Irish XC NPS 1 - Slade Valley, Saggart, Dublin

Home from uni for Easter for pretty much all of April. Deadly!

Week/weekend plans:
Race. Train. Race. Train. Race. Train. Race. Recover. Smash BXC 2 at the start of May.
Really looking forward to some good time at home with real food and real mtb trails.

How it actually went:
Race first weekend, sustain injury during race. Can't ride for 2 weeks. Another week with only being able to ride every other day (letting the knee swelling go down again in-between), wondering if I could maybe still ride the 1st NPS before I went back to Loughborough. Missing my first stage race and multiple other deadly days bicycle riding. Absolute bummer.
Probably the 2 sunniest weeks of the year and I was stuck in the house. Thank me at any stage you wish.

So 3rd time back on the bike in 3 weeks: in Mary Peters on Thursday trying to get some race-pace MTB efforts done to test the old body out, seeing if I could chance NPS 1 on Sunday... all was going relatively well. Had planned 2 timed laps at the end, nailed the first one, was 6secs up 6mins into the second one... 23mph* off a fireroad into a little twisty bit of trail. Mary Peters is notorious for tight trees and trail furniture in dubious places, so I was being pretty cautious. Coming around a left hander with a tree on the apex, so running a little wide to the right, my front wheel clipped a log lying on the ground. Yes; after missing all the bloody trees and massive rocks I clip a bit of a dead tree lying randomly on the ground.

Straight over the bars. Perfect parabola. 23mph to 0 in less than a second using mostly my head. Flipping massive crash. Land a bit sideways on my head and my back twists and knocks all the wind out of me. HUUUHHH HUHHHH. You know those winded moans. Thought I'd done proper damage to my back (already in not so great condition if you remember back to BXC 1) so just lay there for a while wondering if I indeed was the biggest goober on the planet right now.
After some old lady had heard my moaning and came over to check up on me I finally got up off the ground to check the rest of the body and bike. Right knee also not great, big impact to quad, shin, shoulder fecked, big old gash in my seatpost and some rips in my grips.
Race prep: nailed it.



Friday came about. Couldn't really move my neck. Couldn't really move my back. Both knees now sore.
Saturday came about. Even less ROM in my neck. Back feeling a little better though. Feck it it'll all loosen up in the race..

At least the bike was in reasonable shape. It had already cost me enough this month! Cyclofudge buddy Luke Ireland of Belfast Bike Repair had been rebuilding my front wheel after the Ballykelly disaster and offered me a lift down to Slade Valley.

We got there in reasonable time and set out for a practice lap. I had a nice slick tyre on the front and semi slick on the back. It'd been sunny for the last month, I refused to believe the photos that IMBRC (race organisers) had put up the day before of lots of rain. Sure enough, it was in fact a bit wet. Masses of slippery roots upwards and downwards with wet dirt between. Sure enough, we had no tyre levers between us and the tyres weren't coming off without them. Ah sure it'll be grand.

Race was to start at 2 so about 1.45pm we headed up to the START/finish. I went for a quick portaloo visit, then chatted a while longer; waiting for the prize presentation for the earlier races to finish and our race to start. Or so I thought.
The prize presentation was coming to a close, and it was still pretty much only myself and Luke standing on the line. A little confused, I went for a look and spotted some people further down the fireroad... and as I got closer realised that it was everyone. All 160 odd entrants of the afternoon race lined up. Well, 160 - 2. Fudddge.

In rows of 3 that's about 53 rows. "Sorry. Can I get through. Sorry. Excuse me. Sorry. Can I squeeze past there. Sorry." for what seemed like an eternity before I finally found the rear end of S1. And about 10secs after I'd managed to squeeze in, Commissaire Martin Grimley told us we'd be starting in 30secs. Nice. #ontime

The race got off to a pretty hectic start. With Robin Seymour and Gareth Mckee, the two main men, on the front row, I had some serious ground to make and wanted to get it done quick. Every second counts when up against riders of that quality. Thankfully there was a decent bit of fireroad at the start and I was within reach of the top 5 before long after starting at the back of the massive 30+ man elite field. After a bit of a chuckle as I looked up and saw 2 time Olympian, >15 time Irish XC champion Seymour on me mate Barry Kellett's wheel, I was able to relax a bit and settle in. Mckee was away like a rocket but everyone else was riding quite steady.

