead of Beth. Both were closely followed by Derval Devaney, a triathlete. I came in 26min behind Jenny with a time of 3h51min. I looked at the splits later and only my bike legs were comparable, I lost time everywhere else. Ah well, in the end it was a great way of spending a Saturday and getting some good aerobic endurance training in.

Results available here.

New Bike Details

2010-05-12T02:43:00.000-07:00

Ryan actually went through the effort already to describe the details for our new 2010 race bikes on his blog, so this is taken almost directly from his blog. In short, for 2010, both Ryan and I are racing on near identical 2010 Specialized S-Works Epics. The bikes are basically the stock S-Works bikes with some modifications from our other sponsors: KCNC, Schwalbe and a little help from Stan at NoTubes.

The detail pics below are from Ryan's bike, but mine is virtually identical (I've got a white saddle though and slightly different disk brakes).

Outside of the paint work, the major changes on our bikes this year are:

Full SRAM XX drive train, we have a double (39x26) on the front and 11-36 on the rear. I haven't moved out of the big ring yet....
NoTubes Podium wheelset – from NoTubes, we are running the NoTubes Podium tubeless wheels – total wheelset weight is 1.26kg. Slightly heavier than my old ZTR 7000 wheels but the additional weight is in the ZTR hubs which, due to the flange spacing, will give a slightly stiffer (and more affordable!) wheel
The frame has been upgraded with a stiffer carbon front triangle and the liberal use of ceramic bearings for the bottom bracket etc...
The rear brain shock has also been updated – a slightly heavier weight in the inertia valve gives better terrain sensitivity. It is also now produced with Fox which should alleviate some of the quality control issues some earlier versions had.

KCNC components are used throughout to also drop the weight down to a hardtail beating 9.4kg (20.7 lbs). This is not showroom weight, but ready to race weight with tires, sealant, bottle cage and pedals. It feels light, very light.

Tires, we stick with our general purpose setup of a 2.1 Schwalbe Rocket Ron on the front and a 2.1 Racing Ralph on the rear. We use this exact setup for 95% of our racing and training.

Well, what can I say, I've ridden the bike a few times now and I love it. I have decided though to leave the bar ends off it for a while. I like the simplicity of not having them, it feels like another thing to think about while I race. I will probably put some on my training bike though and see if I like them more when I get used to them.

The above pic is actually from Ryan's bike, my seat post will be sporting a German flag. The pic with the wheel is also from Ryan's bike, I'd have turned the Schwalbe tires another half turn ;)

Many thanks to our sponsors for helping us put all this together - Cycleways, Specialized, Schwalbe, KCNC and NoTubes.

"His 'n' hers"

2010 British XC Round 2 - Wasing Park

2010-05-10T04:59:00.000-07:00

On the Friday evening on the weekend of the race Ryan and I flew over to Bristol and drove the 1.5hours to our B&B for the next two nights. The weather on Saturday morning wasn't great. It was 8 degree Celsius accompanied by a dreary drizzle. We drove through the very pretty and posh country side to Wasing Estate where the race would take place. Quickly we built up our bikes and ventured on a practice lap around the course. And it turned out that I absolutely loved the course. It was set in this beautiful estate and meandered through bluebell woods, along small lakes, twisted through dense forestry and met a few little drops here and there. There wasn't much climb per lap and it was technically pretty easy, but the vast amount of sweet singletrack leading through this beautiful scenery made all up for it. I just love courses that are set into the countryside as if they belong there. One lap was about 7km long, but had only about 100m climb, most of it at the start of the lap. I did a second, "hot" lap with a few repeats and because I loved it so much I did a third lap.

On race day the temperature was even colder, 7 degrees! And that at the start of May! There wasn't many girls in my category, the biggest names were Lily Matthews, Kate Potter and Maddie Horton and I knew that Lee Craigie could have a shot for the top 5 on a good day too. I felt good during my warm up and I liked the course. I was looking forward to this race!

Elite Women's line-up

Starting on the first of 5 laps I immediately took the lead. It didn't last long though, with Lily Matthews taking over, Kate Potter settling into 2nd position and me into third. I made sure to stay on Kate's wheel and was determined to not get dropped. On a bit of climb I passed Kate who had let a small gap open on Lily and set on to close the gap to Lily. However, we then just hit one of the few bits of straight fireroad, one of the few places you can drink easily and I had a sip, with Kate taking the chance to overtake me again to nip into the singletrack ahead of me. I stayed on Kate's wheel and followed her through the loose singletrack in the woods, but then disaster struck. I took a corner too fast and lost traction and the next second found myself on the ground. I got up, but my handlebar had twisted and needed to be tightened up. While I tried to fix this, all the girl behind me passed and when I was finished I had to chase them from the last position. I managed to catch a few, but noticed I had fixed my handlebar slightly off center and decided to get Ryan to fix it at the feedzone. It was all a bit of a blur, but it seemed my handlebar was tight, but my front skewer had come loose and I had rounded a bolt and had to finish the race with the slightly off centre handlebar because it would take too much time to fix things. Again I started to a chase when I left the tech zone. When I went into the next bit of singletrack I had to stop again to tighten skewers - they defo weren't tightened up enough before the race! At the end of lap 2 I had clawed my way back up to 6th place and could see Lee Craigie leaving the start/finish zone. I caught her halfway through the 3rd lap and then tried to chase down Gabby Day in 4th place. It was hard to judge how fast I was going in comparison to the others, since I was riding by myself for the last 4 out of 5 laps, apart from the few times I passed people. I was told I was closing in on Gabby Day, but unfortunately I didn't catch her, so that I finished in 5th place. Lily Matthew showed a great performance on the day and won the race, followed by Kate Potter in second and a strong ride from Maddie Horten for third place.

Elite women's start

And to finish off a disappointing race I was selected for random dope control. Perfect, I can't even do a cool down. In a frenzy I tried to find Ryan who was off somewhere else to warm up for his race, or our rental car - which Ryan had moved without telling me (my chaperone must have thought I'm a bit dim-witted.... "no, really, the car was here, a grey car, it was right here.....") trying to get at a warm jacket and then find my racing license, tried to organize somebody to do Ryan's bottles for his race while I go for a supervised pee, waiting for the presentation to finish while freezing my *ss off.... all in all a not so great day at the office.... (thank god I have a second office, right?).

Anyhow, again it has been shown that to have a good race the following three things have to be in perfect condition: you mind, your body AND your equipment. I probably would not have beaten Lily, but I had felt that 2nd place was definitely within my reach if everything had gone right. It was a bit of a risk in taking our new bikes over, having ridden them only once before after building them up, but it's no excuse. I should have checked every bolt and every skewer closely beforehand after building them up again from the flight. Lesson learned. Now, where's that locktite?

Results available on timelaps.co.uk.

New Bike :)

2010-05-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

Finally, we've received all the bits and bobs for our new S-Works Epics and they are now fully built up and ready to go. Tonight I will take my new bike out for the first time on the Epic club spin. While the geometry of my new bike is the same as last year's S-Works Epic, the biggest change is that my new bike comes with SRAM XX drive train and brakes, meaning I've now only got 2 chain rings in front. Another change is that I am trying bar ends for the first time - I've always been afraid of wrapping myself around a tree with them, so we'll see how that goes. Below is a picture of the bike, it's also painted, in contrast to the naked carbon from last year, so it looks a lot brighter, but less stealthy. Anyhow, I'll put a full spec online in a bit - now it's time to get ready for the club race!

Thanks again to Cycleways, Clee Cycles, Schwalbe and NoTubes for their generous sponsorship :)

UPDATE: Well, I'm back and fed from the Epic club race, waiting for Ryan to evacuate the shower so that I can hop in. I can say that I absolutely love my new bike! It rides really well, very light, and it climbs like a Gazelle - effortlessly. I am not sure about the bar ends though - on the way to the race I kept reaching for them when I had to brake - reminding me of my road bike hoods and I was still a bit paranoid of wrapping them around a tree. I'll leave them off for the second round of the British National Series this weekend, but I'll give them another go afterwards.

2010 World Cup Round 1 - Dalby Forest, UK

2010-04-30T03:23:00.000-07:00

Finally I have some time to catch up on my blog writing - all this college stuff interfering with my cycling! ;) I've got a little breather now - just hope I passed my exam!

After having missed the first Bundesliga race in Muensingen, Germany, due to the volcanic ash, I was really looking forward to racing again in Dalby Forest, for Round 1 of the World Cup Series. Not racing in Germany meant I spent the weekend on two long mountain bike spins on some of the driest trails in Ireland - I felt so invincible, everything is so rideable!

Waiting to be called up....

Going to Dalby didn't really feel like going to a World Cup, since I've raced on the same course last year in a UK NPS by the same organizers, so it felt more like going to a local race. In fact, this was probably the least nervous I've been in all the World Cups (3!) I've done! The course was just as technical as last year, with only minor modifications.

