I met Oisin at 10.00 and headed up in the van to Carlingford under big black clouds threatening another mud fest. It’s a handy journey, straight up the M1 for an hour and a bit and you’re there. We arrived and got signed on and did a practice lap. I recently started using eggbeaters and didn’t like them at all and with my Shimano peddles out of commission, Oisin kindly lent me a spare set he had. I tried everything but I couldn’t clip into the things! Was chatting with some Epic lads who reckoned the cleats were worn and right they were. Marc from Epic kindly gave me a spare set he had. Really saved the race for me!
The track was really cool. It started with a steep tarmac climb into some sliddery singletrack with a river crossing, then back up the tarmac again and onto a big ring fire road sprint, into a load of amazing off camber singletrack before eventually popping out at the end of the fireroad and having to slog it back to the start area. The race started a bit late which suited me as my pedal woes prevented any warm up. I got a place on the front line and tried to maintain a good position. I got into the singletrack towards the back of the field and preformed some dodgy overtaking maneuvers to get into 9th or so. I felt really strong for the first 3 laps and died a bit on the last one. Managed to pick my way up the field to 6th (thought I was 4th so a little disappointed!) I finished 13miuntes down on the leader which is quite a lot. I guess I’ll have to do more fitness work as I was definitely making up time in the tech singletrack. On the upside, the experts field was particularly savage yesterday with the winner beating the winning master’s time by 6minutes- usually the other way around.
Good points: Felt really strong for all but the last lap. Could manage to bate along the fireroad in the big ring for the first three before resorting to spinning on the last one.
It was a long and tough race but I felt fairly OK at the end. Maybe I could have pushed harder?
Really felt good on the singletrack, think I rode it without a dab for most of the laps.
I beat the lads who have beaten me in the last couple of races. The results don’t really reflect it as there was a load of DNF’s.
The bike feels great after it’s service. It’s nice to be able to be fully confident that it will do everything you want it to without any slips or jumps.
Bad points: I’m still a bit off the winner’s pace.
I don’t have the time with exams looming to sort my climbing speed out.
Up til an hour ago, I thought I came fourth!
Really need to put the head down this week study-wise. Have so much to cover and only two weeks to do it! Can’t wait for some worry free summer-time! Huge thanks to Nick Lannooth's brother for doing bottles and DUCC for their support. Photos by Shay Barry.
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