LL Round 3/ NPS 1- Slade Valley

With exams quickly approaching, I was in two minds whether to enter this race. I couldn’t really afford the time off but then again, I couldn’t bare not to race! As I was working on Saturday, I didn’t get to race the relay on Saturday but all the reports said it was an incredible track with very little fireroad- deadly!

Sunday was an absolute scorcher with temperatures reaching 20 degrees! The expert cat was much bigger than last week so I knew a good start was going to be important. Off we went at 1.30 as hard as possible up the fireroad. The singletrack started early so I knew it would be crucial to get ahead of as many riders as possible early on to get a bit of a gap. I was in a train of four experts as we over took a load of vets early on. James Pittam took the lead with me in second and Tadgh Griffin/ Colm Mullen dicing for third. James pulled away to get a pretty good gap while I couldn’t seem to up the pace anymore. I rode the first two laps really steady and then while sitting in third place at the beginning of the third, I made an attack on James and Colm to get into poll position.




I was leading for most of the third lap before Max from Epic came out of nowhere and powered by me. I couldn’t bridge up to him at all but on the second half of the last lap, I got a second wind and started really gaining on him. In the end he was only 30 seconds ahead of me which was a pity but he really deserved it.

I can’t do a write up on the race without talking about the spectacular course. The amount of work IMBRC put into it really showed with all the tight kickers hardcored and bridges over any holes. It flowed so well in a relentless, ‘no place for recovery ‘kinda way.

With that second place finish, I’m coming first overall in the Leinster League title with 73 points. Unfortunately, I think that’ll be my last race of the year with exams in two weeks and Cape Cod for three months on 25May. I’m almost regretting going away because I’m enjoying the racing so much and feeling stronger than ever but I guess I have another 9 years of experts and wont have so many opportunities to do the go away all summer thing. MASSIVE thanks to the MAD feed zone. They're always unreal. Especially Aine as I ran out of juice on the third lap so she filled one of my bottles with water so I'd have something for the last lap- complete life saver!