On race day I was gridded in the latter half of the grid. When the gun went off I tried to hold my position going into the singletrack in the short and fast start-loop. The singletrack forced the riders to form an orderly line, and I lost a few positions (I started in 56th position, and went through the start area in 68th), but was able to catch riders again on the wide start loop area. There was a lot of traffic on the first lap and lots of nice flowy singletrack meant that there was little possibility to overtake, so that for the first lap the only option was to just hold on to that wheel ahead of you and not let people from behind you come by.

After the traffic had dispersed by the 2nd lap, I really started to enjoy the course and settled into my pace. Lap after lap I made up a few places on the climbs and on the flats, slowly climbing up the rankings and and finally finishing in 56th position (the position I started in....). Not really a fantastic result, but I'm slowly climbing up the ladder - better than in Offenburg last year with a similar amount of riders.

I had a lot of fun though and I am thinking of signing up to Offenburg now!

Race report 2010 Irish NPS Round 1 - Slade Valley

2010-04-14T01:05:00.000-07:00

What glorious weather we were greeted with for the first round of the Irish NPS in Slade Valley near Dublin. I was still recovering from my exertions from the Ras Mumhan a weekend earlier and had not been feeling all to well leading up to this race. With additional stress from college this meant that I got almost zero training in from then till this weekend, so at least I would be super recovered (read: stale...).

Anyway, back to early heatwaves in Dublin (around 18 degree Celsius) and a very sunny morning. Since the race wouldn't start until 1:30pm for the senior categories I had decided to arrive early and do a practice lap then. I've been looking forward to the course, since everybody has been raving about it.

Alone on the fireroad (photo from Aine)

From the start it was obvious that the organizing club IMBRC have put in a lot of effort into the course, with a huge amount of great flowy singletrack. The course was mainly dry, apart from one or two muddy sections and 100% rideable. What made it quite challenging though was the amount of twisty singletrack through the woods with lots of mean slippery roots (one of my nemesis). As I always ride my wheels with too much pressure I was having difficulty to get over some of the sections without washing out, a tire that had seen too many sharp Cypriot and Israeli rocks didn't help the cause either (my excuses for the lack of technical skill....).

Anyhow, it was fantastic to see so many (5) girls at the start, including Cait Elliott, who's riding into form greatly, Ciara McManus from Northern Ireland and Jenny McAuley making a comeback into the MTB racing scene.

Dusty dry trails here (photo from Aine)

We set off to a fast start up the fireroad. A few unfortunate moments of riding beside the fireroad and not on it meant I only got into the singletrack in 3rd position, behind Cait and Ciara. I stuck onto Ciara's wheel and prayed that she would stay on Caits wheel. Then, when the singletrack opened up to a short bit of linker fireroad I took the chance and attacked, overtaking both Ciara, Cait and soon after two Juniors. This turned out to be the right move, because the singletrack tightened up again, meaning that Cait and Ciara got stuck behind the Juniors, so that I could open up a gap - see, tactical racing :)

I pulled away quickly to get out of sight from Cait as fast as possible. For the rest of lap one I could still see glimpses of her behind me, but I kept going fast and out of sight in lap 2. Unfortunately I started getting cramps in lap 3 (must have been the "hot" weather ;)), so that I had to throttle back a bit.

I kept looking behind to see if Cait was catching up again, but couldn't see her, so I decided to go into cruise mode for the last two laps - ready to attack in case she showed up behind me. I finished first with Cait arriving 2.5min behind me and Jenny McAuley completing the podium.

l-r: Cait Elliott, Mel Spath, Jenny McAuley (photo from Aine)

I know my preps for this race weren't great and I wasn't feeling too great on race day either with my stomach going into refusal mode after the race, but it's great reassurance to know that I can still make my legs perform when they need to, even if they don't want to.

Thanks to Stewart for his mechanical help on my bike and for screwing my head back on with a few motivating words. Thanks to the EPIC pit crew for doing my bottles too! And thanks for IMBRC for putting on such a quality event and for Jenny McAuley for giving me a lift to it!

Results available here.

2010 Ras Mumhan, Kerry, "Race" report

2010-04-07T01:35:00.000-07:00

I am not quite sure what got me to sign up to the Ras Mumhan in the first place. I'm largely blaming Ryan, who I think only convinced me to do it so that he won't have to drive all the way to Kerry by himself. It's not that I didn't have a choice, there were plenty of stage races on over Easter weekend, including the Gorey 3-day and the P&O Tour of the North. I knew most of the girls would do the Gorey 3-day, so this one would have been the most obvious choice, but I also saw Fiona Meade signed up for the Ras Mumhan, so I thought, well, if she dares it, I dare too. The other reason why I went for the Ras Mumhan instead was one of safety - since most of the riders were A1s and A2s, I knew it would be quite safe. What I didn't think of was that the same riders would also be a lot faster and stronger than the A3s and A4s......

Anyway, I don't think I quite expected the race to be THIS hard.....

The race comprised 4 stages around Kerry, with a total of 493,5km.

Stage 1: Killorglin Milltown and Glencar, 96.2km

The start to stage 1 was super hard. After missing my first road race this year a week beforehand I was still trying to get back into the knack of things what with feeling comfortable in the bunch etc. so that I was way too much at the back and suffered (REALLY suffered) from the harmonica effect. If it was a cat A3/A4 race I'm sure I could have hung on, but the speed and accelerations in this race (mostly cat A1/A2 riders) was just too much for me and after a few full-out cross-eyed sprints to catch back onto the bunch I had burned all my matches. About an hour or so into the race when the next acceleration came along I couldn't follow and got dropped from the bunch. After feeling miserable about my abysmal performance I got on with myself and enjoyed the 45km or so by myself, riding endurance, with the plus that I was actually able to enjoy the scenery because I didn't have to concentrate on any other cyclist's rear wheels. I've attached my power data below. I spent over 13 minutes of the first hour in anaerobic capacity - no wonder I was spent so quickly.

Power profile from day 1 - I got dropped from the bunch about an hour into the race - power profile a lot steadier from then on

Stage 2: The Healy Pass and Moll's Gap, 140.9km

This time round I was feeling a little more comfortable in the bunch and I was able to hold my position better and benefiting from drafting in the bunch, but again I got dropped about an hour into the race. However, with all those long hills on the course I managed to pick up one rider after another and even overtook some of the riders on the final climb that greeted all the tired riders with a headwind from hell. I wish road racing could all be uphill! Finishing 15th last (plus 4 dropping out), this was to be my best performance!

Ryan however showed a fantastic performance, with a 2nd place finish - only loosing out to Wim Botman in the final sprint up Moll's Gap. He even got a mention on the RTE news for this - I'm so proud of him!!

Riding through this magnificent country side of Kerry, with snow capped mountains in the distance was an amazing experience.

Stage 3: Valentia and South Kerry, 142.6km

This stage almost broke me. After the neutral roll-out there were fireworks. The riders attacked from the start and the speed was absolutely unbelievable (even Ryan said the start was very fast). I basically got dropped from the start - and I still had about 140km to go! With the broom wagon lingering temptingly behind me I rode on and caught one guy, overtook him and set on for a pursuit of two guys I could make out in the distance. Finally, on a longer bit of climb I caught on to them and we started a good pace-line. We picked up one more guy on the way who stayed with us for a few min, but he then dropped out. So the three of us trudged on, with the broom wagon just behind us. At about 70km to go they dropped back and the other guy that I had overtaken at the start joined me again and basically pulled me home the other 70km.
Just want to apologize here to the broom wagon drivers who I got to follow me around for about 140km so that I could do the full stage.

Stage 4: Killorglin and Milltown, 113.8km

Got introduced to the main sponsor as the "only [read: crazy] girl in the race" before we set off to a leisurely start. Woah, I couldn't believe how slow the guys were going. Life was easy, the bunch behaved for once and didn't outright attack and I had no problem hanging on. Until we hit the first hill. The last 3 days of racing had slowly sucked up all my energy and I gave up on that small hill, stopping to push and getting dropped by the bunch - AGAIN! I felt bad about it because I felt that I could have stayed with them today and all I needed to do was to push through those extra 20secs of pain. But I was spent. Soon enough a few other stragglers joined and as a group of 3 we worked (or rather they worked while I just hung on) our way around the course, until we hit the crit part, where our race ended, because we arrived about 2 laps too late. At least this gave me a chance to watch some of the rest of the race. And with those howling winds I was quite happy I didn't have to do the rest of it. I finished 98th in the GC in the end, which is third last, but I'm happy I am amongst one of the 100 survivors out of the 125 riders who started off on the first day! Ryan finished a fantastic 6th overall by the way....

All in all a great experience and fantastic interval+endurance training (over 450km and over 15hours in 4 days) and a good chance to sample some of Kerry's finest landscape. Not sure if I'll do this one again though, I think I'll stick to some of the easier ones for now.....

