Melanie Späth

Race Report English Marathon Championships - Crow Hill

2009-07-01T06:18:00.000-07:00

For good measure (and since my flight was only back on Monday morning) I decided to take part in the English Marathon Championship that took place the day after the British NPS Round in Crow Hill. Since it wasn't a UCI event, I was able to take part in the race and win it, I just couldn't be crowned English champ in case I won.

The course was the same as in the NPS yesterday plus some extensions and grassy bumpy linker sections and an added loop in the forest so that each lap was 12.5km, with 8 laps, i.e. 100km to do for the champs.

The Senior 100km women were set off first. Jenn O'Connor took the lead in the first lap, setting a steady pace so that we could accustom ourselves with the newly added sections. I and Maddie Horton followed and I stayed closely stuck to Jenn's wheel, while we opened a gap on Maddie. At the end of the 1st lap I had to stop at the feed zone to get a new bottle, and Jenn O'Connor upped her speed and she managed to open a gap on me. My strategy was to keep it steady and stay on Jenn's wheel for 6 laps, and then attack and try and open a gap on her on the last 2 laps. So when Jenn got away in the 2nd lap, I had to work hard to reel her back in, which I managed by the end of the 2nd lap. In the 3rd lap then I took the lead and she stayed on my wheel, but then started to fall back a little. I took this chance and decided to attack and increased my speed. When I didn't see her behind me at the start of the next lap, I settled back into a comfortable speed and kept it steady for the rest of the race, so that in case Jenn caught back up that I would have enough energy to attack again. I constantly looked back and wondered if I would see Jenn catching back up again with me. I only found out after I finished that Jenn had dropped out after the 3rd lap due to feeling unwell.

And so I finished the race in 1st place, ahead of the new English Marathon Champion Maddie Horton. I had a really good race, and I am really happy to see that my endurance is still good, since I hadn't done very many long rides since February, until very recently in my training.

Race results are available on the timelaps website.

Joolze pics can be found here.

Britishcycling also have a report up here.

Race Report British NPS Round 4 - Crow Hill

2009-07-01T05:34:00.000-07:00

This round I was doing by myself, without Ryan, since he was still recovering from his collarbone fracture (he's got the go ahead today to mountain biking again - have a look at his blog for the newest X-ray - he's really happy about it). Anyhow, early Friday morning I flew into Bournemouth International airport - which is located just about 20min from the race venue, so handy! After having a much needed coffee in nearby Christchurch (I've only had 3.5hours sleep due to a 4am start), I made my way to the race venue for a pre-ride.

The course was different from any course I have ridden before. It was fairly flat (but not as flat as Sherwood Pines or Thetford Forest), but had a few short kicker climbs and a bomb hole. Almost all of the course was twisty singletrack, and it really did test your cornering skills. It wasn't as flowy as other singletrack courses, since the corners were fairly tight and it was hard to keep any kind of speed going at any time. It felt like you were constantly speeding up, then slowing down into yet another corner and speeding out of it again. The ground was slightly damp in places and there were also a few very rooty sections. It was hard to find a place to drink or eat a gel, since there was barely any fireroad. It was a good course, but one that didn't suit me quite so well, with my lack of good cornering skills.

All the usual suspects lined up on the start line. Stupid I was late and I had to start in the 2nd row (I had a problem with the nozzle on my tire and it deflated when I tried to pump it up and was frantically searching for the needed adapter to be able to pump up the wheel again). It usually doesn't make that much of a difference, but in this case we went into a fire road straight after a short climb up a grassy section. I wasn't in too bad a position entering the singletrack, maybe 5th or 6th, but had to fight my way through to make it towards the front. At the front, Kate Potter had immediately taken the lead, chased by Jenny Copnall. I managed to fight my way up to 3rd position, but then had to give way to a chasing Jenn O'Connor. Unfortunately I couldn't keep with Jenn and she opened a gap on me. This all happened at the start of the 1st lap. For the remainder of the 5 lap race, I tried to close down the gap again to Jenn, but I just couldn't make up the time. I was seeing her weaving in and out of the trees ahead of me but just couldn't catch back up. I wasn't feeling tired or anything, I actually felt I had a good race and was riding well, but I just wasn't as fast as the girls ahead of me. I definitely need to work on my cornering, since I thought I lost most time due to that.

And so I finished in 4th place. I would have liked to podium, but it just wasn't in me that day. Funny enough, this means that this year Jenny Copnall, Jenn O'Connor and I are in almost the same situation as last year with regards to the series standings after the penultimate round, except for the addition of Kate Potter who has a large points advantage and is well set to win the series. But for Jenny, Jenn and I it's again head on head, this time for 2nd place, either one of us has the chance to get it since we are points-equal for our 3 best races and I am sure that we are all going to make good use of our chance in the last round! Exciting!!!

Results are available here.

Joolze Dymond has some pictures available on her website.

Britishcycling have a report up on their website.

Kilbroney Challenge

2009-06-22T07:22:00.000-07:00

Off they are!

When the cat's away, the mice will play...

Well, my coach was out of the country, so I took this opportunity to take part in one of my other favourite sports: adventure racing. I love adventure racing, but my coach is afraid of me injuring myself on the run, which is often on open mountain and technical terrain. And he is kinda right, especially since I don't really do any running. After a bit of last minute juggling, I teamed up with friend and fellow MADster Sean Downey. I knew he'd be a great partner, and that we'd be well matched on the bike and run, mainly due to college committments having slowed him down recently.

Sean leading the run through some tough terrain

The race was a bike (16km) - run (2km) - bike (14km) - run (10km) - bike (7km) - kayak event, over open mountain, fireroad and sheep paths and with the kayak section in Carlingford Lough. It was mostly waymarked, but a little bit of navigation was required to not miss any of the control points. The plan was to go hard on the biking sections and try to contain the damage on the runs, which would always be my slower discipline.

Pushing the bike

We started off at 10:30 with a neutral start and then almost straight into a hike-a-bike section followed by some fast fireroad. With Sean doing all the navigating I concentrated on just riding fast. We made it into the first transition in 3rd position, but lost a good few places in the run, with a few of the male teams catching up with us. The run was straight up a steep mountain and straight down on another side, mostly off road over technical terrain. Sean was leading on the climb and descent, while I gingerly navigated over the open mountain terrain, careful not to trip or twist my ankle.

Clueless....

We got back onto the bikes and went really hard. We started catching up with all of the guys who had overtaken us on the run, so that we came into the 2nd transition again in 3rd place. A bit of a blip of not listening to the marshalls carefully meant we ended up at the wrong mast, but master navigator Sean figured out the mistake fast enough and we hadn't lost too much time when we reached the correct mast. The next bit of run was a great descent along the top of the mountains on an easy path. This was then followed by a more and more technical descent to a river and a traverse to an old farm yard. At the farmyard we had to solve a riddle which we managed in OK time (well, we weren't as slow as the first team ;)). This was then followed by a long boggy and energy sapping section uphill and back to the transition.

Sean riding along the beach

I was soo happy to be back on the bike at that stage! A little bit more of a boggy walk-a-bike section, and we arrived at the top of the mountain to start the last long descent. This descent more than made up for all the suffering before, it was great singletrack on sheep paths between ferns, and a really cool twisty proper mtb singletrack section in a wood before dropping us out back onto the road. A quick trip to the beach before returning to the race start, where we had one more transition to the kayak. Due to strong winds the kayak section had been shorted to a few hundred meters only, which was great, because I was so scared out boat would capsize, such high were the waves. The way out was hard against the wind and the waves, but on the way back you only needed to catch a few waves that brought you back to the start. With a smile on the face (on my part) we reached the finish in 1st position of the mixed category and 8th overall (out of 35 teams).

Carrying back the boat

I love the after race atmosphere and watching the other teams coming in. A good time was had by all afterwards in the yacht club, with food and drinks. Thanks to Rowan MacMahon and the Not the Sunday Run crew for organizing such a great race. And of course thanks to Sean for teaming up with me and not killing me on the runs and for being a great navigator and just an awesome teammate!

Arriving at the finish :)

More info about he Kilbroney Challenge can be found on their blog.

All pictures from here.

Results can be found here.

Race Report Irish NPS Round 7, Three Rock, Dublin

2009-06-17T06:56:00.000-07:00

Up the fireroad (photo from Jarek)

It was a nice coincidence that my club's turn at organizing an NPS fell onto one of the weekends where I was actually at home. The race was to take place on my home training ground, 3Rock, which meant minimal preparation was needed (the start of the race was only a few km from my home). It gave me the opportunity to show my face again at the local race scene and catch up with everybody, since I haven't raced in any Irish NPS so far mainly due to other race committments. It was also a great opportunity to show off my new sponsored gear from Cycleways, which I picked up just the day before. I was also looking forward to ride my Epic for the first time in a local race, thanks to Cycleways replacing my rear derailleur + hanger on short notice - thanks Cycleways! Also thanks to Sean for adjusting the gear cable and gears the morning before the race.

Jackie, my competition (photo from Jarek)

I did my deed for my club by marshalling the sports race - which doubled as my practice lap. It was great to see so many new and unknown faces taking a shot at racing. The course was great, kinda barbell shaped, with some really tricky, rooty, flowy and in partly slippery singletrack on either end, linked by a fast fireroad section in the middle. It also took in a part of the mountain I don't usually cycle in, so it was great to add a few new trails to my repertoire.

Riding through the woods (photo from Jarek)

I was halfway through a building period, with a hard week's training behind me and another hard week ahead of me, so I was going into the race with already tired legs (and going to a party the night before didn't help much for recovery either). I was happy to see that at least one more competitor was signed up in the Elite women's race, Jackie O'Hagan, but she also came into the race with tired legs from taking part in a triathlon the day before.

Showcasing the new gear from our sponsor Cycleways (photo from Jarek)

Finally my race started. I knew I had a technical advantage over Jackie and started pulling away through the first single track section. My plan was to take it easy enough, but stay ahead of Jackie for the race - reacting to any attacks if she tried. Everything was going well and I was opening a good gap to Jackie. I really enjoyed the singletrack and was on the way back on the fireroad on my first out of 3 laps when disaster happened: my chain snapped! Damn, I thought, they had asked me yesterday if I wanted to replace my chain as well after the rear derailleur incident, but I thought the chain looked fine, so I kept the old chain. Well, lesson learned.

Just before a tricky climb (photo from Jarek)

Anyhow, while I started fiddling around with my tool to fix the chain again, all the Master riders started overtaking me, and finally also Jackie whizzed by. Eventually I got the chain fixed and I was back on track to chase Jackie. I was actually happy to have a rabbit in front of me now and put a bit more pressure on. I caught Jackie again halfway through the second lap on the technical singletrack and could relax again. I took it steady through the remainder of the race and Jackie didn't catch up with me again so that I came into the finish taking first.

