Irish National XCO Championships 2012 - Djouce Wood - Sunday

Breakfast time at 8am began with a bowl of fruit, it'd be rude not to. Following that was a bowl of cereal for the same reasons. Then we were presented with the real menu, and it was only politeness to order a ham, cheese and tomato omelette. Some toast was set on the table, probably about 6 slices of that were on my plate at one stage and then mysteriously disappeared. Before I knew it, a fairly sizeable slice of wheaten bread found its way onto my plate and everybody knows a plate cannot be left til it's clean. A good 30mins after we'd began, it was finally over, we'd conquered it. Job done. Many sighs of relief. Chilling out, chatting away, and next thing the B&B owner comes over to the table with a plate of peppers and carrot. The boys had been joking that I wanted some cabbage in my omelette as I usually have a good plate of spinach and beetroot juice with me breakfast. Inspired by this and my lettuce eating acts of the previous day when we had arrived in the car, the B&B owner had no cabbage, but had thrown together the best meal she could in the form of peppers and carrot. Much laughing was done, and then the reality struck that I was gonna have to eat this too. Life's hard at the top. Not one to back away from a food based challenge, I set about the 'icing on the cake' as it was. Solid preparation for a race not too many hours later on in the day, right? This is what Joe (friel) would want.

Wind things on a bit to 1.30pm, as I hopped on the turbo and got the legs spinning to prepare for the battle of epic proportions that loomed ahead like a tropical(e.g places such as Kinallen) storm. Tunes were a blasting on the iPod as I got to work. If I could go back in time right now I'd probably go there and turn the sun down and not have ended up with bib-short tan lines on my back: probably not the best look.

Gave my bottles to Lucy(thanks ever so much, you did an awesome job) and headed off to the start line. Line up behind the mighty Elite force of Irish XC MTB we did, and watch in awe as they tore the start field to bits, McKee's steak from the night before clearly not quite affecting him yet as he took the holeshot. A minute later, or so, "I'm gonna blow the whistle within the next 10seconds" announced the man with the whistle. I guess this meant we were meant to go then.

I think I missed this memo. Everybody took off, I tried to clip in while in the land of fluffy elephants and cows with trunks. Probably y-fronts. I was either in 2nd last or last place as we hit the first corner. Hmmm. Got out of the saddle and sprinted a bit to get a good line into the next corner, but to no avail. Awwwh fork. Tried again before the next corner came, this time I made some ground and got a good line through the corner, slipping into 3rd or 4th as we headed down the hill towards a rough and rooty bit of singletrack. Out of the whole course, I think this was one of the toughest bits, so hard to build or maintain any sort of rhythm over the random roots and holes, although the lads on 29'ers probably just thought they were riding on a bouncy castle as usual.

First real climb of the track was a steep one, attacked on this and didn't look back. Heard tyres behind me for far too long and worried a little bit, but thankfully by the first bit of singletrack I was all on my lonesome. 'Battled with my machine' as Phil Liggett would say, through the veins of the earth, managing to stay upon my bicycle relatively well. Then onto XTC's descent. So, so beautiful. Bump, bump, berm, berm, berm, bump, berm, jump... you get the picture. Probably still losing about 10 seconds a corner to Gareth, but the entire track had a devilish tendency to leave you absolutely kebabed for any of the 'fun' descents. A final berm and bump shot you out onto the fireroad at lightspeed, and it felt only right to try and maintain the pace to the next section of trail and make motorbike noises to yourself. 

A hugely technical but fairly short descent ensued, a proper bike killer: rough, rooty, twisty, slippy. In practice I could hit this sweet as you like, but come race time, on every lap I made some stupid mistakes after leaving all my energy behind on the fireroad to get there. As the gaps between the trees got smaller every lap, my shoulders got more and more battered as I pinballed my way down.

A fun off camber descent, some more bermy corners and a deadly steep climb(there were some shouty people here on my 3rd lap, spectators are awesome!) and then as your memory told you you should be ripping down a super fast straight line descent back to the fireroad, the trail turned up the hill. Here, it seemed no man had boldly stepped before, a small hill for Seymour and a large hill for mankind. I didn't even notice this climb on my first practice lap as I was so preoccupied with trying to stay in a straight line with 40psi in my tyres, but unfortunately, come race time, I had no such luxury. It was tough going, very steep, but also enough roots and technical bits to completely flummox you if you lost even half a degree of concentration.

 To prove this point, obviously just for your benefit, on my 3rd lap I lost my concentration for a second. It came back relatively quickly as my rear end slipped out on a root. Brain says dab left foot - foot follows suit - brain did not calculate the steepness of the hill we were riding on the side of and the fact that the ground below my left shoe was a good 30cm below where it should be - eject. So as I rolled down the hill mostly on my face I just hoped that there was nobody close behind me that I'd be stuck behind for the rest of the climb. More important was probably getting back to my bike, easier said than done when lying in the opposite direction you would like to be on the side of a huge hill. With an allmighty pressup I pushed the earth down and myself up, and slipped my way up the hill back to my bike. Getting started again was 'interesting', and once you'd lost your rhythm, it was extremely tough going on the climb that I hadn't noticed the day before.

