The boat was late. Almost 45mins. Somebody tell me how an 8hr boat can be late? Surely you could speed it up like 0.5mph or something to get there on time? After being 48hrs late myself, I didn't exactly have time to throw away, this wasn't great.
Nonetheless, when we finally got docked, opening the door into Norn' Irish air was a pretty dreamy feeling after the last 2 days. Fortunately, the Leon started, and I was finally off on the last leg of my journey, into a beautiful Belfast sunset. Seeing a sunrise and sunset in the same day in the middle of Summer isn't something I'd want to be at all to regularly though! Big fan of sleep!
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I knew Sunday's National Champs were in Killarney. I knew Killarney was down south, but til this point (Thursday night, 22:30, leaving in 9hrs) I hadn't checked how far down South it was. I kind of guessed it wouldn't be pleasant news, so was in no rush to find out, but eventually I thought I better check. I took a deep breath and loaded Google maps up on Drumaghadone Rd's finest 0.5mb/sec broadband. About a 5hr drive. Savage -ly horrific.
Thankfully Cameron McIntyre's dad, Graham had offered to give me a lift, not having to drive down myself was epic! We arrived on Friday afternoon at about 1.30pm and met up with James & Simon Curry who were already there to get a tour of the course.
Man. Sherwood Pines it was not! My first lap was an absolute shambles. Coming from racing Sherwood Pines the week before; 14mph avg. proper flat out grassy field, no hills so no descents kind of stuff, I'd completely forgotten how to ride a bike on Irish uppy-downy tight twisty technical stuff... so I just sat around and complained about my tyre choice. :)
In all fairness though, I had a Bontrager 29-0 on the front and Schwalbe Thunderburt on the back. And it was a little damp.
Anyway, lap 2 was better once I roughly knew what to expect, but we decided that was plenty and finished up for the day. I went off and got my Racing Ralph on the front for Saturday's practice.
Things had dried up on Saturday, and after a bit of a lie in and a nice late breakfast I headed out on course for some more practice. I knew I'd plenty of time, so just tried to treat it like a DH race from the good old days and take it bit by bit, finding the 'best' lines and riding them on repeat til I couldn't do them wrong. Whether they were the best lines or not I don't really know. Gareth Mckee could have probably came down and taken one look around and knocked about 30seconds off a lap, but I was content; just knowing where I'm going is half the battle and would hopefully prevent me doing stupid stuff mid-race.
Myself and Matt Adair had taken a run down to Lidl on Friday night to get some food for the weekend. I'd had my hands on the pasta, the usual cyclist go-to for getting the carbs in, but then noticed that I could get twice the amount of rice for the same price. So 1kg of rice I bought, for about £1.50, and set myself the challenge of trying to get through a family's feeding for a week, in 2 days. Sure why not have 750g carbs in ya. So back from Saturday practice, it was rice time... as was basically every time other than sleep time and bike riding time.
Some heavy rain came early Saturday evening, and this would effect the course massively. I didn't reckon it would be any disadvantage to me as I can handle a bicycle ok, but sunshine & no muddy bikes, kit or eyes is always welcome! There were some support races on on Saturday evening, and the rain had just about stopped again, so I took a dander up to check the state of the course and see how messy bikes were getting. Sure enough it was pretty darn muddy! Bikes and riders coming back plastered in mud. Hopefully the rain would stay away, and the ridiculous heat would come in useful to dry the place out a bit... or everyone who'd done their practice on Saturday afternoon on dusty trails in bright sunshine would be a bit nervous on the start!
Sunday morning rice-time came, so I got that down me and headed up to the course to see what was happening. Things had dried out well overnight, and with our race not until 2pm and no rain forecast, conditions looked like they were going to be pretty similar to Saturday afternoon.
But first, more rice. Lol. Staying at the hostel just a 2min walk from the course made life very easy.
I pulled the fine purple skinsuit on, and got on the bike for a bit of a warmup around 1.30, and soon enough we were being called to the line for gridding. With not doing many Irish NPS rounds this year I was 2nd last on the grid... but with 6 starters and 5 people per row, we managed to fit in all 6 so all was good for everyone. In fact Matt, who was gridded #1, was the furthest from the first corner, I didn't quite understand that one, but I was 2nd closest, so didn't really mind!
Man every time I write a blog I get to this stage and try to remember what was used to start the race. Whistle? Gun? Shout?.. every time I can't remember. I'll leave that to your imagination, rubber duck or something. Anyway, the race was underway. I got clipped in, but not before Sean Feeney and Gavin O'Connell were halfway up the field already. Got chasing and was a comfortable 3rd through the first few downhill corners. The course then looped through the field a bit so I was able to get around everybody on the next uphill.
A good start was crucial as once out of the field it was into tight twisty singletrack with no passing places, you'd be stuck there basically til the course came back into the field again halfway through the lap.
Once out front, I pushed on, not flat out, but at good pace to try and get the gap to 2nd place growing as rapidly as possible. Out of sight out of mind 'n all that. As U23, we'd started off 1min 20 behind the elites, so by the end of the first lap I was already about halfway through the elite field and had over 1min gap to 2nd place U23. Good times! Kept the pace up, trying to pick off all the elites. Graham Boyd, in 4th was next, then had a bit of a boring lap out on my own, but then caught sight of Sean Prendiville and Ray O'Shaunassey battling it out for 2nd & 3rd elite spot and got chasing. Lost a little time on this lap (4/5) getting held up behind back markers on such a tight track, but imagined I had a good lead in the U23 so tried to give people a bit of time to get out of the road.
Got by Sean & Ray towards the end of lap 4, then it was the final lap, 1st U23 and only 19 times National XC Champion Robin Seymour up ahead in the elite race. Sean stuck with me for the first half of the lap, so it was pretty nice to have someone on my tail to keep me pushing on. Coming through the field halfway through the lap I heard Martin Grimley over on the speakers at the start/finish saying that Matt Adair (2nd U23) was just coming through, so I knew I had half a lap - a good 9mins advantage by this stage - this was a pretty nice feeling to say the least! All was left was to cross the line.
As I came into the field for the final time, I'd done it. No more roots or U-turns to navigate, no more drops or jumps, just a ride up a grass hill and turn into the finish straight. STOKED.
U23 Irish XC Champion by almost 10mins, Irish champ for the 4th year in a row, and 35secs faster over the 5 laps than Elite Champ Robin Seymour. Job's a good'un!
Was only left with about 100g of rice in the end.
Massive thanks to Graham McIntyre for the lift and doing my bottles.
Thanks to Sean Rowe for the use of his great photos!
Next up I'll be travelling back over to England for the last British XC round mid August. With 40 UCI points from the champs I'll hopefully get a more reasonable gridding position and should be able to get a decent race done!
Had planned to stay on in England for Uni in October. But now that I'm in Ireland I realise that another 2 months in England is a bloody long time... so might just come back here after BXC 5, which would allow me to do the Ulster XC Champs at the fantastic venue of Castlewellan. If finances allow!
Monty, out.
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