Still smiling :) (photo from Jarek)

The best bit of these races though is the buzz after the race. MAD had put on a great feast of tea/coffee, sandwiches and cupcakes for the riders and even the downpour didn't dampen the mood when everybody huddled underneath the small MAD tent. All the riders seemed to have enjoyed the race, and I'm proud of MAD for putting together such a great race.

Big smile at the prize giving (photo from Jarek)

Pictures can be found on the following links:

Results can be downloaded here.

Trek Marathon, Margam Park, UK

2009-06-05T14:25:00.001-07:00

Margam Park Castle

Sunday was a totally different story. Since I am not eligible for the British National Marathon Champs, and we had to catch a ferry and I thought maybe I should take it a little easier, I decided to go for the fun half marathon option, 2 laps of 22km. I was feeling in much better form than yesterday and was looking forward to an "easy" race (all the good racers would do the Marathon Champs) without any pressure. I had absolutely no race nerves for it and even went for a last bathroom trip about 2min before the group of about 260 people riding the half marathon was set off, while Ryan was more concerned about me getting a good start position than I!

Thousands at the start line for the marathon.

So I didn't have the greatest start position, but was able to work my way forwards quite quickly. I wasn't aware of any female competition in my race that I could have a battle with, so I decided to overtake as many men as possible on the ride. The course was great and suited me very well, lots of long draggy fireroad climbing, just exactly my sort. I love getting into a rhythm and motoring up the hill. I had great fun on the descents and enjoyed this course a lot more than the NPS one. I was riding strong and had lots of "rabbits" there to overtake, especially once we started catching up with the other groups that had been set off before us. Since I hadn't pre-ridden the course before, I took the long last descent pretty easy.

Queuing

Towards the end of the 1st lap I noticed a girl on my wheel. She couldn't have been doing the 25km, since they've been set off even later than us, she couldn't have been doing the 100km either, since I would have had to have overtaken her. So she must be doing my race! Who was she? I was in a good mood and now definitely up for a battle. She didn't want to take the lead on the downhill but stayed closely on my wheel. Then, in the second lap I decided to opt the pace slightly on the draggy uphills and slowly created a gap between her and me. Then I started catching up with some of the women doing the national champs course, I knew then I was going well. I was really buzzing when I entered the last long downhill section and the girl behind me was nowhere to be seen. I thought from now it's only downhill and I am not letting her catch me again on this. I raced down the downhill and then disaster struck. I must have been concentrating hard on the trail ahead that I went too close by a large loose twig.

National Marathon Champ Sally Bigham before the race.

This twig then got caught in my rear wheel and I thought the twig wrapped around my cassette. I slowed immediately and glanced down, but couldn't see the twig any more. Thinking I've avoided the worst, I gingerly turned my pedal and noticed my gears skipping, but then, oh no! I heard some crunchy noises around my wheel which then stopped turning completely and puff!!! all my air went out of my tire too. What had happened was that my rear derailleur must have been damaged by the twig and then wrapped around the cassette, broke a few spokes and the spokes pierced through the rim tape, causing the flat. It was clear that this was a show stopper. The rear derailleur was so badly caught in the cassette that I couldn't get it out. This meant I couldn't even roll down the descent! The thought of having to abandon a great race that I was leading and having to walk down from the farthest end of the course to the finish was really frustrating. So I made my way down, with all the riders that I had overtaken earlier catching up with me again.

Having fun at the start.

So, maybe now it's understandable why I was a little reluctant to update my blog?

Anyhow, I am feeling a lot better now and have decided to take racing a little easier for the second half of the season. I will mainly concentrate on the UK series, the German National Champs and the 2 Canadian world cups. My result in this NPS has given me the much needed kick up my bum and I am very motivated to do well in the next British NPS at Crow Hill. Bring it on!!!

Panorama of marathon racers

Results can be found on the TimeLaps website.

Race report available on BritishCycling.

Race Report British NPS Round 3 - Margam Park

2009-06-01T05:58:00.000-07:00

Before the race.

A week ago Ryan and I made our way over by ferry to Margam Park in Wales, where the UK NPS Round 3 took place on the Saturday, followed by the UK National Marathon Champs on the Sunday. While both Ryan and I went over, it was only I who was to race, since Ryan is still recovering from his broken collarbone.

Beautiful bushes.

The course was located in a castle estate with the added feature of a few almost tame groups of deer who also seemed to have an interest in the trails. I pre-rode the course on Friday in the most beautiful warm summer weather, and the course was nice and dry. While the climbs where mostly on fireroads, the descents lead us either through some huge flowering Rhododendhron bushes or high ferns. And there was also a refreshing river crossing. It was all in all a nice course, all rideable, with the singletrack sections demanding a high level of concentration.

Elite women just started.

When I got up on Saturday, I knew instantly that I wasn't going to have a good race. I tried every technique of mental motivation, but my body just felt heavy and lame. I still think the stresses of the last few weeks are taking their toll. In hindsight, I should have just taken a week or so off training, because then instead of missing a training session and feeling bad about it, I would have been able to relax. Anyhow, with no desire to have to put my body through this exhaustion I lined up reluctantly at the start line. Lining up against Kate Potter, who has arrived with great confidence due to her amazing Madrid World Cup result and most of the top UK racers, I knew it would not be an easy race either.

In the field.

Kate Potter lead the race from the start, whereas several other riders contended for the next few positions. I was sitting in about 5th place for most of the time, still having the riders ahead of me in my sight, but also followed closely by some riders behind. Then, towards the end of lap 3 of the 4 lap race my rear tire had mostly deflated. I kicked myself because I had the feeling that it had lost air since yesterday already, but did not bother putting any more sealant in. Another valuable lesson learnt: make sure your equipment is in prime condition. Thank god Ryan's wheels were waiting in the tech zone.

Just riding along ;)

Exchanging the wheel took also a little longer than expected due to having to unscrew the only skewer we had and to pump up the spare wheel (and yet another lesson there), which meant I lost my 5th place. When I got going again I wasn't sure if I could accept my bottle from the tech zone in which I was in now, so just to be sure, I left it. It didn't help to be out of water in this hot weather either. Thank god I had about a mouth full left in my previous lap's bottle. I was now riding at the end of the fast group and had Lily Matthews riding in 6th place in my sight, but I didn't manage to catch her again. So I finished the race in 7th place, meaning that I just about kept my lead in the British NPS series by 3 points ahead of UK National Champ Jenny Copnall.

Deer crossing.

Race results available on the TimeLaps website.

Race report available on BritishCycling.

Race Report Bundeslinga Round 3 - Heubach, Germany

2009-05-26T02:34:00.000-07:00

It's always harder to write about a race that didn't go so well. At the same time, since Ryan broke his collar bone, time has been a precious commodity, what with driving him to various hospitals, doing all the cleaning, cooking, shopping, washing, bike stuff, work, college and training.

May tree in Germany

Anyhow, back to the Bundesliga race round 3 in Heubach, which was part of the "Bike the Rock" festival with downhill and XC races and a Trials Worldcup. On Saturday, I pre-rode the course with Swedish National Champ Alexandra Engen, which gave us a chance to catch up. Although it was mostly me trying to catch up with her as she blasted up that really long climb. The course can be described in 3 words: up, flat, down. In more detail, it was basically a long, in parts very steep climb on walking paths, some of it muddy and slick from the rain the day before (it was warm and sunny now), then a flat fire road/single track bit, followed by a long, pretty tricky descent. The descent basically swerved left-right-left-right... down a valley, bermed at each side. Then there was a little bit more climb before another tricky, switchback descent led us back to the start/finish area. The descent would have been great fun - if it had been dry. Unfortunately, it was super muddy, rutty and rooty and the more riders came down, the more it was being destroyed. Worse, it doubled as race track for the downhill race later that day, so the chances were that it would be even more ripped apart before we'd race on it the next day. My only hope was that it would dry out a bit more over night.

Profile of the Heubach Bundesliga course

The next day it was warm and the sun was out again - a welcome change from the crappy weather I had had so far in Ireland. We lined up and off we went. The climb had dried out a little bit more by that stage. I didn't have a great start, but was able to stay with Katherine O'Shea from TorQ Australia till the top and even overtook her on the flat bit before going into the long single track descent. The descent was as wet and slippery as the day before, just the mud had a slightly different consistency, and I thought it was even more tricky then on my pre-ride. I had been able to ride it OK in the pre-ride, but I wasn't quite prepared for the much higher speed I went down it now. And so I lost control over my bike at one slippy section, wrapping my bike around a sorry little tree at a very tight spot. There was a bit of chaos as the riders behind me got caught up in my bike that was blocking the trail preventing me to free it from the tree, and promptly I had lost a good few positions. When I finally got back on the bike I felt a bit of pain in my right hand, but went on and tried to catch up again with the riders that had overtaken me.

UCI Trials Worldcup was on in Heubach that weekend to

A few minutes further down I overtook Katherine again, who was trying to fix a mechanical problem on her bike. I went up the hill and made up one or two positions, but soon Katherine had overtaken me again. I tried to stay on her wheel, but my crash in the first lap had made me apprehensive and I lost a lot of time on the downhill section, I even walked bits of it!

Another skilled Trials rider

Still, I had another 3 out of the 5 laps to go and tried to catch people on the climbs. I had a few more battles with some girls in the next two laps, but nothing major happened. Then the downer: At the start of my 5th and last lap I was stopped by the marshals. Perplexed I realized that I was being pulled from the race! I could not believe that I wasn't going to be let to ride my last lap! I was gutted. And my little sis was waiting at the top to take pics and was wondering why I wasn't coming through any more. I was soo annoyed! I had never been pulled from a race before. And I hadn't been lapped either. They had applied the 80% rule. Needless to say I wasn't in the best mood for the rest of the day. I just couldn't explain it, I wasn't in absolute perfect condition, but I didn't feel I was going THAT slow either. Anyway, I blame Elisabeth Osl for going so fast, she showed an amazing performance in the race, finishing almost 5 min ahead of 2nd placed Irina Kalentieva. Looking at the lap times, I was shocked at how slow I (or how fast Lisi) was going.

Beautiful landscape on my ride

Well, one time is always the first time, but I hope it's not going to happen again that I am being pulled. Now I will concentrate on the UK NPS series and the national champs. Less racing also means more training. Last weekend was the first hard training weekend in a long time, with a short interval session on Friday where I met Arek to share the pain, a 3hour road spin on Saturday and a 4hour road spin on Sunday (thank god for the much needed good weather here in Ireland). The rest of the weekend was spent chilling and relaxing, something that had taken a back seat for too long in the last few months.

The next races now coming up are the UK NPS Round 3 in Margem Park this Saturday, followed by the UK National Marathon Champs on Sunday. I will do both races, but mainly concentrate on the NPS on Saturday, to try and defend my lead in the series.