Results available here.

2010 British Mountain Bike Series Round 1 - Sherwood Pines

2010-03-31T01:33:00.000-07:00

It was a last minute decision to go to this race. Ryan didn't have a great race there last year - he is more of a climber and thus rather avoids the fast flat courses, but because the German Bundesliga has been shorted and thus resolved some race conflicts, I can now actually complete both the Bundesliga and the BMBS Series, so I decided to go and a reluctant Ryan decided to come with me. Ryan's reluctance was somewhat lessened when we got an amazing upgrade on our rental car, a Mercedes AMG, so at least we were arriving in style :)

Fancy car with lots of fancy buttons doing lots of fancy things!

The pre-ride on Saturday revealed a few welcome changes to the course: it now contained a few more technical sections, nothing scary or dangerous, but sections that will definitely require good bike handling skill if you didn't want to loose too much time, such as a row of dirthills to get up and over on your bike and some tight twisty and rooty single-track through the forest. It also included a tiny bit more climb on this otherwise fairly flat course, but I'd say most of the climb is due to the steep kicker climb that was followed by a just as steep descent. Loosing your power or traction on this one meant loosing time trying to scramble up the rest of it. The rest was flowy and fast and flat, favouring road racing tactics of working together and staying with the bunch.

Elite Women's line-up

A good few girls lined up on Sunday for the race, including Rosara Joseph (NZL) who had won the race last year, my good friend Kate Potter, who I beat in the sprint finish for third place last year, the two British Olympic Development squad girls, Annie Last and Lilly Matthews. Notable were also the absences, with long-time racer Jenny Copnall having retired from racing to coaching new talent, Jenn O'Connor, who has moved back to New Zealand, and Sue Clarke, the British XC Champion. This new mix was very exciting and I could identify at least 8 girls that would have a very good chance for making the podium.

Maddie on my tail

At 10am we set off and a group of 5 people, headed on by Kate Potter followed by Annie Last, Lilly Matthews and Rosara Joseph and me was forming quickly. The pace was fast but comfortable and we were going well until Rosara made a mistake on a tight singletrack and stalled. Nice as I am I waited for her to clip back in, but it took her longer than expected and the 3 riders in front were fast disappearing. Finally Rosara was back on track and sped up to chase and catch back up with the front. Unfortunately I wasn't able to speed up so quickly and found myself chasing after the group by myself. It felt like in a road race! So many times I thought I would catch them, but then they pulled away again. Furthermore, danger was looming from behind in form of Maddie Horton, who was going very strong, having upped her training since last year. She caught up with me and overtook me and I hung on to her wheel for a bit. She was first through the finish after lap one, but I pushed hard and overtook her again on the draggy fireroad climb to get into the singletrack first. She stayed on my wheel for most of the lap, but I didn't let her get by, and after a mistake from her on the steep kicker climb I was able to pull away and came first into the finish arena at the end of lap 2. I could catch glimpses of her for the next two laps behind me and a few times she came dangerously close, but I was able to keep her at bay. I could also see glimpses of Lilly Matthews ahead of me, who was gradually falling back. Then, on the last lap I noticed a rider coming up fast behind me - I thought it was Maddie again giving her final push, but I was surprised to see that it was Craigie Lee, who was riding very strong. She closed the distance to me quickly and now it was my mistake at the kicker climb that allowed her to overtake me there and pull away. I didn't have enough power left to match her pace and had to let her go. I finally finished the race in 6th position, 4.5min down on the winner Annie Last, who finished the five laps in 1h 58min.

Maddie still chasing

6th place doesn't sound that great, especially in comparison to last year, where I came third, but I am very happy with the result. I pushed hard and rode well, but the competition was just too strong.

Me smiling - I mustn't have been going hard enough....

Full results are available on timelaps.co.uk.

Again, Martyn Salt and his crew from InEvent put on an amazing event, with the field coloured by the many trade stands and team tents attending the race. Thanks also to both Robs for feedzone support.

Racing in Israel - Part 2: Haifa Race

2010-03-17T12:18:00.001-07:00

The next day we headed off to the course in Haifa. Since the race acted as a test-run for the European Champs in June, a few more people had signed up in my category, notable the Polish national team, including Maja Wloszczowska (2008 Olympic Silver medalist, 2009 European Champ) and Aleksandra Dawidowicz (U23 World & European Champion). We set off and from the start it felt as if I went into a blind race. I didn't have a very good start and went into single-track in about 8th position. I made up a few places to 6th place before I hit the first technical rock drop. I went into it full speed, but I misjudged my line and caught my handlebar in the rock on the side and almost took a tumble. Luckily I was able to quickly unclip my foot and hold the fall with my foot, but unluckily my foot hit the ground hard and in a bad position, so that I twisted my ankle and hurt a tendon. I thought this was the end of my race, but after the initial pain subsided I was able to get going again. I had lost a place to Ivonne in the process and Inbar Ronen overtook me shortly after, so that I was back in 8th position. As long as the course was non-technical it was OK to go on, but any slight movement of my ankle put me back into agony. I was so scared of having to dab in the technical sections that I preemptively walked most of them, of course loosing even more time. Finally I finished the race in 7th position, since Asa suffered a flat tire.

In hindsight we should have spent more time pre-riding this far more technical course, one slow lap just wasn't enough, and I'm sure I could have avoided that stupid slip in the first lap, but hindsight is always 20/20 vision. At least I was able to finish the race, even though I am still hobbling 3 days later...

And so ended our Israeli adventure, only to be followed by our adventurous 21 hour trip home that involved 4 separate flights over 5 airports and lost bike bags in Heathrow (again....).

A big thanks to the Syrkin family for arranging and providing lodging, and again Klaus Sonntag for feedzone support. Ryan and I had a very enjoyable time in Israel and everybody we met has been extremely friendly and helpful - we will definitely be back again next year!

Race results available on cyclingnews.com.

Racing in Israel - Part 1: Ma'anit Race

2010-03-16T05:42:00.000-07:00

After the last Sunshine Cup race in Cyprus, Ryan and I flew over to Israel to do the 3rd and 4th race of the Israeli Cup, which were held back to back on the 12th and 13th of March. We arrived in Tel Aviv late on Tuesday evening and stayed overnight in Tel Aviv. When we searched for the place late at night in the quite derelict historic Yemenite quarter near the beach I was fearing for the worst, but all my fears were laid to rest when we were received by the two very friendly proprietors of Eden Guest House. The state of general disrepair of the buildings in this area created a stark contrast to the adorably decorated room, complete with fairy curtains and lit smelly candle lights. The next day we had an amazing feast of the "Israeli breakfast" before heading off to Netanya to visit the Matzman Merutz Specialized workshop.

About a third of the Israeli breakfast

Both Ryan and I had a few things to get fixed and serviced on our bikes - 3 weeks training and racing in the rough countryside of Cyprus were taking their toll - and the Specialized Workshop had kindly offered to get our bikes back into perfect race shape for the two Israeli races. In fact, we - and our bikes - got the real VIP treatment (now we know what it would feel like as a real pro!), every creak and ceased bearing was followed up on and both the front and back shocks were professionally serviced. After a full day of work on our bikes there were again in tip-top condition!

The next day we went to pre-ride the course of the first race in Ma'anit. The course proved to be a fairly flat and fast affair of a few bits of fireroad and a lot of beautiful flowy singletrack. Some of it was through some grassy fields with the rest winding its way through some cooling forest that provided some much needed shade, because it was very hot, over 35 degree Celsius! The singletrack was mainly dried out hardpack dirt and provided a lot of grip, speckled with some rocky sections to test your bike handling skills - all fairly non-technical but a lot of fun!

Israeli "supermarket"

After the pre-ride of the Ma'anit course we drove over to the European Champs course in Haifa, since there would be no time to pre-ride the course before the race due to races being held before ours. Since it was extremely hot (for us), we decided to only do one lap of the course. The course was very different from the Ma'anit course: It was a lot more technical and had a lot more climb, with a few sections of purpose-built bermy and bumpy single-track, with one section reminiscent of a pump-track. It also featured a cross-over bridge and a few techy sections where the single-track crossed back and forth across a rocky hill-side.

Only nine women lined up in the Elite class on race day in Ma'anit, including Ivonne Kraft from Germany, Asa Maria Erlandsson from Sweden and Inbar Ronen, the Israeli National Champion. From the start Ivonne went into the lead, with me closely on her wheel and Asa not far behind us. The pace was comfortable and the three of us separated fairly quickly from the rest of the field. It was so much fun to hit the single-track at full speed! Unfortunately I made a few small mistakes, and each time Asa came close to my wheel in those but I was able to keep ahead of her. I also came close to Ivonne Kraft a few times, but wasn't able to overtake her. We stayed in this formation until lap 4 out of 5 laps, when Asa attacked and overtook me. Unfortunately I couldn't follow, it seemed like I had only one speed that day. I finished in this position only half a minute down on Ivonne and 12 seconds down on Asa. Although I didn't feel that I pushed myself very hard in this race I was still satisfied with the result.