Final lap, mostly having fun smashing turns out behind the people I was lapping, then back to the sufferfest once I got round them. It finally struck me that I had won as I hit the last bit of singletrack coming back into the start field, so I threw the best whip that my lack of energy could do, and stood up and got on the pedals to push it in to the line and clear a bit more room for post-race binging. Coming through the start field was awesome with all the tech/feed zone crew cheering and the finish flag just around the next corner. Popped an absolutely horrific wheelie as I crossed the line and that was it for another year. Irish Junior XC Champion. 

A huge sigh of relief as the entire year's being a bumder, missing loads of parties, not really leaving the house, spending every last penny on my bicycle, training all on my own, going to bed early etc. was completely worth it as I crossed the line with another 9 minutes passing before 2nd place came home.

Thanks to all the family members, friends, accomplices and sponsors behind the scenes that make it possible! As always, rocking Green Oil's fine products on my bike, and Rynopower in my belly.

Monty, over and out.

(Ps to anybody wondering how I can win an XC National Championships, but not ride a local road race, my knee is still giving me loads of trouble, and flares up really badly if I'm on the bike for more than 2hrs. Mtb races are 1h-1h30, while road races are 2/3/4h, I'd love to be racing them, but I physically can't at the minute)

XC NPS 3 - Tracton Woods - Race Day Rambling

First race of the 'season', this was always going to be an interesting one. 'season', in the mighty inverted commas of mystery, because so far, it really hasn't been much of a season at all.

Pre-season training literally consisted of 3 weeks of what I would call, proper training, the rest mostly spent rolling around the floor stretching, or on the foam roller. From August 2011, my knees have been giving me grief, and been putting a mighty limiter on what training I can do before they blow up. After many, many labouring weeks and months of trying to get anything useful out of the NHS, I ended up with a MRI scan on one knee. Turns out there's some tissue growth disorder in and around my knees, which, according to the 'specialist', is actually fairly common in kids my age, but only flares up in those that do excessive exercise. The bone is growing too fast for the tissue, so the tissue is stretched, and then you go and do a load of training on top of that, tightening the muscles, so the tissue is stretched even more and that pulls everything every shape. Not good. What fabulous preparation for the season... and that's not to mention breaking my wrist 10 weeks ago aswell!

Thankfully I 'will grow out of it', the advice for now was 'not to push it to the limit'... oh the casual ambiguity around what could potentially destroy me future in cycling/world domination.

Race day began at 0030h with Barry and Brian arriving back from their midnight track walk. I seemed to have had fallen asleep (sleeping bags are for wimps), only to be awoken with Barry's torch flashing into my tent and him talking to me. At least this meant I could finally get me sleeping bag and also got kindly donated an air mattress thing, it was boss, many thanks to the Kellett Krew/Team Maxbo. After that I got to sleep fairly quickly, and other than the noisiest birds you've never heard in your life waking me up about a hundred times, sleep was good.

Woke up for a final time at 0730'ish and got some breakfast in before heading away for a practise lap (once I'd ridden through what seemed like every lump of cow excrement in the mighty camping field to get to the road. Irish races, can't beat 'em). Was fairly awesome being out on the track at this hour, had loads of uninterrupted time to ride about every line possible and not possible alike. 'Got 'em dialled' as it could be said...

Unfortunately this was next to no use when the race began. Turns out racing with 30+ S2 men is fairly different than racing with 3 or 4 U16s. With U16 racing, most of the time you're on your own, or in groups of 2 or 3 max, so there was never any worry about missing your lines, whereas S2 turned out to be absolute chaos off the start! Fun nonetheless! Additionally, it kind of added to the madness as I realised that I'd forgot to put contact lenses in about 5mins before the start. This resulted in me running back to the tent, hoking me contact lenses out of the bag at the other side of the tent while trying to keep my dirty shoes out of the tent. Got them out, got positioned nicely infront of Brian's door mirror, think I remembered which one was for the right and which was for the left, and got set on getting the right one in with my muddy fingers. Proceeded to get the left one out of the packet, onto the tip of my finger and heading towards my eye, BAM, gust of wind, goodbye contact lens. Brilliant. Tried looking about, but then realised I was looking for a transparent contact lens in a cattle field and had about 2mins to the start of my race and decided to screw that and get to the start line.

Had absolutely no idea what to expect, from myself, and my severe lack of training. Was hoping I hadn't lost much fitness from last year, but knew the chances of it increasing were terribly slim, and this year, as a Junior rather than U16, our races are twice the duration, so anything was possible, but the odds seemed stacked towards the disastrous end of the scale.