This is gonna be my new background pic :)

Finally, as always, thanks to my sponsors Cycleways, TorQ, KCNC and Trinity College for their ongoing support and Ray from Australia for doing feed zone support in Heubach.

Results can be found on datasport.

My little sister tried to film while she cheered me on, here's the result: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5qictnMdZs.

Race Report British NPS Round 2 - Dalby: 2 x-rays and 1 broken collarbone

2009-05-16T00:15:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday and I'm sitting in a hotel in the south of Germany, to take part in the Bundesliga Round 3 in Heubach tomorrow. Only now I have got a little time to sit down to report from our eventful weekend in the UK NPS round 2 in Dalby last weekend. Dalby was acting as a test event for a World Cup for next year to take place on the same course, so expectations for the course were high. And we were not disappointed. In our pre-ride we were confronted with lots of super-flowy bermy singletrack, heart-stopping drop-offs, breathtaking steep climbs and rooty grab-your-wheel-from-underneath-you descents. Names like "Worry Gill" and "Medusa's Drop" did not instill confidence either. But, although these descents looked scary, they were all ridealbe (given you've got the skill...) and with my new-found invincibility after having ridden the descents in the Offenburg-Worldcup I didn't even stop at any of them.

The Ladies waiting for the start

Well, my confidence might have tainted my judgment of my skill, because the 2nd time round this really nice course I took a line too fast at Medusa's drop and went off the trail and over my handlebars. I stopped my course of flight with my shoulder hitting a log and was trying to look like everything was OK when I got back up. But the pain in my shoulder! Smiling wearily at the concerned on-lookers I took the embarrassment and got back on the bike. Arggh!! Stupid something stabbing into my shoulder. Hmmmmm. Not good. I gingerly rode back to the start arena and got it checked out in the medical tent. I did have most of my movement (under pain) and no break was apparent, but was in bad pain from the impact (I must be such a whinger). And for some reason I had gotten a droopy shoulder, so just to be sure I was alright I was sent off to get an X-ray. I waited for Ryan to finish his lap and we went off to Scarborough. Thank god for pain killers. After 3hours of waiting for the X-ray and consultation, I finally got the result: nothing broken, just a bruise. Relief! Nothing that would keep me from racing tomorrow (with the help of paracetamol). Still in our cycling clothes we legged it back to our B&B, got changed and went for dinner in a nice Indian, Ryan giving out how much of a wuss I am. But it was good to have gotten the confirmation that everything was going to be alright.

Aussie talent Katherine O'Shea (Torq Australia) passing the feedzone

Next day we lined up at the start line for our 4-lap race. The star of the race was World Cup racer Australian Katherine O'Shea, who is currently touring through Europe to qualify for the World Champs in her home country. With Rosara Joseph and Kate Potter missing from the race, I had my bets on Katherine to take the top podium spot. However, adopted local NZ rider Jenn O'Connor (who placed 2nd in the first UK NPS) and local talents UK national champ Jenny Copnall, World Cup racer Sue Clarke and the up and coming Halfords talents Annie Last and Lilly Matthews all had their eyes set on a podium spot.

We set off on the grassy track around the start arena and I made sure to get a good position on singletrack entry. Katherine made it first, followed by Annie Last, and me in 3rd place. There were a few jostlings for places before disaster happened for a strong riding Annie Last: on jumping up a few steps into a single track section, she hit her rear wheel too hard off the rocks and immediately punctured. On hitting the Gill's Drop, the front 3 now consisted of Katherine O'Shea, Sue Clarke and me riding in 3rd position. While Katherine managed to pull away almost immediately, I was hanging on to Sue's wheel. Thank god my shoulder didn't bother me much on the tricky descents, only some movements (when I was going over steps or where I had to pull on my handlebar) caused a bit of a stab, but my legs were going well (the anticipation of pain was probably worse than the pain itself). I was hoping to be able to keep up with Sue Clarke, but soon she started pulling away as well. At least there was no immediate danger behind and I was hoping to catch up with her again on lap 3 and 4.

UK's Sue Clarke (SiS)

On lap 3 then, an unfortunate Sue Clarke punctured as well and forewent her 2nd place on the podium, and promoting me into 2nd. I knew that Katherine was too far for me to catch, so my aim was to keep my 2nd place. I was confident that I would be able to on a physical basis, but had to keep riding carefully so as not to puncture as well. Then, on my last lap, the cramps set in. I had almost no pain left in my shoulder, but my left thigh and both calves started giving me really bad cramps. I had to ride really smoothly and spin my legs fast to avoid getting bogged down with a bad cramp. I kept looking behind me, I was sure I was going backwards in that lap and that somebody would catch up and take my 2nd place away, but thankfully I made it to the finish line without being caught. I needn't have worried, my last lap was actually faster than my 3rd lap and the next rider in with a 3min gap was a very happy Lilly Matthews, who had reached her first ever UK NPS podium.

me :)

Then Ryan's race started. The men's field was high calibre with many top riders. The race was dominated by UK top rider Oli Beckingsale and Australian World Cup racer Daniel McConnell almost from the start. Ryan had a good race and was getting on well. After my last duty at the feed zone I migrated over to the finish line in the hope to get a few shots of Ryan finishing. I waited for a while and more and more riders finished. I was getting a bit worried when I saw slower riders finishing now too, and still no sign of Ryan. I was just thinking he would be really pissed off if he got a mechanical on his last lap when I was approached from one of the medics asking me to come to the medic's tent. Ryan had broken his collarbone - this time they were sure. And there he was, sitting in with his face in a pain stricken grimace, looking pale, with blood streaming down from his knee, elbow and back. Yep, now I really felt like a whinger after my fall the day before. Ryan needed medical attention fast and for the 2nd time we legged it (as gingerly as possible, Ryan screaming in pain in every corner and on every bump) straight to Scarborough Hospital.

Men's field lined up ready to go!

While Ryan was waiting to be seen, I had to go to the car park to pack our bikes, since we were still hoping to get the 8pm flight from Newcastle back to Dublin. As time went on it became clear that this option would probably soon not be an option any more and we called on our friends to figure out alternatives, while I was still working on packing our bikes. Eventually Ryan was released with 2 freaky looking x-rays, and a whole load of pain killers and we had to head to Leeds instead to try and catch the 10:20pm flight. Still in our cycling clothes we just about made it to the airport, bought the 2 of the 4 remaining seats on the 580£ Ryanair flight (VHI Plan D coming in handy there) and checked in, with about 10min to spare to gulp down a sandwich at the gate. With Ryan's arm in a sling and bandages around knee and elbow and me walking like an old granny since my back had seized up from all the lifting and bending down.

We finally made it back to Dublin and into bed, although sleeping was not going to be easy for Ryan in all his pain. A week later Ryan is now in a lot less pain and a lot more optimistic than in the first few days back, where he was basically reduced to sitting on the sofa and avoid any movement possible. It is still not clear if he needs surgery or not, he has got an appointment with a sports specific surgeon on Monday to see what he thinks. So, that was our eventful weekend, not one I'd like to repeat. But on a positive note, the 2nd place I got in the race promoted me into leading the UK NPS series and lifted me into the top 100 in the World Rankings - although just about: I am now ranked 99th in the world!!! :)

So, now I really need to get ready to pre-ride the course in Heubach.

Thanks as usual to our sponsors Cycleways, Torq, KCNC and Schwalbe for their ongoing support.

Results can be found on Cyclingnews.com or on TimeLaps for a more detailed analysis.

A report is up on BritishCycling and on IrishCycling.

Joolze's Photos can be found here and Rob Crayton one's here.

Body shut down.

2009-05-06T01:58:00.000-07:00

I had decided to give the world cup in Houffalize a miss, so that I could have a short break from racing and a long weekend (Monday was a bank holiday) of training and relaxing and catching up with friends and get done some stuff that just hasn't been done because I haven't really been at home for a while. The plan was to get in some really long training sessions in the Wicklow Mountains, because I haven't done any long spins recently.

Well, it wasn't to be. The few days after I came home from Offenburg on Tuesday I was still fine, and I started going out on Saturday morning on the first of my long spins, but an hour into it I started feeling sh*t. Every little issue started to get at me, for example my gears that skipped a little or me not being able to ride over a small rock, my choice of clothes (I was a bit cold), everything. I had absolutely no motivation or power left to go on. I sometimes get these periods of extreme tiredness, so I called Ryan and decided to cut the training short and go home, relax and have a better session on Sunday. But when I was home, I just felt so physically and mentally shattered, I was wondering why I was doing it all to myself.

Why was I pushing myself so hard and for what? Why spend all this time and money on mountain biking and racing? I was hoping a good night's sleep would fix it, and tried to go out on Sunday morning, but returned back home after 50 minutes. And I was supposed to do 5hours! I had totally and utterly run out of every ounce of energy in my body. I had bonked. My body had decided that enough is enough and had shut down. Sorry, engine has stopped until further notice.

I tried to figure out how this had happened? But there are sooo many possible reasons. Maybe it was just the accummulated stress and tiredness from organizing the trips and travelling around the world for the last few months to go to races and trying at the same time to keep my PhD supervisor happy with my progress. Maybe it was my vegan diet that could have brought on a protein bonk (it's hard to get in vegan protein in Germany where they eat meat with meat). Maybe I was low on iron. I felt that this tiredness was at least as much mental as it was physical. I just felt sooo run down!

So, the solution was to tackle this on all possible fronts. First of all I went out and had a huge portion of beef for the iron and protein (me veganism is not due to some ethical issues, more due to my belief that a diet avoiding animal protein, especially dairy is better on your health in the long term, but I think I haven't quite figured out the right amounts of the right sources of alternative non-animal protein yet), took some iron supplements (might just be a placebo effect, but I feel it helps), had a nice relaxing walk and chat with Ryan and had another really early night.

The next morning I was still not perfect, but some of my motivation had returned and I went out on my bike to do a drill which I know makes me feel good (it's a drill I don't do very often and it makes me feel good because every time I do it, I get further, so you can see improvement). Then I went on a run with my good friend who understands the pressures I put myself under. Nothing clears your mind more than a good rant among friends on a mountain run. She's pointed me into the direction of trying some meditation to combat the stress. I've done a bit of research and think it's definitely an important component that I need to add to my life to keep the balance.

Anyhow, the combined effect of proper rest, nutrition, and socializing has had the desired effect and I am now feeling stronger and better and ready to take on the next challenge, which will be the next UK NPS in Dalby this weekend.

Race Report World Cup Round 2 – Offenburg, Germany

2009-05-01T04:27:00.000-07:00

Another airport, another wait – good time to write my report. I’m a little early at Karlsruhe-Baden airport, which is only about 40min from Offenburg, where the second mountain biking World Cup this year took place on Sunday. This time round I was by myself, which means that I also need to think of everything myself. My race start was at 10:45am, so I got up really early to make sure I’ll be there on time (see previous post about my rant of having booked myself into a hotel so far away). I was able to contain my nerves for breakfast – this is important, because if I’m too nervous before breakfast, I can’t eat, and it’s really important to get a good breakfast in before the race. Then I drove the hour and 10min to the race place.