Cold beer after the podium :)

Many many thanks to Yusal, Haggai and Adi from the Specialized Workshop (Matzman Merutz) in Netanya for being extremely helpful and professional and giving our bikes the full VIP treatment before the race and for sending a brand new Specialized Epic for standby to the bike shop near the race place, thanks to Ori from the bike shop helping out on short notice when we needed it - we wouldn't have been able to race our bikes without all your help, and Klaus Sonntag for feedzone support.

Race results available on cyclingnews.com.

2010 Cyprus Sunshine Cup Round 3 - Amathous - Agios Tychon

2010-03-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

Maybe it was the number 13 on my race number (113), maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the early morning race start (9:30am) - I did not have a good last Cyprus Sunshine Cup race. The race took place around the ruins of Amathous, on a modified course from last year. It's great setting, right by the sea, but even that didn't make a difference.

I had pre-ridden the course over the few days leading up to the race but I found it hard to get friends with it: it was a very bumpy, rocky course with some steep power sapping climbs, thank god I ride a full sus. Almost all of it was single-track, with few overtaking opportunities. I just couldn't get into a flow.

Women's start

I started off feeling well and held on to the lead group through the fast start loop and through most of the first lap. It was quite hot and I had difficulty finding a place to drink because the track required both hands on the handlebar for most of it. From the second lap on I felt as if I was going to get sick. On the climbs then I started feeling fainty and cold all of a sudden - the same way I have felt in the World Cup in South Africa last year. I went into survival mode from lap 2 out of the 5 laps. I think this was the closest I was to quitting a race because I felt so sick, but the encouragement of my friend Alan around the course and the possibility of an overall podium place kept me going. As I went slower and slower with each lap I was caught by more racers and I could do nothing but let them go. I was glad to be finished after almost 2hours of riding.

The men starting behind the ruins of Amathous

In the end I finished in 13th position (my start number position....) - not a great result, but better than no result. I have no idea what went wrong, I just felt sick and could barely finish the race. My lap times also show that something wasn't right, with a 4min deterioration from 21.07min in the first lap to 25.07min in the last lap, 2min slower than my 2nd last lap. Usually my lap times are fairly consistent with my last lap being the 2nd fastest after the first lap!

With this result I thought I had lost my chances to be on the overall podium, but I just made it onto 5th overall. It was very close though: one place higher in my last race and I would have been 4th overall, one place lower and I would have been 6th.

Overall Cyprus Sunshine Cup women's podium: Sue Clarke (GBR), Janka Stevkova (SVK), Annika Langvad (DEN), Alexandra Engen (SWE), Melanie Spath (GER) (l-r)

Full results on cyclingnews.com

Freecaster.tv is showing a replay of the live-broadcast of the men's event and the awards ceremony afterwards - you can see me running to the podium at around 1h 11min into the video :).

2010 Cyprus Sunshine Cup Round 2 Stage 3 - Macheras Mountains (XCO)

2010-03-01T03:56:00.000-08:00

The last stage of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup Round 2 was a normal lapped cross country race, around the same course as the time trial 2 days earlier. The women had a startloop + 3 laps, which is one lap less than last year, probably due to the adverse weather conditions. It basically didn't stop raining for the whole race and the descents turned into muddy slides with rivers flowing down.

My whole aim for the race was to beat Julie Krasniak by half a minute, because that would pull me up one place in the General Classification. The next girls up were over 4min ahead of me and fast, and it was unlikely for me to beat those girls AND make up that much time on a shorter race. I was also about 3min ahead of the next girl down, so as long as I kept my position, there was no danger for them to overtake me in GC.

Still hanging on to the chase group

I had a good start and made sure to get ahead of Julie early and worked on increasing my gap to her. A group of about 5 girls had formed chasing after the two leaders, Annika Langvad (DEN) and Elisabeth Brandau (GER) who had gone out front from the start. Unfortunately I couldn't hang on with the group and lost touch in the first proper lap. Then I crashed on lap two on a really slippery downhill bit (leaving me with a nice bruise on my leg and on my cheek from where I hit a rock), but my bike was OK and I could go on. I had a bit of a fun battle with Ekaterina Anoshina (RUS) during most of the race and at one time managed to get ahead of her into one of the singletrack sections in the last lap, but she stuck to my wheel and overtook me again in the last singletrack section. She was too strong for me.

In the end I came in 7th place, just after Ekaterina, and placed 6th in the general classification. I am really looking forward to the last race of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup next weekend!

Thanks to Boerje from Cycle-in-Cyprus for feedzone support.

Results and General Classification are available on cyclingnews.

All photos used in Cyprus race reports Copyright by Armin Kuestenbrueck.

2010 Cyprus Sunshine Cup Round 2 Stage 2 - Macheras Mountains

2010-02-27T09:27:00.000-08:00

Start of the women's race followed by masters and juniors

Today was the 2nd stage of round 2 of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup. The race was a point to point race on the same course as last year.

My bike run perfectly after Ryan put on the new cassette and chain rings half an hour before the race. And the weather was nice and warm again, too! The start went OK and I tried to catch the group of girls just ahead of me, but just couldn't get myself to push that little bit harder to close the gap. So I was riding around most of the course by myself. And I really started enjoying myself once I hit the singletrack climb. I almost caught up with some of the girls in front, but again just couldn't go harder. I had a lot of fun on the super long single track descent, going so much faster than last year. I absolutely loved it!

Sue Clarke (GBR) entering the long single-track descent

I took it relatively easy to the finish too, and arrived with a huge smile on my face - I definitely didn't go hard enough, but at least it was a lot of fun!

Thanks to Marios and Polys for getting the chain rings and cassette to us just in time, Thomas for the tools to put them on, and Harry and Friedl for the feedzone support.

I came in 7th, improving on my General Classification by 3 places. Results up here.

Mtb-live.com has again captured some post race reactions.

2010 Cyprus Sunshine Cup Round 2 Stage 1 - Macheras Mountains

2010-02-26T09:34:00.000-08:00

Here's just a quick update from today's first stage of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup 3-day stage race. Today was the time trial: one lap of a cross country loop. The weather was absolutely awful with constant rain during the race and it was cold enough too (relatively). I was riding well, and had no problems on the descents, but I made one big mistake and that was not having my bike in perfect condition. In summary: Chain suck sucks! I came 10th in the end, 2min45sec down on the leader in a less than half an hour race.

I am pretty annoyed at myself because I was already getting really bad chain suck on my training yesterday in the same awful conditions - both rings are a little worn and the fine sand just clogged up the rest. I should have changed out both the granny and middle rings last night, but we couldn't find any in that short time and the hope that it'll all be just fine if I just clean everything really well and oil the chain really well prevailed. But it did happen again. Even before I started the race it was bad, so we tried a quickfix of taking out a chain link to make the chain a little shorter and tighter, but to no avail. I had to run up every hill and had to pedal carefully on the flats, finishing almost fresh as a daisy. Argh!

So a few emergency calls to some Cypriot bike shops later and we will be buying two brand new chain rings and a brand new cassette that will be delivered to the race venue tomorrow morning before the race and we already have a brand new chain here as well to put on. At least I'll go into the race tomorrow knowing that this is the best that I could do to prepare my bike. Rant over.

Full results here.

Some rider's reactions after the TT on mtb-live.com.

2010 Cyprus Sunshine Cup Round 1 - Voroklini

2010-02-21T10:54:00.000-08:00

Woman's podium :)

Wow, that was HARD! The first race of the season is always hard, but this one seemed so much harder again than any first race in any season. It didn't help that the race organizers had added another lap to this course, so that my race was 2h 4min long!

There were 20 girls in the women's Elite race, with a high profile field, including the vice U-23 world champ and several national champs, most of them using these races as early season race prep. Each of the 5 laps had 240m of climb and boy, the climbs were tough. There were some power sapping steppy climbs, some technical singletrack climbs and some draggy fireroad climbs, with some granny gear kicker climbs strewn in for good measure. Hell, it felt like you were climbing almost all of the time! But maybe that also had to do that whatever height you gained was lost in no time on the super steep technical descents, featuring amongst them the famous dry riverbed descent that has seen many a man walking.

Women's start

Anyhow, back to the race and the feeling of lactate acid filling up your legs and turning them to leady jelly. I didn't have the greatest of starts but did my best to stick with the lead group of about 6 girls. While the front few girls pulled away from the first lap, Alexandra Engen (SWE), Sue Clarke (GBR) and I were ding-donging for about a lap before I managed to slowly pull away from them both. I was able to increase my gap and even when my legs started cramping up in the last lap I was able to stay away to cross the line in 4th place - I am so so happy to have had such a good start into the new season.