After a bit of a mishap coming through the start/finish, I'd a bit of chasing to do again to get back to Seymour and Kellett. Onto Seymour's wheel, off the fireroad into some singletrack. Accidentally clipped out of my light weight not suitable for slippy conditions fudger pedals and couldn't for the life of me get clipped back in. Seymour = gone. Back out onto the fireroad, caught up to him again, but then ended up losing the pedal again and he was gone for good this time. Barry Kellett came past, and Graham Boyd wasn't far behind. At this stage my head was an absolute mess as I was about 2mins behind where I wanted to be. This led to some mental first class Fred moments, going straight on in corners when I must've had my eyes closed or something; completely off track and having to find my way back, sliding out on roots, more clipping out, realising how much my back wasn't 'loosening up'.

Matt Slattery came by, Graham came by, my head went by, I was left on my own in 6th re-evaluating life. Finally realised trying to go fast wasn't exactly working, so went for the 'just keep moving forward' alternative. At this stage I was just gonna be happy if I finished.

I ended up back with Graham, and stuck with him as he rode back to Matt and Barry. Although my back was completely fecked, knee was starting to get a bit sore, and arms were cramping from trying to pull brakes that weren't in the right place from earlier tumbles, Barry was making moves and I wasn't for letting him away when I'd made it this far!

Barry and I got away, and although we got stuck behind some pretty ignorant traffic in some of the singletrack, allowing Graham to catch us again, I was pretty sure the race for 3rd was going to be between us two.
On the penultimate climb Barry launched an attack. This was into the massively rooty 'rabbit ride' climb that I'd been struggling with all day on me slicks, and he got a bit of a gap, but back onto the fireroad, onto the last climb now, I came back alongside him. With only a big descent left to the finish, I made my move and got a gap into the descent, then attacked it to make some more ground. Then got stuck behind some S3 traffic, but thankfully like the majority of them, he politely allowed me through when he'd the chance, and fortunately Barry wasn't close enough behind to get through aswell.
Into the final couple of turns now and I could see Barry was a safe distance behind, so with some more S3s up ahead I wasn't going to get any further. Just stayed upright and made the finish.

As it turned out holeshot-Mckee was only 20secs ahead of me after all that! With Seymour just under 3mins away over the 1h 50min race. Decent enough day out after probably the worst 3 weeks 'training' possible.

Thanks to IMBRC for some brilliant work on the track. It didn't look much different from the 1st lap to the 5th after what, over 500 individual laps? Much appreciated by my slick tyres and questionable line choices.

After that it was back home for dinner and then to the overnight ferry to Liverpool and driving back to Loughborough.
An astoundingly crap Easter all in all, but excuses don't count, results do. Back to trying to get ontop of these injuries and save my season!

Thanks to Graham McIntyre for flawless bottle hand-ups!

Monty, out.

(Thanks to Sean Rowe and Action Pictures Ireland for the photos)

*strava official

Irish National XCO Championships 2012 - Saturday

Horrific, impossible, plain old fashioned crazy, would have been my response had you asked me what I thought of the course after my first lap on Saturday. I hit roots, I slid, I hit corners, I slid, I hit Willy, I fell. The most important race of my year, and I'd forgotten how to ride a bike. Meanwhile, Gareth danced off down the trail, taking everything in his stride. What was I missing here? To be fair, I'd come home from Davagh NPS, washed my mountain bike, bolted it to the turbo trainer and there it stayed til Saturday morning of race weekend. Making excuses already Dave, oh dear oh dear.


Myself, Vitus/CRC superstar Gareth Mckee, and chief driver/mechanic/organiser/Vets racer/all round nice guy William Mulligan set off from Banbridge at 10am sharp, t-28hrs. As the wheels got rolling and the craic flowing, plans to sleep on the drive down were scuppered as usual. After getting some severe slagging for tucking into a bag of lettuce leaves: the perfect roadtrip snack in my eyes, it was clear that deep down, Mckee was just jealous. Willy kindly pulled in to a filling station for him to try and squeeze a greasy sandwich into the lettuce shaped hole in his belly.