The weather was beautiful: blue skies with the warm sun beaming down, it couldn’t have been better. And the course was bone dry. I deposed of my bottles at Ian Potter, who kindly agreed to do my feed and went to warm up. I was getting really nervous now and almost forgot my timing chip. This was going to be the biggest, highest caliber field that I will ever have raced against: 105 Elite/U23 ladies from all over the world were signed up to start. Of course all the big names where there. Offenburg has been awarded the “Best Worldcup 2009”, so it’s a favourite among many racers. The men’s field was even crazier, with about 240 Elite/U23 men signed up.

At the start line my heart rate was 105 – it usually is in the low 60s when I stand around…. Amazing how your mind can influence your body. I was gridded in 4th row, due to my placing 35th in the previous world cup in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Finally we went off for our start loop + 6 laps affair and as seems usual in world cups, the pace was crazy from the start. I was like going into a sprint with a pack in a road race! And there were so many girls! I don’t feel very comfortable with so many frantic riders around me and lost a few places in the heat of it.

Luckily the start loop and the start of the lap proper were quite wide, so the group had time to spread out a bit before hitting the single track. I tried to stay with the speed of the people around me, and was riding high in the red zone. I got through all the technical sections fine – there was no time to be scared now and went on to lap two in 47th position. I was still riding really hard in the 2nd lap, but knew I wouldn’t be able to hold this high pace for much longer. A few little mistakes meant that I lost another few places and riding in the red zone for so long was starting to take its toll.

At the end of lap two I had been pushed back into 57th position. Going into lap three I was spent. Dead. Bonking. I had gone so hard, I now felt like giving up. My legs were turning into dead weight, and I was suffering badly. At that moment I hated racing. Why was I doing this to myself? Why race? Why not go on a leisurely ride along a river, stopping by a café, have some ice cream… I had to reduce my pace totally to recover from my red zone effort from the first two laps. Another mishap along the way meant I lost a few more places (a girl stopped on an uphill, held up the group, I tried to ride slowly, hoping she would get going again, but then I went into a sand hill, the girls behind me obviously used the opportunity to get by quickly). But anyway, at that stage I was going backwards. I was really getting frustrated. One by one the girls started overtaking me. I didn’t even have the power to fight with the girls for the single track or to overtake them again later. I could only let them flow by.

After lap 3 I had gone down into 67th position. I was feeling so crap, all I could do was to decide to ride the race at my pace. So I rode on into my 4th and 5th lap. I still could see people ahead of me, and I was able to overtake another 2 girls who were suffering worse than I, but I did not have the power to catch up to the group of about 5 closely spaced riders just ahead of me. In my 5th lap the commentators were predicting that it would be the last time they would see me coming by, since the race leaders were closing in. Towards the end of the 5th lap I saw the 80% signs and was prepared to be pulled. I went around the start area, but nobody stopped me. I looked around, but no, seems like I wasn’t going to be stopped. I looked ahead, and there were a few girls still going, so I guessed I had to do another lap. I kinda had hoped that I would be pulled, but then again, this gave me another opportunity to enjoy another lap of this amazing course. I didn’t have very much power left, but decided to just hold my position and enjoy the last lap. I finally finished the race after 2hours 8min 33secs, in 65th position.

At first I was a little disappointed with my result. It’s kinda hard to be happy with 65th position, since my legs felt good in the morning. On the other hand, maybe my expectations were a little too high. I had hoped for a top 60, so I was 5 places off that. I had went out too hard in the beginning and had to pay for it later. I felt I had never bonked so badly in a race before. Looking at my lap times it’s easy to see how they deteriorated. I just can’t get used to the speed that these girls go at from the start – AND keep it up. I can keep up for a lap, maybe two, but then I’m spent, whereas those girls just keep up that high speed until the finish.

I’m happier now with the result. This was only my 2nd world cup after all, and one with the biggest and best field I’ve ever raced against. The next World Cup is next weekend in Houffalize, Belgium. I would love to take part, but I have to slow down a little with racing now if I want to last the whole season. I am gutted, since Houffalize is another “Classic”, but I know backing off now will help me in the long run. Also, it’s nice to spend a weekend at home for once ☺.

So the next race will be Round 2 of the UK NPS in Dalby in two weeks time, a nice short weekend affair. There is a Bundesliga on that weekend as well, but since Dalby is going to be a test event for a World Cup, I thought it would be a good idea to go there. Also, with the addition of world class rider Rosara Joseph doing the UK series, fellow world cup racer Kate Potter and Katherine O’Shea from Australian national team doing the event too, the competition has just become even more exciting. And I’ve got the chance to pick up a few points there too ☺.

All in all, my second world cup has been a very good experience. I feel I’ve reached another step on my technical riding ability by overcoming my fear of steep, rooty descents. I’ve learned that I have to pace myself better when I race against such good people, to avoid bonking. And the support from the 15000 or so spectators was amazing. Cow bells, whistles and even alpine horns! And shouts of encouragement lasting the whole race and for every rider. It’s such a different kind of atmosphere, it’s worth riding the race just for that.

At the end I would just like to say thanks to Cycleways, KCNC, TorQ and Trinity for their ongoing support and a special thanks to Ian Potter for helping out at the feedzone, for Specialized fixing a creak and for SRAM to fix my squeaking breaks.

Results, pictures and report can be found on Cyclingnews.com.

World Cup Offenburg Preview and living like a pro....

2009-04-24T03:37:00.000-07:00

OK, so after the Bundesliga race in Muensingen I stayed on until Thursday in the holiday flat (so that I could make use of the 7-day offer there). The weather was beautiful everyday, lots of sunshine, and the area is probably one of my most favourite areas in Germany, the “Schwäbische Alb”. It is so beautiful and romantic, with rivers snaking through valleys and rock formations – even caves, the geological history of this valley is superinteresting (it used to be a sea!), castles and ruins every few miles on either side of the valley, and those beautiful “Fachwerkhäuser” (typical house structures here: with dark wood criss crossing the white washed walls – beautiful!). And on top of all this, it was a cyclist’s paradise. If you want to go steady and flat you go along the many walking/cycling paths along the river (and stop for a huge ice cream bowl at a river side beer garden). Or, if you want to have a bit of a hilly workout, you can just go straight into the woods and follow any of the hundreds of small walking paths (read: first-class singletrack). You didn’t even need a map, the trails basically started from your doorstep. I looooove the “Schwäbische Alb”!

Anyway, on Thursday I made my way to Offenburg. I went straight to the course to pre-ride it, because my next hotel was about an hour the opposite direction from where I came. However, I noticed I had no water with me, so I drove to the next village, but it didn’t have a shop. I went on to the village after that, this one was slightly bigger and voila, there was a shop. BUT, the shop was closed! Flippin shop is closed from 12pm to 2:30pm! It was 1:30pm…. When I turned my car I saw Burry Stander and another few riders standing before the closed door scratching their heads… So I had to drive all the way back to Offenburg, and the first shop I found was a health food shop. Ah well, better healthy water than no water.

At least the weather was absolutely fantastic, blue skies and sunshine. I went back to the course. I had seen online that the course and in fact the whole race is hailed as one of the best to go to, so I had great expectations. Also, it’s supposed to be one of the most technical trails in a World Cup (in contrast to South Africa, which I didn’t find very technical at all, just steep). You can have a look at www.weltcup-offenburg.de to see the description of the race course (click on “Strecke” on left hand menu, there are some spectacular pics of the drops). Well, I did a lap round and I can say that all my expectations have been fulfilled. It’s such an amazing course, I think it may actually become my new favourite course! There are no super steep climbs (wohoo!), but there is still a good bit of climbing in the course. Most of it is very flowy, twisty singletrack through the trees. The flow is one of the best I’ve ever experienced in a course. But then of course, there are the 5 highlights of the course (the REALLY technical bits):

The Dual Speed (a choice of two separate singletrack lines with several drops in a row)
The Northshore (an amazingly flowy bermed singletrack descent + drop, suuuper fun!)
The Worldclass drop (3m straight down drop from a corner into a corner)
The Wolfsdrop (a rooty trail towards an even rootier 3m drop – the hardest in the race)
The Snake Pit (a labyrinth of roots with deep holes inbetween followed by a drop)

My first thought at any of these drops was “OH MY GOD!!!”. Apart from the Dual Speed and the Snake Pit I didn’t ride any of the drops. At each section I waited for some riders to go by to watch them go down, but I was too scared to go down. So I finished my first lap and then chatted to Githa Michiels (Belgium national champ) who had just finished her pre-ride, to see how she is able to go down those drops. After a bit of confidence talk from her, I decided that in my next lap I’ll do ALL of the drops. I came to the doubletrack and managed that allright. Then I went off and I was so surprised by the drop after the bermed singletrack (I forgot that there was one) that I had no chance to stop and had to ride it down. Well, that wasn’t too bad! Then on to the Worldclass drop. I stopped to see how other people rode it. This was the only drop that had a chicken run, but the chicken run was so longwinded and tricky enough as well, so that you would loose about 10secs if you didn’t do the drop. So I waited and waited and watched and considered and looked and waited and gathered all my confidence and went up to it and (this feels like jumping off a 10m board or out of an airplane)…. – I made it down!!! Ryan, you can be so proud of your girlfriend! Wow, the adrenaline hit was amazing. I actually can’t believe I made myself ride it down. I am really scared of steep descents and this one was way longer than the one in Cyprus that I didn’t dare to go down. Anyway, I went on to the next one, the Wolfsdrop and again stopped to watch which line people took and how they went down it. And again I gathered all my confidence (it didn’t take me that long this time round) and made it down safely. And because it was so much fun I did it again! The rest of the course I rode without problem. Now, to see if it wasn’t just a freak moment, I rode the course another two times, this time without stopping at any of the drops. Wohoo! I was so happy that I could do all the drops!

After the pre-ride I got my squeaky brake fixed by SRAM (thanks so much guys, your service is amazing – the help at the World Cups in general is amazing, people fixing your bikes for free!) and they noticed that my bearings at my front wheel were mostly gone (which also lead to the front brake dragging). Unfortunately Specialized didn’t have any spare bearings, so I drove to the next bike shop, but they couldn’t help me either. I tried to get to another bike shop, but landed straight in rush hour traffic, so I had to forget about that too.

After the pre-ride I drove the 40km along the only road to my place, with 80kmh or even 50kmh speed restrictions the WHOLE WAY! On top there was the rush hour traffic and it took me over an hour to arrive at the country hotel I am staying. When I booked the place I was just happy to have found a place because I had looked for a place near Muensingen for 3 hours before that and everything around Offenburg seemed booked out as well (or was super expensive). I was told you need to book in November the year beforehand to get something near the world cup!