Having fun on the techy descents

One thing that was very different this year was that I felt really comfortable on the technical descents. It felt like something has clicked in my head - and I rode all of them well controlled and relaxed, possibly even making up time on them. I cannot explain what happened, since a lot of my recent training has not been very technical, but I really enjoyed them. So far so good :)

Thanks again to Frederick for doing the bottles - this year with ZipVit Energy drink - it seemed to work well in the race :)

Results on cyclingnews.com

It's time again...

2010-02-20T05:17:00.000-08:00

... to start the racing season. Ryan and I have arrived in Cyprus two days ago to take part again in the Cyprus Sunshine Cup. This is the first mtb race of the season, so we are both very excited. While Ryan has done the Cyclocross season in Ireland, I've practically not raced since the end of last year. The first race of the season is always awaited with great nervousness, you don't know if you have improved since last year and how the legs will react under a full out race effort.

The first race of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup takes place in Voroklini tomorrow, on virtually the same course as the last race of last year's Cyprus Sunshine Cup. Ryan and I have been pre-riding the course yesterday and today. Last year I was quite scared of the steep and technical descents and "locked up" completely when I was on the bike, being reduced to tears on one particularly tricky drop (which was later taken out of the race), but this year I was riding all of them without a bother (OK, they did make some sections a little bit easier). The course now flows really well and I am particularly happy about being able to ride down the riverbed in a controlled and relaxed manner. This part of the course has not been changed, and seeing some guys walking it is an indication that I may actually have improved. I feel a lot more comfortable on steep and technical descents this year, which is strange, since I spent most of my past while on the road bike or on rollers. I am looking forward to tomorrow!

Again, the profile of riders taking part in this prestigious race series is high, owing to the excellent organization and race course design by the race organizers. Taking part in the cup will be title defender and U-23 silver medallist at the world champs Alexandra Engen (Swe), Lisi Osl (Aut) from the central Pro Team, Anja Gradl and junior European champion of 2008, Mona Eiberweiser, Julie Krasniak (Fra/Team Look), Janka Stevkova (Svk/CK Epic Dohnany), Barbara Benko (Hun/Rothaus-Cube) and Alla Boyko (Ukr) in the Elite women's race. I've already seen a few of the names training on the course and with this calibre it's not going to be a soft ease into the new season....

I'll try and put up a little video that I took from the last bit of the riverbed descent later on. Oh, and it's 24 degrees and sunny... ;)

New Toy - Training with Power

2010-01-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

WKO+ - I never thought that these 3 letters + could keep me so entranced! For Xmas I got two round things with something very expensive in the middle - one of them was my engagement ring and the other one a PowerTap, kindly partly sponsored by Saris (the tap, not the ring - in both senses). And since I got the PowerTap I have been fascinated with basic physics .... (oh, and I've been looking at wedding dresses too).

Anyhow, a power meter's worth really comes out at data analysis. While last year I was able to swindle my way through a drill because my heart rate stayed up, the PowerTap now tells me exactly (often to my chagrin) when I am slacking off (for my coach to clearly see). Anyhow, apart from instant power and average power, the best you can get out of the PowerTap is by using software called WKO+. I could spend hours analyzing my data (also because I still don't know my way round the software properly and it uses quite advanced training concepts). My favourite analysis is that of TSS points (Training Stress Score, it basically estimates how hard your ride was, taking into account your personal power limits and current fitness level). This means different rides for the same cyclist and the same ride for different cyclists become comparable, by comparing TSS points - so finally Ryan believes me that I had a hard spin when I tell him I had a hard spin. Recording TSS points over time, the software then creates graphs that give you an estimation of the ATL (Acute Training Load), CTL (Critical Training Load) and TSB (Training Stress Balance) (which can be very roughly translated into fitness, form and fatigue)

Here's mine for the last while:

pink = acute training load
blue = critical training load
yellow = training stress balance

Reading the graph from left to right: In the beginning I was very refreshed (yellow high) and not very fit (pink low) (Irish snowy winters apprehended me from training much) and my form (blue) was so la la. Here in Gran Canaria, I was able to put in a few long and hard training sessions, so my fitness, or acute training load (pink line) went up high, but of course it made me more tired (sending the yellow line down), but already the results are showing an increase in my form (blue line). I took two recovery days in a row, which sent the pink line down dramatically.

The long-term aim towards the racing season is to increase form (blue line up), which can only be done by doing lots of training (pink up), but doing lots of training means you become more tired (yellow down). For an actual race you want the acute training load to be low (pink low) and be refreshed (yellow up), which can be achieved by taking it easy before the race, without too much of a decrease in form.

Another great side effect of the PowerTap is that it can pretty accurately measure how many calories you burn for each ride. In detail, it shows the amount of kiloJoules needed to generate a certain wattage for a certain time (1 Joule = The work required to continuously produce one watt of power for one second; Wikipedia). And since the body looses about 3kJ to heat for each 1kJ put into the pedals (only the latter is measured by the PowerTap), your kJ burned in your ride is 4x the number it shows. BUT, since food is still measured in kiloCalories, and 1kCal is approx 4kJ, you can divide that number again by 4 to get the number of calories burnt - in effect the number of kJ shown corresponds roughly to the number of kCals burnt (which decides if I order icecream for dessert or stick to an orange).

And I finally know how hard I am supposed to really go during any drill (harder), since I've done an abbreviated test of the abbreviated functional threshold power (FTP) test (I ran out of uphill). FTP is defined as the maximum power (threshold) that one can put out over one hour. So to find out your personal FTP you ride as hard as you can for an hour - OR, you do the abbreviated test: ride 20min as hard as you can and then estimate your FTP to be 0.95 of that power number). One of the aims for endurance type sports is to improve this FTP. This number can then be used to determine your training zones by power (Active Recovery (AR), Endurance (E), Tempo (T), Threshold (TH) V02Max (VM) and Anaerobic Capacity (AC)), enabling you to plan your training even more accurately. Supposedly you get most bang for buck doing tempo training.....

Now my eyes aren't glued to the heart rate meter any more, but rather to the wattage meter. In fact, I have almost completely abandoned training by heart rate and replaced it with training by power. Long live the PowerTap!

First training ride in the warmth this year

2010-01-13T09:58:00.000-08:00

Yes, Ryan and I decided to go back to Gran Canaria this year for some good winter training in the sun. The weather in Ireland has been so bad with almost 3 weeks of snow and freezing temperatures that it was hard to get good training in. We went back to the same place in Vecindario, Gran Canaria and it's weird how familiar we still are with the place from last year; we are staying in almost the same flat and even the owner from the crepe place recognized us. It's also great to do the same rides as last year and compare. And oh my god, it is so much easier to train in the sun - even just from a preparatory and post-ride perspective, I've reduced the amount of individual items of clothing to wear from 31 in Ireland to 8 here.

I was out for 3.5 hours today with 1800m of climb and could have gone on for a lot longer. I also did a bit of a power test up a hill to see where I am at, but I think I am still not back to full throttle after the travel yesterday and the change in climate (over 20 degrees of difference!!), so at least it's an easy target to beat. The climbs seem shorter than last year and the temperatures are higher too (22 degrees and blue skies). And just to make ye all feel even better, I think I'm already getting a tan line... ;)
Anyhow, I better get back to my PhD work or else! ;)

I'm the little spec in the middle of the photo...

Breaking news!!!!

2010-01-11T04:20:00.000-08:00

Snow in the Wicklow Mountains

So many things have been happening since the end of the 2009 season, so here's a little update about what has been going on since then.

After the season I took it easy for the month of October after breaking the female record for cycling the Wicklow Way in one go (and coming dangerously close to the male record broken by Ryan a year beforehand ;)). November and December were very busy months with regards to college work and the crappy weather here in Ireland made it hard to keep training consistent. I have been on the turbo trainer a lot more than usual due to the weather. A broken rear derailleur on my training mountain bike meant it was out or action for a little while too, but Ryan offered me to use his bouncy bike, which is a lot of fun to ride.

We are proud to announce that ZipVit have agreed to come on board as our new nutritional sponsors this year, and a pallet load of ZipVit energy drink, recovery drink, gels and bars arrived on Monday, just in time for our winter training camp in Gran Canaria. In our short time working with ZipVit so far we have been very impressed with their product and professionalism. And of course it feels great to be supported by the same people that sponsor the Cervélo Test Team - my dream road team if I ever became a professional roadie.

ZipVit delivery :)

On a similar note, we are very happy and thankful for our friend Stewart Carr for offering his services as physio therapist to us, which our ever tired legs are gladly accepting.

Another big news was Ryan's and my engagement on the 23rd of December, just in time before xmas when we could announce the news to the family. Team Ryan and Mel are going stronger and stronger :)
Just wondering how I will juggle cycling, PhD AND wedding planning...