Track started with a 2-3min fire-road climb. Thankfully I got clipped in and off the line well, and was top 15 coming up the climb. Content with this, took it easy and made a few more places before the trail entrance, but didn't exert myself, plenty of time yet. Then we got to the 2nd bit of singletrack, and the rider infront of me slides out on a root. Chaos squared. I try tripoding the bike round him but proceed to almost fall over myself. Not quite the start I wanted. Got past anyway, and got motoring to catch the boys infront that had made a bit of time now.

http://www.windyheightsphotography.com/BICYCLES/XC-NPS-Round-3-Tracton-Woods/22976435_Hhw2qb#!i=1847053584&k=K4qT6wj

Got caught up with them, and was probably sitting in top 7 or so now, but still not really feeling as if I was exerting myself. Saw BanbridgeCC man Simon Curry 2 men ahead, so got up to him and sat behind him for a while, knowing that he's a steady rider who consistently finishes top 3 in S2s, thinking if I can sit on his wheel for the rest of the race, that'll be more than enough to ask for in my first S2 race. This went well, until I took a different line to him coming into a technical section, and it was quite a bit faster, so I ended up coming up on his right hand side on a bit of trail only wide enough for one of us! Luckily averted disaster and squeezed infront of him. From then on, I rode steady, and before I knew it I had caught what seemed to be 1st and 2nd position, but couldn't know for sure whether there were riders in my race ahead of them, or if this was the front of the race! Thankfully at the start of the 2nd lap we passed S1 rider Lance McCarthy, and after trying to tyre buzz him for a while, he let me past and confirmed that they were the 1st S2 riders to go past him. Sitting in 3rd then, sweet.

http://www.windyheightsphotography.com/BICYCLES/XC-NPS-Round-3-Tracton-Woods/22976435_Hhw2qb#!i=1847054973&k=VXnLzd3&lb=1&s=A

Rode for a bit longer, in 2nd place coming up a windy straight, so thought it'd be a good idea to speed tuck in behind the man in-front and save some energy. This was a fantastic idea, just a shame about the execution: he slipped past a stump on his right, but my front wheel was slightly to the right of his rear, and before I knew it i'd hit the stump and was lying on my face with the bike ontop of me, still clipped in. Wasn't sore, just a little offputting when you're trying to stick with the man infront but you're lying on the ground on your head! Got back on and caught him again and got by him and I was out on my own. Kind of couldn't believe it, was wondering if I'd completely screwed up my pacing and was going to blow up badly. Didn't blow up, probably actually went a bit faster over the end of the 2nd lap and into the 3rd lap. Passed some more S1s, but then coming out of a corner I went to pedal and nothing turned!! Disaster! Hopped off the bike and tried to see what was up. Rear derailleur cage had well and truly snapped, and the chain had jumped through the cage and was basically fooked.

http://www.windyheightsphotography.com/BICYCLES/XC-NPS-Round-3-Tracton-Woods/22976435_Hhw2qb#!i=1847046634&k=mb6KVvs

Was able to bend some bits back together and get the chain re-routed and semi-working again. Unfortunately from here on I only had one gear, and when I applied any sort of force the chain was skipping.   Due to the time it'd taken to get the bike going again, I'd slipped back into 3rd place, but only by a little bit. Got going as much as circumstances allowed , and got back into 1st, and made some ground on the rest of the field again. Then about 1/3rd of the way into my 4th and final lap, the derailleur blew up for good, and I was faced with 2 options. Run the rest of the lap and finish the race, I still had good time over the S2 and Junior field, or run the rest of the lap and finish the race. Quitting wasn't an option if you'd seen the amount of food i'd eaten over the weekend... I needed to burn the rest of it off.. haha.

So inevitably S2 riders started coming past me as I ran every uphill and flat and freewheeled and pumped my way on every decline. Then the 1st junior rider came past, and I'd lost both my S2 and Junior 1st place. Shame. Ran and freewheeled on, ended up 2nd Junior and 8th S2, so altogether not the worst performance, but just a bit of a shame that it almost certainly could've been a 1st in both categories!!

I'll not even begin to explain the aftermath of the race, but basically running a lot of a mtb lap with a bike, up steep inclines, bent over to hold onto the bars, turns out isn't such a good idea for your back! Really struggling to stand afterwards, but then I couldn't even bend down to sit in a seat, not desirable! Lay against a car for a while, got some iBuprofen gel on and about half a can of deep freeze on, and then finally made it into a seat. Couldn't move for about the next 2 or 3hrs, meaning I missed getting up onto the podium to get me photy taken, gutted.

It's now 3 days later and I still can't really bend down, back is still mega sore, but I can walk again, and it's getting better, so it's all good!

Track was amazing, big up the MBCC for doing such a super job of organising the race. Team Kellett was amazing, huge thanks for the lift down and back again, and packing up my tent when I was paralysed, and everything else. Also thanks to team BCC - Simon and James Curry and Gar Mckee for providing the morning's craic and helping the tent-packing efforts of the evening.

Also thanks as always to Rynopower for providing all me race fuel, and Green-oil for keeping everything running smoothly (unfortunately they can't fool-proof your derailleurs though..)

Monty, out.