Anyway, what I had forgotten was that I booked myself into a room, not the holiday flat, so I don’t even have a possibility to cook myself some food, I don’t even have a kettle! The hotel is in the middle of nowhere, the room is pretty spartanic and dark and the Internet is slower than over IP over Avian Carriers (I wonder if they send messengers on horses) – that’s why there won’t be any photos until I’m back home and connected. And the ONLY vegan food is the ice cream sorbet with fresh fruit, hmm, not sure if I can survive on that ☹.

Ah well, I’m trying to see things positively: at least I’ll have lots of time and no distractions to work on my PhD…. :-s

Race Report Bundeslinga Round 1 - Muensingen, Germany

2009-04-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I took part in my first Bundesliga race in Muensingen, Germany. First of all though, on Saturday, there was a sprint cup on an obviously very short course (the fastest time around was about 1min 15secs). This a new format and works as follows: Everybody does an individual timed run, then you are being put into heats of 6 people each, based on the timed runs. The first 2 of each heat move on into the next round and so on. The sprints were so much fun, with the efforts so short that it's over before you really feel the pain. I qualified 5th in the timed run out of 14 but had a bit of a slide in a wet corner in my heat, so lost out on the finals. Nonetheless, it's a great idea to get your few high intensity pre-race efforts in.

After the sprints I did another lap of the race course to see the condition of the course. The weather hadn't been great, with rain the last few days and rain this morning too. Only in the evening the clouds gave way to some sunshine. So the pre-ride was still a pure mud fest, with trenches and slippery ground. I only had one mud tire with me that I would have to put on if the trails didn't dry out till the next day. However, the weather forecast said sunshine and I was assured that the trails dry out very quickly, so I was hoping for the best.

On race day, the course was mostly dry again, so no tire change was needed :). The quality of both the men's and women's Elite field were the highest ever witnessed on a Bundesliga opener. With the nearby World Cup in Offenburg happening a week later, many international racers took the opportunity to get a race in beforehand, using it as a barometer of their form. The Swedish national team was there, the world champ Irina Kalentieva, the olympic champ Sabine Spitz, the winner of last weeks first World cup in Pietermaritzburg, SA, Elisabeth Osl, the British national team and many more. 43 Elite women lined up (including 18 U23s) and we started straight up the steep hill for the first of the 6 fast laps.

The course was a mix of gravelly fireroad and rooty singletrack, even a bit of tarmac, a steep grassy climb in the beginning and a fast grassy descent towards the end, finishing with a lap through the purpose built mountain bike skills park (tight twisty corners with rock obstacles, bridges and kicker climbs), my favourite part of the course. The course was in total just over 5km long and included 140m of climb, most of it on long draggy fire road sections. This type of course usually suits me better than too much climb or too steep climbs.

I didn't have the greatest start, but was slowed down even more by a girl getting off in front of me to run up the steep bit. I had to get off too and run up. I got back onto the bike when the section flattened out, but for some reason another girl decided to run the flat bit in front of me too, and I couldn't get by her either. When I finally hit the slightly uphill tarmac section I was in almost last position. I made up a good few places on most of the climb, but then, on one of the descents my gears acted up (they haven't been the same since I caught my rear derailleur in that tree stump in last week's world cup and I haven't had a chance yet to replace the hanger that might have been slightly bent) and my chain dropped and got caught. I had to stop to put it back on, loosing my hard earned places again. I got back on and tried again to make up places. I got stuck a few times behind some girls on the singletrack climbs but from the 3rd lap onwards the group was spread out enough. So I was on for a chase to make up places. However, even though the course should have suited me, I didn't have great legs today. It is still a bit of trial and error for me to see what works best with regards to pre-race tapering and preparation and I was hoping the sprints the day before would do the trick, but my legs were just dead and lactic from the word go. But then again, looking at my heart rate profile I was going hard, so maybe I'm supposed to feel that way. Well, I'm trying a proper taper method for the Offenburg World Cup and hope it works better.

I made up a few more places in the next few laps, but unfortunately wasn't able to catch up that group of about 9 riders that were just ahead of me (if I had been 2min faster, I would have been 9 places up), Eventually I finished in 20th position (14th of you take out the U23s). I wasn't particularly happy with my performance, but at least I was happy enough with how I rode the few technical rooty bits. I still feel I haven't yet reached that level of fitness and strength that the girls around me have. My lap times were very consistent, only differing by max 15 seconds (apart from the first lap), so that is a plus at least. Percentage wise I was a lot closer to the winner (Irina Kalentieva) than in the World Cup (comparing to the same people), showing how much more this course suits me and how much better my form was in the Bundesliga race. But still not there yet. Well, I have been told it takes years to develop your muscles and blood vessels, so I just need to keep chipping away at my training and be patient.

The thing that was great though in this race was the support of the spectators. It is so nice to hear your name shouted in encouragement when you are fighting with your last little bit of energy to get up a steep hill, so a huge thanks to the boys that followed me around the course - it was great to have your support! I'll take you with me to Offenburg! In German: Danke an die Jungs die um den Kurs herum gelaufen sind und mich angefeuert haben, es ist echt super so eine Unterstuetzung zu haben! Euch wuerde ich gerne zum Welt Cup nach Offenburg mitnehmen! Danke auch an den Rothaus Cube Mechaniker, der sich meine Gaenge noch einmal angeschaut hat. And thanks of course to Lasse from Sweden for helping out with my bottles. That's what I love about mountain biking, so many people from so many corners of the world and everybody gets on really well and is super nice and supportive. Merci beaucoup aussi au pere de Julie Krasniak pour laver mon bicycle!

Now it's another taper week (I feel all I do is racing and tapering these last few weeks!) before my next race, the World Cup in Offenburg!

Info about the race can be found here and results can be found on DATASPORT.

Race Report World Cup Round 1 – Pietermaritzburg, SA

2009-04-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

Well, I’m glad I got that out of the way, my first ever World Cup, in the beautiful lush green, hot, sunny and humid surroundings of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. When Ryan, Kate Potter (AQR Holidays) and I arrived on Wednesday after a very long trip from the UK, we were hit by the heat. We checked out the course on Wednesday evening, just when the air started to cool down.

The Women Elite Start

The course was a 5.4km affair, with about 225m of vertical climb per lap. Most of that climb was done on super steep, 30% climbs, with 45% gradient in the switchbacks – some of the Olympians said they were comparable to those in Beijing. The course was basically an eight that looped back to the start arena. The first loop of the eight was shorter, with more draggy climbs and less ascent than the second part. The second part was a very long steep switchbacky climb, a bit of a flat section through some cooling forest and a long fast and flowy descent. The climbs were just killer, it was a real climber’s course. The descents were just as steep as the ascents, but quite smooth. Apart from the steepness, the course wasn’t what I would call technical, just a few little drops and a few logs to get over. The ground was all dry red clay, the type that would make the course a slippery slide in the wet.

Elisabeth Osl already in the lead, followed by Mary McConneloug

On Thursday we had planned a hard training session on the course, but the heat and humidity were so bad, buckets of sweat running down your skin and I had absolutely no power in my legs. So we cut our training short - as did a lot of the others too, everybody seemed to suffer. By now I was getting very concerned about how I was going to complete 5 laps of this course if the weather stayed like this!

2007 World Champ Irina Kalentieva took 2nd place

Then, on Friday, the weather had cooled down and it was nice and overcast, thank god! Our final pre-ride of the course went well and I was praying for the weather to stay like this. However, when we woke up the next (race) day, it was back to blazing sunshine and humidity. At least my race started at 10:30 in the morning, so I was hoping it wouldn’t be too hot by that stage.
About 50 Elite women lined up at the start, including almost all of the big names. I was so nervous, my heartrate was up at 112 while standing still (usually it would be around 65), and we seemed to have to wait forever for the start.

Willow Koerber chasing Mary McConneloug

Finally we were let off and the suffering began. I was holding back at the start, to avoid being caught up in any early race crashes (as a lot of people predicted), but thankfully everything went smoothly. I tried to make up a few places on the draggy climbs and was able to catch a few girls. It was hot and humid and my heart rate was sky high. There was a lot of running on the steep bits, just a queue of girls trying to get up and I was stuck behind some slower girls on the descents, which let a gap open up to the group ahead of us.

Concentrated on a descent

Finally, mostly through the climb on the 2nd part of the course, I was able to catch up to Kate Potter and hung onto her wheel. On the draggy climbs, I was still on Kate’s wheel, but I thought I was able to go faster, so I overtook her and took the lead of our group. Everything went fine until I went down the steep descents and I took the chicken run on the drop. What a mistake! I washed out and crashed (and I actually was able to ride the proper line no problem!). I thought I had damaged the closing mechanism on my shoe, but thankfully it was all fine. However, until I got going again, the group had caught up with me and the riders had streamed by. This debacle cost me about 5 places and I was stuck again behind slower people. I caught a few girls on the following ascents and was working my way up again, but then my second debacle happened. When jumping over a log, I rode too tight around a tree stump and my rear derailleur got caught which messed up all my gears. I was weighing up stopping and trying to fix it, but I was afraid I would loose too much time, since I might not be able to fix it (maybe I bent my hanger), so I just tried to find some gears that didn’t skip and tried to keep changing gears to a minimum. Of course this wasn’t ideal on this type of course that required the whole range of gears.

Chasing and being chased

On top of all this, I was really starting to suffer from the heat and humidity. I had no power on the climbs and had to use my lowest gear or even walk some of the steep bits, every pedal stroke was a struggle. On lap 4 I was so exhausted that I was hoping to get lapped, I had no idea how I was going to finish my race. Every time I arrived on top of the climb, I was starting to feel cold and getting the shivers, a telltale sign that I was pushing myself to the max. I didn’t get lapped then afterall, so I had to do my 5th lap. I had to take it very steady on the climbs and felt like I was going backwards. Being overtaken by another rider on the last 3km didn’t help my confidence. I finally crossed the finish line in 1:59:36, in 35th positing, 18min46sec behind the winner, Elisabeth Osl.

Looking very tired....

After the race, I was so dead tired, dizzy and dehydrated, I had to lay down in the shadow for a while before I was able to move again. I was supposed to take pictures of Ryan’s race, which was on straight after mine, but I was barely able to stand up, so my radius of pictures is only around the feedzones and the start/finish area. Thank god Alan was over to support us in the feedzones – a huge thanks is due here to Alan for his amazing support – there aren’t many friends that sponteneously fly over to SA to help out doing bottles!