I said yes :)

Finally, there has been a lot of snow in Ireland and it was very cold for the last few weeks. Almost every spin I have come home freezing and with hands and feet like iceblocks, so I am glad we are travelling to Gran Canaria soon for our winter training camp. It is a lot easier to do a few hours endurance riding in the sun than in the miserable weather in Ireland, even just from a motivational point of view. We would have left for GC even earlier, only Ryan was supposed to take part in the Irish National Cyclocross champs which were later cancelled due to poor road conditions that would have made it problematic for many to travel to the race.

Riding in the snow is tiring!

Thanks Everyone

2009-10-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

It's the end of the 2009 season and I'm already looking forward to 2010. But before I do, I want to say a few words of thanks.

Ryan and I have both had a very successful year topped off two weeks ago with us winning Cycling Ireland's Male and Female Cyclist of the Year awards. There was a few rocky periods, with Ryan's broken collarbone and me being raced out in the middle of the season, but it all came back together for us to finish the season wanting more - what more can you ask for? While Ryan is now enjoying cyclocross, I will hold off racing until the Cyprus sunshine cup to be fresh.

Stunning Cavan Crystal Vases we won for Male/Female Cyclist of the year

Being unfunded privateer racers with full time job/PhD we really rely on the help of other people and companies to allow us to race and train the way we do. We both put everything from a time, financial and energy point of view into what we are doing and these people allow us to stretch that as much as possible.

First off, and most importantly we would like to thank Cycleways - Shane, Francis and the mechanics Michael and Conrad (well, everyone in there really - it is always nice popping in and getting a cheery "how are you") have helped us time and time again, whether it was sorting us out with the best race bikes out there (our Specialized S-Works Epics), fixing things we couldn't figure out, finding parts that are hard to find or just giving us great advice and encouragement - it is hard for us to say how much we appreciate the help without sounding cheesy! Thanks guys - we owe you a lot!

Specialized - we mostly dealt with Specialized through Cycleways but they were always great at supplying us with all the best race kit available. It is always possible to debate the best XC race bike whether it is a hardtail or full suspension or what type of suspension works best but one thing you can never argue with (if you tried them and if they fit you) is their shoes and helmets - we both love them.

TorQ, for the second year have been a huge support to Ryan and I. For any race we raced in the UK, we always looked forward to meeting Sasha and Matt and catching up. Not only do they make great products, but they are genuinely really nice people too. Ryan and I have always enjoyed being part of the team - especially the BBQs after TwentyFour/12 :)

KCNC/Clee Cycles - Ryan talked about KCNC products earlier in the week which I have also started using since last year. This year was the first year that we got some direct support. Andy from Clee Cycles was great to work with and they also have their own successful shop team too.

Schwalbe Tires - like Ryan I started using them when they came on a bike I bought and have not looked back since. My usual race setup is a Rocket Ron in front and a Racing Ralph on the back - which seems to be a common setup amongst Elite racers. Chris from Schwalbe was always amazing at making sure we had everything we needed and some...

We would also like to thank the following companies who have supported us in some way over the last year: Crankbrothers, Saris (for Ryan), Garmin and Physio Dynamics. Servicing pedals, telling Ryan his power output, pointing us in the right direction or fixing us after an incident - these guys helped make our season roll along smoothly.

Lastly, we would also like to thank everyone in the Irish mountain biking community - it has only been a couple of years since we started (and yes, we were non cyclists when we first met) but we have always been made feel so welcome from day one and encouraged along the way. It means a lot to us - thanks guys, and see you on the trails :)

Cycling the Wicklow Way in one go

2009-10-10T03:26:00.001-07:00

Start of the Wicklow Way in Marley Park, Dublin

For one last time I was going to take out my race bike before putting it away for the winter. This is my report about cycling the Wicklow Way in one go.

The Wicklow Way from Dublin to Clonegal

For those who don't know the Wicklow Way, it's a 127km (other sources say 132km, Garmin says somewhere inbetween) walking track that leads from Marley Park in Dublin straight over the Wicklow Mountains all the way down south to Clonegal in Carlow. It goes over or around the likes of 2Rock, Prince Willies, Powerscourt Ridge, Djouce, Glendalough, Mullacor, Glenmalure and Slieve Maan. The total climb you do is about 4,000 meters, with most of it happening over the first half (the last big ascent is Slieve Maan, out of Glenmalure Valley, just after the halfway mark). The Wicklow Way is mainly off-road with a good bit of fire-road, some very hairy and tricky descents (Prince Willies and Powerscourt Ridge) some hike-a-biking (some of Slieve Maan's ascent) and some more tarmac road sections towards the end. The second half is a lot tamer and easier with less climb and more road.

Garmin profile of Wicklow Way (first half skewed due to rain, only active time shown)

Ryan set a very good target last year - actually almost exactly one year ago - of 8h 17min (read an account of his attempt on his blog, a drama in 3 parts :) - Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3).The previously recorded fastest female and male cycling time was 12h 4min achieved together by Beth McCluskey, Peter O'Farrell, Paul Mahon and Eoin Keith - albeit they admit that the offer of culinary delights from their supporters, the lure of cool pints at Glenmalure Lodge and the amazing vistas along the way were the reasons that held them back - although I found another view on this thread... ;)) Last year Ryan wanted to set a strong benchmark with his record for the male time, this year it was my turn to benchmark a fast female time.

Wicklow Way signs

To avoid the dangers of beautiful vistas slowing me down, I decided to do the Wicklow Way on a bad day with little visibility instead, allowing myself a nutrition of gels and bars only and just enough rain to not get lured into the beer garden of the infamous Glenmalure Lodge. Well no, I obviously would have liked to do the Wicklow Way on a sunny, dry, windstill day, and in fact the whole 2 weeks beforehand had been sunny, dry and windstill - which is an anomaly for Irish weather. I was planning to avoid the problems that Ryan had encountered: due to a period of constant rain (summer didn't show up for the whole of last year in Ireland), a lot of the course for Ryan during the 2nd half of the way had become a softened mud pit. Ryan had the unfortunate task of wading through knee-deep mud on flat terrain, which, in the dry, would have been very fast indeed.

Descending down to the tarmac road towards Johnny Fox's

Anyhow, with the recent drought in Ireland I thought I'd be spared from mud and I decided to do it on the Saturday, 3rd of October, the only suitable day really for Ryan and me. However, unfortunately for this only day in the whole week the weather decided to take a turn for the worse. Forecasts predicted strong westerly to north westerly winds and even rain. I kept checking and rechecking and cross checking, but all websites actually agreed on their forecast of strong sideways gusty winds and rain. Pah, I thought, that little bit of wind won't throw me off my way!

On tarmac road towards Johnny Fox's

And so it was that at just before 9am on Saturday morning Ryan and I turned up in Marley Park in unpenetrable mist and strong sideways gusts and a miserable drizzle. I just thought I'd be crazy to do it in this weather. My spirits dropped and I was hoping for Ryan to tell me not to go and to postpone it to another day. But nothing came from him except for a questioning look. Hmmm, I thought, the chance that we'll have another dry spell like this anytime soon is probably nil. So with the weather about to change I thought that this was probably my last chance to do it this year with the daylight getting shorter and the constant Irish rain setting back in. It would also be difficult to find another suitable date for the two of us. And so I made up my mind. I'm doing it. At the strike of 9am I turned on my Garmin and switched into race mode.

Lough Tay after Djouce

For logistical support, Ryan was to drive to the places where the way crosses the tarmac road and give me a new bottle of drink and more food, just as I did for him last year.

Beautiful autumn colours

The first bit after the Park was along the M50 against the wind. This stretch of road at the bottom of the mountains gave me a taster of what to expect on the top of the hill. Against what felt like 100km headwinds I churned my pedals until I turned south up Kilmashogue Lane. I know the Kilmashogue climb well, as it is one of my training and testing hills. Another turn east and I was zigging up the hill. The pleasant surprise was that the climb was well protected from the wind and it was almost windstill until just before the top. I was going fairly well until I hit the top where I had to turn south again and the westerly wind almost blew me off my bike. It was so strong and gusty that it almost took my breath and I constantly veered towards the ditch beside the new Wicklow Way section. It made cycling over the gullies too dangerous, so that I had to get off the bike on almost all of them and push it over. Then, when I turned west again to zag along the rocky path towards Tibradden, I was hit by the brunt of the wind head on with full force. I couldn't go hard enough to maintain speed and had to push my bike over some of the more technical sections that I would usually ride over with closed eyes. And this was going to be the theme for the rest of the way. Each 'zig' was a bit of a tail wind or protected from the mountain, while each 'zag' section brought on a headwind that forced tears in your eyes. I thought I was going backwards on that section! Then I met some encouraging MAD people on the descent to the road - but all I could reply to their cheering was: This is miserable!! I was seriously considering to stop my attempt when I met Ryan on the road towards Johnny Foxes, thinking it would be crazy to continue. But then Ryan said that I was only about 2min behind his split from last year. That was enough to keep me going for a little while longer.