Shortly after, we bumped into the most beautiful start field in the country (minus the fresh sheep waste packages). I'm getting deadly at remembering to put my contact lenses in for races of late, it's so nice to be able to see, and what nicer than Powerscourt waterfall and many miles of lush countryside and pretty peaks to look at. Headed to the sign on tent, was greeted by some nice WORC men, and put pen to paper as best as I could remember how after not being near school for the last month. No turning back now, race number 301 became my lucky number for the weekend whether I liked it or not.

 
Setting out on our first practice lap was not a pretty sight. In fact, it was more a case of a similar word, that rhymes with sight. Thankfully we got back to the Mulligan Mobile after lap 1, and knowing there wasn't much potential of pinch flats, I stuck a Nobby Nic on the front in place of the Renegade, and let about 20psi out of the Racing Ralph on the rear. Screwed out the Terralogic thingy on my forks and slowed the rebound down a bit, and we were ready to roll, round 2. Immediately the Canyon felt like more of a John Deere: we were going nowhere fast, but the grip was almighty. The difference in the 1st and 2nd laps was like day and night, and a smile couldn't help but creep across my face as I rode over roots I could barely ride around half an hour ago. After Willy sacrificing himself on multiple occasions in the quest of finding the limit of his Racing Ralphs, we called it a day. Saturday it shall be known as from now on. Throttled the John Deere back to the car, well, what was left of the car under Djouce's thriving fly population, and headed down to our B&B. Coolakey House was the place, literally less than 5mins down the road, fine job. Was tucking into my bag of lettuce leaves as we pulled up, kind of oblivious to the fact that we'd stopped and the owner of the B&B was at the window of the car chatting to us. Guess I should've been looking at her, pretending to listen and smiling at various intervals, but I was too busy munching. "Are you hungry?" she asked. 'No, I'm David', I thought, as I was reluctantly drawn into the conversation. Soon after, we got the keys to our rooms and I headed out for a cooldown as Gareth took to the shower.


 
Got back just in time to see my boy Brad Wiggins finish the TT, all about 10 black and white pixels of him that spanned the TV screen, while some woman nattered away in the language that only those of TG4 understand. Stole some of Mckee's magic shower gel and got the hot and cold juices flowing. Fast forward through a good night's craic with the BCC men, Clive Caldwell, and his best lady, Lucy.. chilling out in the common room bit of the B&B. Got a bit bored and headed in to the breakfast room to see what I could find, came out with an orange, mug of what tasted like heated diluting juice, I think they call it herbal tea or something. McKee tells me you don't put milk in there with water, but you're probably not meant to put weetabix in either so that was the least of my worries/extravagances.

Bed time. I'm not going to lie. I've literally been fearing this every day for an entire year. I'll not even begin to go into explaining the noises Gar makes when he's blissfully riding his bike through the clouds in z'land, but if you're reading this MI5, and you've some boys you need a torturing, I'm sure Gareth wouldn't charge too much if you supplied him a bed and a teddy. After heading off to bed at about 10pm last year with what lay ahead still a mystery, I tucked myself in and snuggled up to my pillow. Little did I know I would spend the next 4 hours in every position imaginable, and some probably not, trying to find somewhere that I was hidden from the sound waves coming from McKee's airways. On the toilet, behind the curtains, between the bed and the wall, at the other end of the bed, in the far corner, with my bag ontop of my head, with the bed ontop of my head, nothing worked. Fortunately the mental and physical expenditure involved in the planning and testing of the various positions eventually led me to sleep, the last time I checked my watch it'd been 2.30am...

This year I was prepared. I'd been practicing all year, and not yet found a single pair of ear plugs that would stay in my ears. As thick a pair as I could find, and as big a roll of duct tape as I could find were going to have to do the trick. Earplugs in, duct tape wrapped round head and keeping the ear plugs in place, all I could hear was my heart beating in my head (If you've seen 4 Lions this may bring back good memories) and with those thoughts I drifted off to sleep. Job done. Praise be to God.



Tune in tomorrow for part 2, it'll probably mention the race thing I did on Sunday...