Jose Hermida (winner) coming down a singletrack

I really suffered in the race, it’s not nice to start a race with the feeling of dead legs. I felt a little better on my recovery ride the day after though. At least I could see some of the countryside then. After the ride, Ryan, Alan and I went to watch the Downhill final. We got an uplift to the top and worked our way down as the riders whizzed by. The atmosphere was amazing when the last few riders came blasting down. Steve Peat, who had qualified in 4th place beat Sam Hill’s time by 0.93 seconds and made it into the hot seat. Then Chris Kovarik came down, but he couldn’t push Steve out of the hot seat. Then, when the South African downhiller Greg Minnaar came down, the cheering reached its peak, the noise was unbelievable when the commentator announced a split time that beat Steve’s and when he came into the finish beating Peaty’s time by almost 6 seconds. He was the clear winner of the race on his home ground, a fairytale win. It was so nice to have time to just enjoy the buzz of the Worldcup without having to stress about racing any more. Then the last man down, Mick Hannah, was also able to push Peaty into 3rd position.

Ryan and Mel elated after the race :)

We decided to do a hard training session on the course on Monday morning, because our flight home was only late on Monday evening. And funny enough, all of my 4 laps in my training session were faster than any of my laps in the race! For example, the longest climb took me about 10min20sec in the race with an average HR of 176, but in training I did it in 9min30, with a HR of 167, what the heck?? Even my descents were faster in training. It was the first time since arriving in SA, that I actually felt strong and powerful on the climbs and very comfortable on the descents. I don’t know if it was the acclimatization, the slightly cooler temperatures or the hard race effort on Sunday, but I wish I had had the form that I had in this training session in the race.

A guy getting some air over a table top jump

The World Cup was a fantastic experience for both Ryan and me. Even though I didn’t have a great race, I’ve achieved all the goals I’ve set out for myself (I’ll set higher goals next time): I finished the race, I didn’t come last, I didn’t get lapped and I finished in the top 40 (so I will have a great grid position in the next World Cup race in 2 weeks in Offenburg).

It was great to watch the downhill

Finally I would like to thank Kate Potter for arranging our accommodation and flights, Alan for coming over and being our general handyman, feedzone support and photographer and of course our sponsors Cycleways/Specialized/KCNC and Torq for giving us the best equipment to carry out our sport.

Crowds lining the final downhill section

We are planning to be back next year, this time hopefully a little earlier, so that we can acclimatize properly and explore the area little more.

Full report, results and pictures can be found on Cyclingnews.

Race Report British NPS Round 1 - Sherwood Pines - a bottle affair

2009-04-07T05:05:00.000-07:00

What a race! This was my first race of my second season in the UK, so a race against old friends. I was looking forward to it, and thought it would be a great opportunity to see how I had improved since last year. It was great to arrive to the race and see all the familiar faces from last year. The weather was nice, just at the cusp of becoming spring, but still with a strong, cold blustery wind blowing.

Chilling out at the line-up

Ryan and I pre-rode the dusty-dry course on Saturday, which wound around the trees and trails of Sherwood Pines, the famous forests of Robin Hood. It was just over 7km long and consisted of miles and miles of tight and twisty single track weaving through dense trees linked through bits of dusty fire road. The course was pretty flat, and there were only really two small climbs: a draggy 1km fireroad linker and another short but steep fireroad kicker climb. It would be difficult to find a place to eat and drink on this course, because those fireroad sections would be the ones where people would go hard to try and get into the next bit of singletrack. It would be hard to overtake people on the twisty forest sections. The only other technical bits were two side-wise logs. So all in all it looked like it was going to be a very fast race where staying in a group would be an advantage, especially to draft on the fireroad sections with that wind blowing against you.

The women Elite field focusing right before the start

It was an early start on race day, and it was freezing cold. However, just before my race call up, the sun had warmed up the air and I was able to take off my leg and armwarmers. There were 17 girls in the Ladies Elite category, with the favourite of the race being New Zealander Rosara Joseph, an Olympian (9th in Beijing) and Oceania Champ (although I didn't know that at the time). Due to my points gathering in Cyprus, I had a great grid position, being gridded 3rd after Rosara Joseph and Sue Clarke. I knew most of the riders in the race, but I was wondering who this Rosara girl was....

And off we go!

The gun went off and the manic of my 5-lap affair started. Although I had a great position at the line, I was surprised by the surge and found myself being squashed between riders, almost getting tangled up with UK-based New Zealander Jenn O'Connor. I let myself fall back to avoid a crash and made up all my lost positions on the first long fireroad drag. I got into the singletrack first, with Rosara straight behind me and the other racers close by. Rosara and I had a bit of jostling for positions (I had no idea who I was taking on there) and it was Rosara and I leading on the group through the first lap. However, then the first problem happened: I missed my bottle from Ryan at the feedzone (we got to practice that, Ryan). I almost missed the lead group, now consisting of Rosara Joseph, Australian Kate Potter, UK national champ Jenny Copnall, and 2 or 3 Team Halford riders. Luckily, I caught up with them again and on we went. Since the course looped back to the start arena at about 3km, I was able to get my bottle from Ryan at the 2nd feedzone. However, when I was trying to drink at the next best fireroad, I lost my bottle. Hmm, not good, I gotta get that next bottle.

Chasing Rosara...

Since this race was so flat and fast it was really important to stay with the group and I made sure to close any gaps I let open quickly. Rosara Joseph and Kate Potter were now mostly leading the group through the race and I was hanging on. Bottle hand up went fine the 2nd time round and we raced on. Just before the end of the 3rd lap Jenn O'Connor had managed to catch up to the lead group, having chased us since our messy start.

At the start of the 4th lap, when I came to bottle hand up I was going really slow to make sure I got that bottle again (I don't think Ryan has gotten the knack of it yet). One second I was trying to grab my bottle and the next second I found myself on the ground with a bleeding elbow. What the hell did just happen?? The ground on the feedzone was a little rocky, and I must have hit a rock or root or something. Startled and desoriented I got back onto my bike. But the group had gone. Damn! Needless to say I was a little (if not a lot) pissed off, but my anger just motivated me to work hard to catch back onto the group.

Riding singletrack

I could still see glimpses of the lead group and chased hard to catch them again. I still had not caught up to them on my last time through the feed zone. But I wasn't going to give up. Eventually, a few km from the finish, I caught up with the Kate Potter and Jenny Copnall, now in 3rd and 4th position, and who had become separated from the 2 leaders Rosara Joseph and Jenn O'Connor. About a km from the finish I overtook Jenny Copnall and another few hundred meters from the finish I was able to overtake Kate Potter. I was just praying that I could hold the position until the finish line and gave it all. I sprinted as hard as I could and crossed the line just ahead of Kate Potter and Jenny Copnall and 45 seconds down on the winner Rosara Joseph. In second place, in another very close sprint finish was Jenn O'Connor who had shown a very strong performace throughout the race.

Pushing hard

Apart from all my bottle issues, I'd had a very good race and really enjoyed it. The atmosphere was fantastic, the weather was great and the racing was very exciting. It gave me great confidence for my next race coming up, my first ever World Cup this weekend in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

Report, results and pictures can be found on http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/ and cyclingnews.

Des Hanlon Memorial Road Race

2009-03-30T02:36:00.000-07:00

So, this was supposed to be a semi-serious attempt at the Des Hanlon, an Irish Classic in road races. It is known as one of the tougher ones, with quite a climby course. Details about the course can be found on the Carlow Cycling website.
Basically, there are 3 races:

Race 1 - Senior A & B (3x Laps) 145Km
Race 2 - Combined V/J/W/C (1x Lap) 62Km
Race 3 - Combined V/J/W/C (2x Laps) 103Km

I decided to do the 2 lap race, thought 62km was a little short. At race HQ, Ryan and I met a good few familiar faces from mountain biking, from Epic and WORC and even Richie Close and Arek from MAD had exchanged their bouncy bikes against some sleek and fast race machines for what was their first road race.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/ireland/carlow/454826266239"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Des Hanlon Memorial Classic Race (2 x Lap Race Circuit)&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/find-ride/ireland/carlow"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Find more Bike Rides in Carlow, Ireland&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

The course of the Des Hanlon Memorial road race

Our start was neutralized through the Carlow roundabouts (my warmup) and even when we were allowed to race, nobody really bothered to push for a while. With over 60 people in my group I had to concentrate well not to ride into anybody's wheels (I am still not comfortable riding in such a big group). I tried to get ahead, but found it very hard to do so safely, so for a lot of the time I was towards the end of the pack. There were a few hills and a few breakaway attempts, but each one with no more than a few people, so it seemed not worth going for it anyway and we always reeled them in again pretty quickly. The speed was comfortable, even a little slow.

Then we came to Castlecomer and went around a left-hand corner and oh flip! Everybody started racing up the steep hill around the corner and whoosh they were gone into the distance. I was badly positioned at the back of the pack and noticed the attack too late when I went around the corner and even though I really gave everything then it was too late, the pack was gone. It's incredible how fast it all happened. I wasn't prepared for that, sleeping in my own dreamy world of sitting in with the pack.

Well, seems that a good few missed the connection, and we got together to try and chase the pack, including John and another lad from Epic, Richie Close from MAD and a few other guys. We worked together hard, with John and Richie putting in a great effort trying to catch the pack again. At one point it really looked like we were closing in on them again, but then the next tight corner came and they were gone again. It was looking less and less likely that we would catch them again, but we could still see them in the distance from time to time. Unfortunately we lost a few guys on the way and then John punctured out as well, so only one guy and I were still trying to chase the pack. We were going well, working together well (now! he didn't want to put in the work when we still had a chance to catch the pack - if we ever had one) but with two people there isn't much you can do, especially if you've already worked hard for a while.

We still went hard though, I thought at least I want to get a good work out out of this, and picked up a few other guys that were dropped by the peloton along the way and worked together as a group of 5-6 people. Towards the end we whittled down again to 3 people and due to an unfortunate incident of the guy who was going with me for most of the lap sliding on the damp ground I was now on my own going for the last 9km.

However, at about 5km to go the 2 lads had caught up to me again and we rode together towards the finish. We were going fast, the 2 guys stayed in front, I hung on, 4km to go, 3km to go, 2km to go, 1km to go, well if they want to stay in front, their problem, I'm changing into 2nd positon, 500m, 400m, 300m, 200m to go, I look around if the road is clear of traffic, 100m to go, I start sprinting and go really hard, the guys don't react fast enough and wohoo! I crossed the line ahead of the two guys with a time of about 3hours 20minutes. Well, even though I came in minutes behind the peloton, at least I won my finish sprint against the two lads, it really made my day :)

And guess what, I was 2nd unplaced lady! Although that's not hard if there was only 2 ladies taking part in the whole event, because of an unfortunate clash with the women's league race on the same day. Being dropped from the pack means almost as hard work as it is being in a breakaway in front (but it's way more demoralizing breaking away from the back end...). So here is - again - road racing lesson number 1: Do not EVER get dropped by the peloton! It is incredible how hard we tried and weren't able to catch back on. In most cases, if you are dropped, that's it. And the way home is a lot longer by yourself.