Riding in the pissing rain

With Ryan's experience and record of 8h 17min from last year and the previous time of 12h 4min, I was being conservative with my estimate and planned on finishing in and around about 10hours - I was secretly hoping to finish just under it, but I didn't want to get my hopes up too much. 10hours meant with a 9am start I should be at the finish in Clonegal at 7pm, just after sunset. I had no idea what to expect, my previous longest off road cycle was about 6.5hours in a UK 100km off-road marathon. I've had experience with ultra-endurance events, such as the Wicklow 200 cycle sportif on the road or the 24h Rogaine (mountain orienteering event) or 24hour adventure races, but I've never before cycled more than 100km or 6.5hours off-road by myself, so this was entering a bit of nomansland. Nutritionwise I decided to mainly live off TorQ gels and bars and TorQ Energy drink. I threw in a few Nutrigrain bars and some "real" food like jelly babies and savoury bagels and salty nuts, not knowing what my taste buds might demand after 8 hours of riding.

Great view from Glenmalure Valley

Up Prince Willies and along the top were uneventful. Most of it was protected against the wind, so there was only mist and drizzle to keep me company. I had to hike my bike most of the way down the rock slabs of Prince Willies. When I met Ryan at the bottom of Cloon, I heard that I was still only 8min off his time. A quick pee stop and off over Knockree and along the river in the valley before the ascent up Maulin towards Powerscourt Ridge, overlooking the gorgeous Powerscourt Waterfalls. Except that today the beautiful waterfalls were only visible when the layers of drizzle and grey cleared for a few seconds. The wind blew me around again at the top and I carefully hiked my bike over the very slippery and rooty trail and down the rock step descent towards the Dargle River.

Almost half way

Then it was another push-a-bike section back out of the valley. When I hit the top where the path turns east over the turnstile, I had a fantastic push up the slope from the wind - until I turned south again over the next turnstile to cycle up the grassy path along the foot of Djouce. Here the wind was pushing hard sideways in gusty spits and I had trouble pointing my bike into the correct direction. It wasn't getting any better along the single track towards the sleepers and I had to resolve to push my bike over any technical section, just because I didn't have enough control over my bike.

65km done, 65km to go!

Up at the start of the sleepers the mountain is at its most exposed and the wind and drizzle were blowing horizontal with ridiculous force. My eyes were bleeding tears, my breath was shallow and the skin on my face was flapping like on a 100m runner. This part of the mountain tends to be fairly windy even in good weather - there seems to be some weird channeling effect from the surrounding mountains - if there is no wind anywhere in the country, you can still find some here. I wasn't able to even put my bike onto the boardwalk without the wind lifting it back off! What a stupid idea of deciding to ride the way in this weather! The only good thing was that the bog on either side of the sleepers had largely dried out due to the recent dry weather, so that I could push/cycle/fall off/be pushed into the grass sideways/get back off/align bike southwards/repeat my way along the boardwalk.

Hike-a-bike on the top of Slieve Maan

Unfortunately the 2nd boardwalk section just at the top of Ballinastoe did not allow for cycling along the side, so it was another push and hike-a-bike section until I hit the forests of Ballinastoe and the protection of the trees. I was near tears and frozen to the bone when I finally saw Ryan waiting for me at the car park overlooking the beautiful Lough Tay.

Disappearing into yet another forest

I layered up and with my splits still within 10% slower than Ryan's I decided to go on. Djouce would have been the most exposed area and it should get better from now on. The weather forecast had also predicted an improvement of the weather during the day, with wind and rain dying down - I really hoped they were right. The next bit was still fairly wet but less windy. With Lough Tay far below me I ripped down the tarmac road and then right into the fire road. I turned right again into a single trail where a tree branch almost ripped my helmet off my head and then it was down towards Lough Dan. A bit more fire road, field crossings, tarmac and a trail along the top of a mountain and I was entering the forests towards Glendalough. A small mistake along some singletrack due to misleading signage and I was on the last climb up the fireroad before descending into Glendalough Valley. Finally, I arrived at Glendalough car park in good time for another pit stop.

If I did more cyclocross I could have jumped it...

The next bit involved a bit of slaloming around the Glendalough walkers, that have been out in droves despite the bad early weather. Fortunately though, the weather started picking up from here on and I even felt the sun on my face for a bit. I tried to look very unsuspicious when I passed a ranger's car (the Wicklow Way leads through parts of the Wicklow National Park and you are not meant to cycle on it).

Still going the right way

And so I pushed my bike up the steep steps along the waterfall to reach the fireroads ascending from the valley. Here it was less busy and I made good progress. The sun was shining and I was getting warm from the effort. Most of the forest was fairly protected against the wind as well, so I was feeling good. But soon I was starting to feel the climb in my legs. I went into auto-mode and kept churning up the hill. I felt I was going slower and slower. Finally I hit the board walk section contouring around Mullacor. Here the mountain was again fairly exposed, but it was a lot less windy now. I was able to cycle most of the boardwalk until I slipped and face planted into a soft muddy patch. The taste of blood in my mouth wasn't great, but it was just a bit of bleeding inside my lip. I swiped the mud of my face and walked on. I also had to walk down the really technical steep and rocky descent to the fireroad. Once at the bottom I was able to rip down the zig zagging fireroad - only held up by a herd of sheep I ended up chasing down the road - to arrive safe and sound at the half way mark in Glenmalure valley. Ryan was already waiting for me and informed me on my splits: I was now about half an hour behind his time last year. My feelings were confirmed, I really had been crawling up the hill. I filled up on food and also decided to take a ham bagel with me to get some "real" food into me.

A bit of tarmac for a change

Ryan had said the next climb up Slieve Maan will take me about 40min. I thought this was a very optimistic estimate regarding my last crawl speed climb. But this was at least the last substantial climb of the day. Again I went into auto-mode to forget about the pain and concentrated on eating my bagel instead. Real food, eh? It took me almost 40min to eat that bagel! I just couldn't get to chew the bagel properly. I ended up taking bites and swallowing them in whole with the help of my water. Another hike-a-bike section up a particularly steep, tricky and boggy bit and a bit more fireroad and I was finally at the top. Another hike a bike section through some deep bog through the forest towards the road and when I came out of the forest, I could already see Ryan standing down the road with his camera in hand waiting for me.

Country side in south Co. Wicklow

Just as for Ryan, now started that part of the Wicklow Way that I didn't know apart from where it crosses the road and I had given support to Ryan the year before. All of the sections before I had ridden multiple times one time or another. But now it was entering the unknown. Thank god I had Ryan's GPS track - it took away the fear of overlooking a sign and taking a wrong turn.

Last off-road section

The next few sections of the Wicklow Way were generally sections of fireroad up and down a hill in the forest and before hitting an intervening bit of tarmac before the next fireroad section. I was feeling good and the weather had become nice with little winds and the sun shining. Finally I reached the section that almost broke Ryan last year: a section of cattle trails that can turn into knee deep mud in the wet and become completely unrideable. That was one of the reasons why I had decided to do the Wicklow Way on this day: it had been dry for the last two weeks and I hoped that the trail would be dried out for me. And I was lucky! Apart from a few muddy spots the trail was completely rideable and I was able to keep up a good tempo. In fact, it was actually a very nice bit of trail, winding its way through the man high ferns. The only annoying bit were the 20+ cattle gates I had to climb over on this bit. But finally I was so hot I could take off my big jacket.

Vista over the Wicklow Mountains from the south

I had expected to see Ryan at the next tarmac bit, but he had gone on to the next stop. However, due to my exertions and the warmer weather I had almost emptied my bottle and I was starting to get thirsty.
Thank god the next off road section was also mostly dry, in complete contrast to the bog that Ryan had to wade through and I started enjoying myself. I was getting more and more thirsty and then I was getting confused as to how far I was from our next meeting point. So I called him and asked him where the hell he was?? It turned out that I was only about another few kilometers before our designated meeting point where he waiting for me but he drove up from it anyway to meet me further up. This was the last official meeting point and I only had about 20km to go. Soon I was entering the 2nd last off road section, a quick fireroad spin up a hill and down again. Then the bit along the road where Ryan hit the wall - a particularly steep bit of tarmac. Ryan drove behind me and was shouting encouragement at the really steep hill, except that this was a really steep hill before the REALLY REALLY steep hill. I dropped into my smallest gear on the bike to make it up the really really steep hill - I so didn't want to live with the shame of getting off the bike on this bit. Finally I entered the last off-road section. I was only a couple of kilometers from the finish and I was still well under 9hours.

