Wicklow 200

I awoke on Sunday morning at 5:20am to the immediate thought 'why am I doing this?'. As I drove through town watching as people were still struggling home, I kinda wished I was one of them and not on my to do 200km of pain into black clouds. Looking around at the hugely diverse crowd, I could only laugh. There were the shiny leggeded pro types, the fat-10 grand bikes types and of course, the goobers. It was like a goober world gathering. Thousands of them is no exageration! After signing on and meeting up with the guys from MAD, we rolled out at 7:20 and began the route which took us through Eniskerry before going up the Sally Gap, Wicklow Gap, Donard, Rathdrum and a load of other places before returning to UCD. I stuck with Paddy and Oisin for the first couple of hours while we were feeling strong and passing loads of people. At the first stop (90KM), I re-grouped with Oisin and split with Paddy and continued on trying to stay in as many roadie packs as possible. It was a cool feeling being dragged along at 30km/h for ages while barely doing any work. All the details are a bit fuzzy for reasons I will explain later but I hit Slieve Maan by mysef and struggled up it (although I did a fair bit better than the roadies. They're not the best at climbing for the most part it would seem!) A quick gel and some drink at the top and I met Luke from Trinity Tri Club. I was really glad of the company and he kept me upbeat while we climbed Shay Elliot. I barely noticed this climb go by thanks to the company! We managed to latch onto a group of complete savages for the guts of 30KM to bring us to the last feed station in Rathdrum. We picked up Oisin who had stopped for a puncture and continued on into a headwind to finish out the last 60KM. We were about 5.5hours in at this point. Within five minutes of leaving Rathdrum, I knew I was spent. I couldn't even spin on the flats and my stomach started cramping up really badly. Oisin and Luke were a fair bit ahead in no time and latched onto a slow group thinking that I would catch up but it was not to be.

The next 60km were an absolute nightmare. The stomach cramps continued and got worse and worse. A small pull I had on my left knee earlier started to become really painfull and I was by myself with a horrible head wind bearing down on me. It must have been 40miuntes before Paddy and a large, quick group caught up to me and I stuck on the back. I gave it everything and kept with them for about 15KM before my stomach pains became too bad and I had to drop off. I met a sound mountain biker ar Balliastoe that rode with me for a while and kept my spirits up- thanks man! All the little rolling hills that I was powering up earlier in the day seemed like Everest now. The final 30kms are a complete blur of pain and suffering but I finally made it back to UCD in a little over 8hours. To say I was shattered is an understatement. I have never felt so drained and stiff in my life. If was such a relief to be finished but not so much in an achievement kind of way. More of a, I'm so happy that pain is over.

Would I do it again? I really don't know. I enjoyed flying along in huge packs and had some great chats with complete strangers about how painful the whole thing was. However, there was a lot of really boring hours, even before I bonked. Too many in fact. Also, although there were lots of nice guys riding, there were some absolute assholes. I know its a generalisation but a lot of roadies seem stuck up themselves. I got in a fight with some goober over pelethon ethitic for example and seriously considerd pushing him off the road and there were a lot of guys that were too 'PRO' to say hello. I never thought about the event until the night before which was probably a bad idea. My longest distance on road had been 90km before yesterday! I never even bothered buying energy gels or bars which was fool hardy of me and backfired. I woke up as stiff as a board after 9 hours sleep this morning and that pull on my leg is really sore now which is really bad. I had the same injury last year and it took an age to heal so I really hope I'll be feeling strong for the MAD nps on Sunday. I'm really glad I completed but I think I'll do a monster mtb spin next year instead. Much more fun! :-D

NPS Round 6- Lady Dixon Park

Have had a really busy week with work so only getting around to writing this up now. Myself and Fergal headed up to my penultimate round (before I go away) of the XC NPS. The course was rumoured to be very un technical and unridable in the wet and it lived up to one of these rumours. Thankfully, we were greeted to blue skies and 26 degree+ temperatures so the track was bone dry throughout. It was a long lap with the first half comprising of twisty singletrack and the second of a snaking climb through a seeming never ending grass land. I had a decent start and was sitting in 8th or so place with Dave Askin of Lucan CC. We quickly caught up with some other experts and passed them and motored the first 4 laps of 6. I don't think there was ever a minute when my front wheel wasn't inches from his back. Really relentless stuff especially climbing through the grass in the baking sun. Towards the end of the 4th lap, Dave put in a big effort and put a 30second gap on me. I figured that was it for the race but during the 5th lap, I caught up with him on the singletrack and put on my best 'I'm not in much pain at all, I could keep this pace up all day if I wanted face' as I passed him. My acting skills seemed to work as he dropped off and I got a few minutes gap. That was pretty much it for the race, I didn't have the power to catch up with the two lads (Ross and Dave-O) in front and was managing to keep my lead on Dave behind me. The lack of someone to race really showed in my lap times with the last two being a couple of minutes slower than the rest.

Gene (a master from MAD) started chasing me down at the start of the grass climb on the last lap. I pushed as hard as I could to keep him at bay but with 200m to go, he powered passed me. I'll get him next time! I finished with my best result of the season, 5th. I was a good few minutes off first place but slightly reassuringly, 3rd and 4th place were only a few minutes ahead so might be able to bridge that gap by MAD Nps 7. Big thanks to Alison Boydell for doing a great job doing bottles and Trinity for supporting me. I'll post a couple of pictures once I track down the photographers.