Results and some race pictures can be found on www.IrishCycling.com. Richie Close has a report about the race up on his blog too. Ryan had a pretty good race, doing really well and keeping with the lead group in the Senior A/B race until he dropped the chain midway up the last climb, having to stop to put it back on. Unfortunately this meant he was dropped from the group and so he came in 10th, still a really good result! He'll have his report up on his blog soon too.

Cyprus Sunshine Cup #4 (UCI C1)

2009-03-17T14:40:00.000-07:00

I’m just sitting on the plane back from Cyprus and since the choice of movies isn’t that great, I thought it is a great opportunity to write my last Cyprus Sunshine Cup blog post.

Riding along a singletrack traverse (photo taken by Marco)

When I pre-rode the course a few days before the race I thought I would not be able to ride it. The course for Cyprus Sunshine Cup # 4 started of quite innocently at the edge of the village Oroklini, just outside a nice Cafe. A lap was 6.9km long with 240m climb. It consisted of some nice fireroad and technical singletrack and doubletrack climbs and traverses, a few fun oop-dee-doop sections, a few really steep hills, some really fast fireroad descents, and then of course, the highlight of the course, a long steep and technical descent over rock slabs criss crossing down an empty riverbed followed by a super steep loose ground switchback descent section. I was able to ride the riverbed alright, but when we hit the steep loose switchbacks, I mentally blocked. I just could not ride them down! So I walked them down, had a coffee to contemplate and tried again. The second time I made it down all of them, apart from a particular steep 6 foot drop. I really really tried, but I could got not get myself to ride it down. I rode the lap another time with Swedish national champ and Sunshine cup leader of the series Alexandra Engen and her up and coming team mate Kajsa Snihs, hoping when I see them riding it that I would be able to ride it too. They tried their best to coax me down, but again I just stopped. So I decided to call it a day and try again on the Saturday pre-ride when we had to drive up to register. Sometimes it’s just not to be.

Just coming out of a nice and steep descent (photo taken by Marco)

I was all psyched up on Saturday to ride the steep drop and guess what – they had rerouted the course around the steep drop and put a big rock in front of it. I wasn’t sure if I should be happy or disappointed, as I was looking forward to facing my fear and try and go down it, but at the same time this meant that I would be able to ride all of the course without being to scared. I mean, there is a difference going down in a slow and careful manner during the training run when you are fresh and a race lap when your legs are filled with lactic acid and your brain is fogged due to exertion. So it probably was for the better. I’ll have plenty of opportunity to ride technical descents later in the year.

Just before the finish line (photo taken by Marco)

Race day arrived and again a selection of the creme de la creme of female mountain bike racing lined up. Lene Byberg, Sabine Spitz, Elisabeth Osl, Petra Henzi, all top 12 in the world and Alexandra Engen, who had shown great early season form by having won two out of the three Sunshine cup races so far. We went off and the pace was fast from the start, but I was able to hang on, staying with the lead group of about 8 people for the start loop and the first half of the first out of the four proper laps. Then already the group started to spread out. I was happy to get through the first lap ahead of Adelheid Morath, but was overtaken soon after by her. And from then on I felt like I was going backwards. Another two girls overtook me and I tried to hang on, but couldn’t keep up. I carefully rode all of the technical descents and only crashed once on one of them. Finally, without having had any major battles with anybody I came into the finish in 12th position, 11 minutes down on the winner Alexandra Engen, 2min behind the 11th and 2min ahead of 13th position. Second was Lene Byberg, coming in closely behind Engen, then after a gap of about 2 min, Sabine Spitz came in to take third place, only 20 seconds ahead of team mate Elisabeth Osl. 5th place was taken by Petra Henzi.

The women's podium

I didn’t feel I had very good legs in this race, just no power in them. Maybe my training this week was a little too hard, maybe my 2.5 hour ‘recovery’ ride on Friday to the next good coffee shop was a little too long. But all is not so bad, because percentage wise I was closer to the winner’s time than in the race the weekend before. I also know that I can gain a lot of time by getting faster on the technical descents, which I rode fairly carefully and slowly.

I finished 4th in the general classification, mainly because of my result in the first round and because not everybody attended every round, so that was a nice bonus. Thanks as usual to my sponsors Cycleways/Specialized, KCNC and Torq, Frederick for doing feed zone support and Marco for taking pictures during the race.

In anyway, these races set me up really well for the coming season and I feel I have made leaps in my technical riding confidence and race fitness already.

Full results can be found here and a report is up on cyclingnews.com too.

A pic from next Sunday's course

2009-03-12T13:01:00.000-07:00

I'm standing at the top and asking myself how the hell I am going to get down this bit.

Cyprus Sunshine Cup # 3

2009-03-09T00:39:00.000-07:00

The ladies' start

Yesterday Round 3 of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup took place and I am in bits. Like a truck had run over me, put in the reverse gear and rolled over me again. Not because I went super hard - my legs actually feel fine, not very tired at all, but because I crashed about 5 times on the course. I have to admit, whereas previously I was always a bit skeptic about the robustness of a carbon fiber bike, I can safely say now that my S-Works Epic has been thoroughly crash tested and I would trust it blindly: while my bike didn't receive any blemish, I've added a fair amount of bruises and scratches to my body yesterday.

Coming through after the start loop

The course was just outside Limassol, at Amathous-Agios Tychon, some famous old ruins (a famous Acropolis wall, amongst them). A lap was 5.76km long going around and through these ancient ruins with 175m of climb. Ladies had a startloop + 4 laps and men had a startloop + 6 laps. But this doesn't say much about the terrain of the course. First of all it was very different from the other 2 races which contained a lot of fireroad. This course was the most technical and fun course in the Cyprus Sunshine Cup so far. Almost all of it was technical single track, either descending steep or loose rocky descents or rock steps along a cliff, climbing steep granny ring requiring hills or traversing on rocky, bumpy, jittery benchcut singletrack along the ancient Acropolis wall - a real fun full suss course. In my first pre-ride lap I thought I wouldn't be able to ride it all, but all of it (bar a loose ground steep climb that I never got) was actually rideable, you just had to keep concentrating the whole time, there was absolutely no letup. The day before the race we went up to register and ride another lap or two and also found out that the bit along the beach was actually not on the wooden walkway as we had assumed, but along the beach itself, with a killer descent down to it, jeez.....

The 3 leading ladies: Lene Byberg, Tereza Hurikova and Alexandra Engen

Not only was the course super technical and challenging, the competition was just as challenging. There was real prominence there with Olympic gold-medalist 2008 Sabine Spitz (Germany, Central Ghost Pro Team, ranked 1st in the world), Specialized World Team rider Lene Byberg from Norway, Alexandra Engen who won all the other races in the Sunshine cup so far, Elisabeth Osl (Austria, Central Ghost Pro Team, ranked 6th in UCI world ranking), Tereza Hurikova (Czech, CESKA SPORITELNA MTB, 10th in UCI world ranking) and the German national team, just to name a few. However, some of the other high competition from the first two races were gone, such as Petra Henzi, Ivonne Kraft, Arielle van Meurs, so I was hoping that I would be able to get a similar result to last week (around 8th/9th place).

Elisabeth Osl and Sabine Spitz in 4th and 5th position, respectively

On race day (super early start: 9am!) my legs felt good. I was happy also to hear that they had taken out the bit down by the sea, since the water was about half a meter high, so we went along the wooden walkway instead. We lined up at the start and I was very focused. I actually felt good and was looking forward to the course. Whistle blown and we went off along the start loop. The group divided quite quickly and I was able to bridge up to the top group and stay with them. We went down the first singletrack descent, I was able to make up a position by overtaking a girl just before the singletrack, now riding in about 6th position, descended and *WHAM!* - I was lying on the ground. There was a drop down a wall that I got fine, but I didn't follow the single track line after the drop exactly and rode into a hidden rock in the grass, endoed and was catapulted through the air. The impact was actually quite severe and I thought I had gotten a concussion. The girls behind me started yelling (eh, sorry, I didn't crash on purpose), but hey, I wouldn't be Mel if I didn't get back onto the bike quickly (it was perfect, thank god!) and rode on. This incident cost me a good few positions but I tried my best to refocus and get back on to the girls.

Still ahead of Barbara Benko, but I had to let her by later on

Then the next bit is a bit of a blur, but I saw Githa ahead of me - she's been my target in all the other races and I was happy to see her, because she's the perfect person for me to hang on, just a little faster than me (yet... - I will get her soon!!). So I followed her and she followed a German Rothaus Cube rider. There was no other girls in the near vicinity before or after us. I rode all the technical bits really well and felt good, maybe a bit dead on the steep climbs, but a few times I underestimated the loose dry ground on the "easy" straight sections and I washed out another few times, eventually loosing contact to Githa, but still ahead of the Rothaus Cube girl.

Negotiating down a steep descent

Finally, after another stupid crash and a lost chain - I had to keep telling myself to take it easier and to concentrate - I was overtaken by the Rothaus Cube girl. I stuck on to her till the end and I tried to get her in a sprint finish that I started coming out of the singletrack onto the finish straight about 10 sec behind her and I almost got her, finishing only 3 hundreds of a second behind her. Damn, but she deserves it. Instead of riding inconsistently and letting concentration slip on easy single track and paying for it by washing out and crashing she kept focused and concentrated and rode the course consistently without crashing.

The climb on the benchcut traverse, now following Barbara Benko from Rothaus Cube

My legs felt well today and I really enjoyed the course, but I still felt I couldn't tap into my high intensity potential. But my heartrate was up with an average of 167 bpm for the race, so I definitely wasn't tootling. Maybe the girls are just better and I am expecting too much in what is only my second real season as an Elite rider. I keep forgetting that all of the girls ahead of me have been cycling at a high level for years already.

The podium of Sunshine cup # 3

Anyway, I came in 10th in the end and had had a great race. And this is definitely setting me up well for fast technical riding. It's amazing what kind of jumps in technical ability you make when you throw yourself into the deep end. It's good also to race on bone dry courses like these for a change, so different from Irish muddy courses. Bone dry (not an Irish bone dry, but dusty dry) courses aren't actually as grippy as I had expected, the bit of sand and gravel on them make them real slide traps.

The men coming through after the start loop

Lene Byberg won the race, 10min 49 secs ahead of me (she's like Emil Lindgren, floating effortlessly and elegantly around the course, barely touching the ground, like an elf!), closely followed by Tereza Hurikova and Alexandra Engen. Sabine Spitz was in 4th and Elisabeth Osl came in 5th. I'm not feeling so bad now, only coming 6min behind Sabine. It's OK to get your ass kicked by an Olympic champion ;)

Elite men riding along the famous Acropolis wall

Another great thing about these races is hanging out afterwards and chatting to some really interesting people with really cool jobs from all over the world. The nice thing was that Ryan's race was on after mine, so I could wander around the course and take some great pics (as Ryan had done during my race) and get to know some nice people.