Coming out of the last off-road section

Wow, I was calculating in my head, I had about x km to go and about xmin to do it in, does this mean I can finish in less than 9hours? A (not so quick) calculation in my head and I thought, yes, I can do that! And I made it into my aim to finish under 9hours. Ryan waited for me where I came out of the last off road section and shouted at me to go go go! I was really fired up now, knowing I had only 4km of pretty flat tarmac road left and enough time to complete the Wicklow Way in under 9hours. And so I put my head down and time trialled the last section towards Clonegal, to arrive at the Wicklow Way end sign with a time of 8h 55min. I just did all of my weekly amount of exercise in one day :)

Proof!

And here it's time to say a HUGE thanks to Ryan who gave up his day to drive all the way around Wicklow to support me in this endeavour.

Done!

Race Report British NPS Round 5 - Newnham Park

2009-09-29T13:24:00.000-07:00

Chilling at the start line before the race :)

I can't believe the season's over!

The last round of the British Mountain Biking Race Series was my last big race this season. And what a race it was! First of all it was a C1 event and attracted a few more than the usual amount of international girls - 12 girls lined up in the Elite Women's Category on Saturday morning just when the sun had dried the morning dew. Of these, 6 were from abroad: we had Aussie rider Kate Potter fresh from a series of international World Cup and World Champs racing, Irish contenders Ciara McManus and Irish National Champ Cait Elliott, Britain based NZ rider Jenn O'Connor, German me, and then of course the biggest star of them all: Norwegian former Olympic, multiple World and European XC and Marathon Champ, Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesja, probably the most successful female mountain biker of all times. The other half of the field was made up of the best of what Britain had on offer: National Champ Sue Clarke, former multiple National Champ Jenny Copnall and riders from the British National team, just to name a few. In summary, one of the best fields in the UK since I started racing. No pressure there now....

Famous by proximity ;)

The race was also important to me because it would decide the final overall series podium. First place was most likely going to Kate Potter who only really needed to complete the race to win the overall. However, Jenny Copnall, Jenn O'Connor and I all had equal points on our 3 best races, so this last round was the deciding round and I was definitely up for a fight.

Unfortunately Ryan and I stayed in an awful B&B with a bed so uncomfortable that I couldn't sleep all night (I did try to sleep on the ground) and woke up groggy and and in a foul mood. On the way to the venue I was just hoping that my legs were more awake than I.

The race was 5 laps of a very dry and very fast course. The main features were a little drop, two river crossings, one of which became deeper as the race went on, a very steep descent (the pipeline) followed by a very steep climb (remember this one!), a few bomb hole sections and a few logs and roots, but nothing scary.

The draggy climb at the start of the lap

I was too tired to be nervous and there was good banter going on at the start row before we concentrated on the last 15 seconds before the gun went off. My plan was to stay with the front few people for as long as possible. Surprisingly the pace wasn't too crazy at the start and I found myself with the front few people on the grassy climb out of the arena. While Kate and Annie set the speed during the first lap, Sue, Gunn-Rita and I were close on their heels. Lap by lap, Kate and Annie however increased the gap on us and Sue, Gunn-Rita and I tried our best to chase them down. Sue managed to pull away from Gunn-Rita and me pretty early and I rode a lap with Gunn-Rita. Then, in lap 3, on the super steep climb I dared to attack and managed to open a small gap on Gunn-Rita. Now my plan was to stay away from Gunn-Rita and try to catch up with Sue. At the end of lap 3 I was almost back on Sue's wheel, but she attacked on the grassy climb at the start of lap 4 and I couldn't follow. Finally I finished the race in 4th position, half a minute behind Sue and over 2min ahead of Gunn-Rita.

Overall Series Podium

I was really happy with my result because it meant I came 2nd in the overall series standing. And of course also because this was probably the only chance in my life to ever beat Gunn-Rita and I did :) (in all fairness, she did become a mother only in April, so is not fully back up to speed). It made my day nonetheless. I'm also really happy because I know now that I can race well even with lack of sleep.

Roll on the off-season!

Short Results for Elite Female
1 Annie Last Halfords - 5 laps in 01:53:58
2 Kate Potter Cotic Bontrager Race Team - 5 laps in 01:54:00
3 Sue Clarke Scienceinsport.com - 5 laps in 01:56:10
4 Melanie Späth Cycleways/TorQ/KCNC - 5 laps in 01:56:43
5 Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesja Multivan Merida - 5 laps in 01:59:30

Full results available on the timelaps website.

British Cycling Report up here.

Race Report UCI Marathon World Championships in Graz, Austria

2009-08-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

Another year and another world champs, this time in Graz, Austria. This time we were smarter and arrived 2 days before the event, to give us a bit of time to get to know parts of the course.

The course this year was very different from last year: it was a lot more technical, both the uphills and the downhills. The uphills tended to be steep and rocky and the steep downhills either rocky or rooty and both were extremely difficult. There were a few uphill and downhill sections that I had to walk. There still was a lot of "easy" tarmac and fireroad to give us a bit of a break, but with some of them at 28% gradient, these did not always provide the necessary relaxation. Usually marathon courses tend to be a bit tamer than cross country courses, but this one was definitely an exception. It was like taking a technical cross country course and stretching it in length and height.

On our arrival day we chatted to the other racers and were told that the last descent is the hardest. So Ryan and I climbed up the mountain to recce it. And yes, it was really hard. For those who have done the UK NPS in Dalby, it was like a tilted version of "Puncture Alley" with lots of sharp wet rocks and little drop offs. It was really fun to ride though, and I found my S-Works Epic was just perfect for it. The constant downpour that evening was definitely going to make this descent even more interesting.

The next day we drove to another village to take the cable car to the highest point of the course to do the whole last descent to the finish. And so we made it up and descended the last 20km from 1438m down to about 400m. The loose rocky steep descents were even harder than the last bit we recced the day before. Another constant rain that evening did not add to my confidence.

Thankfully the rain stopped at night and it was nice and sunny and hot again for the start of the race on Saturday. 54 girls were lined up at the start line. I felt pretty good and well prepared, but was very nervous at the start. My heartrate was up at 130! Finally we were off and meandered towards the 28% tarmac climb. The speed was nice and comfortable, and I was well positioned in the group bracing myself for the climb. As soon as the front few hit the climb the real racing began. However, I didn't even make it that far because when I shifted down into the middle ring my chain went down completely and I had to stop to put it back on. I have no idea why it happened, because everything was working perfectly before and I had no issues later in the race. Anyhow, I just lost all my momentum and had to catch up to group. I steadily made up my places again on the long steep climb and finally reached Ivonne Kraft. I was feeling well, but I told myself to take it easy - I didn't want to burn myself completely on the first climb. When I arrived at the top I could see that the group was already far strung out. I decided to take a steady pace and raced along.

I was able to catch up with New Zealander Jenn O'Connor, resident in the UK and decided to try and stick with her. I've raced with her a lot in the UK and knew that with her experience in marathons she knows how to pace herself well. The race went on well and even though the elastic snapped a few times between Jenn and me, I managed to catch back up to her every time until I missed a bottle in one of the feedzones. It was a hot day and I was afraid I'd run out of water before hitting the next feed zone. I could still glimpse Jenn in front and hoped I'd be able to catch back up to her once I've refilled at the next feedzone. Unfortunately some confusion at the next feedzone meant I lost more time than necessary and had lost connection to Jenn completely, meaning that from about half way through the race I was on my own.

When I finally hit the last climb I had to really concentrate to keep going steadily to make it up to the top. It was hot and I was cooked and it was steep and I was not having a good time. At this stage the men had caught up with us (they had started earlier but had to do an extra loop at the start) and a steady stream of men started overtaking me. I was very relieved when I saw the top and grabbed a bottle with Red Bull from the neutral support. From then on it was mostly downhill bar one uphill walking section. I was very happy that I made it down in one piece without crashing and just before the last few meters of the descent before you hit the finishing circuit, Ryan came up behind me. I was very happy to be finished when I finally crossed the line after 5h 10min of racing, just a few mins behind Ryan (who had a longer course but started a little earlier).

I came 26th, 44min behind the new Marathon World Champion Sabine Spitz. I've improved by 3 positions over last year's World Champs and am closer to the winning time, so I am slowly climbing up the ladder. I had hoped for a better position since I felt well prepared physically, but I just felt as if I'd left my racing head at home. Ah well, there's always next year :)

Thanks to Andy from SportAmed to help us out with the bottles.

Womens Results
1 Sabine Spitz (Germany) 4:24:16
2 Esther Süss (Switzerland) 4:24:17
3 Petra Henzi (Switzerland) 4:27:07
4 Erika Dicht (Switzerland) 4:28:49
5 Elisabeth Brandau (Germany) 4:34:46
6 Pia Sundstedt (Finland) 4:37:25
...
10 Sally Bigham (Great Britain) 4:49:03
...
17 Jennifer O'Connor (New Zealand) 4:59:30
...
26 Melanie Spath (Germany) 5:08:59

Full results can be found on the UCI website.

A report is up on IrishCycling.

There are a few pictures up on the event website.