Ryan descending

As usual, thanks to Frederick from the Bike Station for doing our feed zone and tech support - we've been really taken care off since we were here (including a thorough bike service to find a creaking noise, some dirt and water had come into some joints, copious amounts of chain oil, lend of new pedals, transport, food, advice on training, riding, the mountain biking scene etc. etc.).

Ryan climbing up a tricky bit of single trail

Thanks to Cycleways, Specialized, and KCNC for making it possible for me to ride such an amazing light and well-handling but amazingly robust bike. It's great to be able to just rely on your bike. Thanks to Torq as usual for fueling us during our races. People are shocked by the amount of Torq drink and gels Ryan and I consume during our races. Thanks also to my college who gave me a sports scholarship that allows me to go to these important early season races. And the biggest thanks always goes to Ryan. I wouldn't be here without you.

Some great descending in the course

Results from this round can be found on the Cyprus Sunshine Results page and on Cyclingnews.com. The general classification from the cup after this penultimate round can be found on mtb-live.com.

Reports are up on the Cyprus Sunshine Cup website and on mtb-live.com.

Cyprus Sunshine Cup #2 (UCI S1)

2009-03-02T06:06:00.000-08:00

Friday, race day for the time trial arrived and the weather had totally deteriorated. Supposedly Cyprus gets a week of rain every few years and we've been so lucky to be able to witness this rare week of bad weather while we are here. Cyprus has been in a water shortage for years (and you only get drinking water about every 2 days), so they are actually quite happy about a bit of rain to fill up their almost empty reservoirs. Anyway, we arrived at the venue and it was freezing cold and lashing rain. Everybody was just huddling together under umbrellas and sitting in their cars. It was raining and winding and just plain horrible. Warm-up was a disaster (a ride up the road in the freezing cold and getting wet and even colder). A turbo trainer would have been helpful.

Mel concentrated and freezing at the start line

Finally I was called up to the start - a little bit of frantic searching for my gloves, taking off my arm leg warmers and arm warmers (I should have left them on, it was FREEZING even in the race) and the clock showed 13:46, the whistle is blown and off I went. Oh, it was so cold and raining. I went up the fire road bit and before I reached the first steep single track descent I had already caught up with some girls. While the descents were still rideable yesterday, today there were just a long steep slippery slide. I tried to stay on the bike, but slid out and had to run the rest of the descent. On the next fire road section I caught a few more girls. On the next descent I fell and and hit my hand, loosing all feeling of my already numb and cold and freezing left hand. Back on the bike and onwards. I came off at another descent, but made it round the course in one piece. I knew I didn't do a great time and eventually had finished in 8th position, with a time of 29min 53sec. The winner, Russian Tereza Hurikova, currently ranked 10th in the world, did a time of 25min 28sec. But I wasn't too disappointed when I looked at the results, as I wasn't the only one having had difficulties in these conditions. I came just after German Ivonne Kraft and just before Italian Champ Elena Gaddoni and Dutch rider Arielle van Meurs. So not too bad after all :)

Climbing up the last hill in the lashing rain (Photo Courtesy of MTB-live.com)

I came away with a few bruises and scratches, but Ryan had actually taken a bad fall and cut open his knee, so an ambulance visit was on order.

After the race we had to move from our apartment to another apartment which was another 30min further away from the race venue (i.e. 1.5hours drive away in total). This was really annoying and definitely not the best recovery and preparation for next day's stage. So we were really happy when we found out that the race time for the next day was delayed by 2 hours.

Ryan changing the flat car tire...

The next day we drove towards the race and what is that sound?? Kinda like a rumble... Weird. Better stop the car. And what do we have? A flat car tire! Thank god for a real man who knows how to change a car wheel. I wouldn't have had a clue. We made it to the race start in time and it was still cold up on the mountain - there was even snow to be seen at the top, but at least it wasn't raining. Ready for the gridding and off we went with the juniors. Some people sprinted ahead and it was hard to see which position I was in with all the juniors in the group. I followed Elena Gaddoni from Italy and Githa Michiels from Belgium. The first bit was just a lot of fire road and cornering. Unfortunately I could not keep up with Githa and Elena and they pulled away one by one. Finally we reached the single track climb. It was actually a really really nice 700m climb and I enjoyed it, only I had no power left and towards the end of the climb I was just praying to make it up to the top. Then I saw that Ivonne Kraft and Maria Osl were actually behind me in the climb! I made it ahead of them into the descent, but had to let Ivonne pass fairly soon, she is such an amazing and savage descender (I found out later that she took 8min for that descent, it took me 12.5min and even Ryan about 11min!). Maria was closing in too and I had to let her by as well. I was able however to close up to Arielle van Meurs and when we reached the bottom of the descent and the last bit of fire road we caught up to Maria Osl again and the 3 of us had a bit of a battle. In the end Arielle was able to keep ahead of me into the finish, but I was able to overtake Maria Osl on the last few hundred meters to the finish (which include an evil granny gear killer climb).

Ryan waiting at the start line

I had no idea really where I came, but as soon as I was finished I was told that I was selected for anti-doping control. My first anti-doping control ever! So I got my chaperone, left a note for Ryan who was still out on the course, grabbed my recovery drink and was driven off to the anti-doping control station. 4 hours later and I was finally done. I learned a few things too: take food, a change of warm clothes, and your mobile phone with you. Do not drink too much water. Try and get in line early. It's hard to pee when somebody watches. Not the most pleasant of experiences, but it's necessary and at least it made me feel like a pro (I'm good enough to be worth testing ;)). If I ever get really good at mountain biking I have to get used to it anyway.

Self-explanatory....

Sooo, hanging around hours at doping control is not the best of recovery and preparation for the next days race either. I found out eventually that I had come in 9th. A place down, but considering that I thought I wasn't able to make it to the top I was quite happy with it. Really need to work on my aerobic power though and on my descending skills.

Final race on Sunday. 4.5 laps of the XC loop for me. All the girls take the start loop pretty easy and we stay together until the first lap proper begins. Then the pace quickens and I am trying to keep with Githa and Maria again. I'm also hoping to keep close to Arielle who is only a minute and a half behind me in the GC and who is obviously trying to make that up. It seems like its always the same people you end up having a battle with. However, I don't have the power to stay with them and have to let them go. The course is nice and dry this time round and the steep single track sections are actually fun. They are all rideable this time round, but I still loose traction and fall off my bike a few times so that I have to walk some sections. In the first lap I see Tereza Hurikova have a puncture and another girl. Later on Maria also punctures and I overtake her. The first two laps are pain and I take it easier on the last two laps. About 2km from the finish Ryan overtakes me too and I meet him when I finally finish. I really really liked the course today, even if I didn't feel very strong. I came in 8th, and Arielle and Maria had exchanged places. With Tereza having to walk to the tech zone with her puncture, I finished 8th in the general classification. That's another 55 UCI points, wohoo! It's still early in the season but these races definitely will set me up well for the season ahead.

Our nice clean bikes

Thanks to Frederik from the Bike station in Kalavasos for doing our feed and tech zone support on both races. It is so nice not having to worry about that.

Results can be found on www.cyclingnews.com or on the Cyprus Sunshine Cup website.

Pre-view of round 2 of Cyprus Sunshine Cup

2009-02-27T11:18:00.000-08:00

The 2nd round of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup is a stage race, consisting of 3 stages on 3 consecutive days:

First stage is a Time trial of the 7.4 km long XC loop
Second stage is an XC point-to-point race of 41km for men and 32km for women elite
Third stage is a normal (lapped) XC race on the 7,4km XC course, women elite was start loop+4 laps, men elite was start loop +5 laps.

The week before the races Ryan and I went to pre-ride the XC course and part of the point to point course (the 7km single track descent). The XC course was basically mostly easy uphill fire road connected by super steep single track descents or single track climbs and descents. I crashed on one of them and thought I may have to walk some of them in the race. For the point-to-point race, we only knew that it was fire-road in the beginning, then a huge long single track climb with 700m vertical climb, about 1km tarmac on top and then a super long singletrack descent, about 7km long and 600m down. We didn't have the time to pre-ride the whole point-to-point loop, so we decided to at least ride the descent which you could reach from the road. So we cycled up the 11km up the tarmac and did the descent. First I found it quite technical and scary, a lot of tight switchbacks - it was kind of a cross between benchcut and GC in Djouce, along the ridge of the mountains with fantastic views.

The day before the race we did another pre-ride of the XC course and Ryan gave me an uplift to the descent, and it was a lot less scary the 2nd time round, only the weather was getting a lot worse, rain and wind and hail and lightning. We took a few videos from the uplift (sorry, no bike action in these)...

Another video of us driving up the hill:

And we are still driving up the hill....

Just before I have to go:

Cyprus Sunshine Cup #1 (UCI C1)

2009-02-22T11:07:00.000-08:00

Sooo, where to start.... There is always so many new impressions and things happening around you when you are traveling to new places. Friday morning at 4am Ryan and I left from Dublin to Cyprus after 2 hours of sleep and organizing and packing solidly for the evening before that. And Ryan had this crazy idea of building up his new 2009 Specialized S-works Epic, which had only arrived that evening. Ah well, why not make it harder for yourself if you can have it easy, right?

My cheat note marking the kms of the climbs and feed zones

Anyway, we and our bikes made it safe and sound to Cyprus (or so we thought), where we are staying in a tiny village called Kalavasos. It really is tiny, consisting of narrow alleyways and bright stone paved roads and steps and loads of stone houses and flowers. It's actually really cute and we've got a really nice little courtyard and it even has a bike rental/tour place (whose importance will come apparent later).

The last few meters sprinting - I had no idea how much time I had put onto Githa

The first race of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup starts only about 3km from here in Tochni and goes by the place in our village, ending about 200m from our front door. Yesterday we went to Tochni to sign in and to pre-ride the course. The first race of the cup is a cross country point to point race of the UCI C1 category, 48.3km long and 1787m climb for both Elite men and women. Details about the course and the profile can be found here.

And then I noticed. My handle bar had a really bad kink in it! It was so bad it's crazy we didn't notice it when we built up the bikes (but in all fairness, we only had 2hours of sleep and it was dark). It was definitely a no-go for going out on the pre-ride. So, where do you get a new handlebar in the middle of nowhere at 1:30h on a Saturday in Cyprus (I don't have a word of cyprese, or is it cypryc?) ?? Thank god for Mike, the organizer from the Cyprus Sunshine Cup. A really nice and very helpful guy. He called around and in no time he had a solution: The bike rental/tour place in Kalavasos (Cycle-in-Cyprus) kindly agreed to give me a lend of a stem and handlebar until I could organize myself a new one - no questions asked. So, we went back to Kalavasos and met the owner from Cycle-in-Cyprus who is actually from Sweden but spends most of his winter months here with his mate to run the bike guiding/rental business. A huge thanks to Cycle-in-Cyprus for their spontaneous support. So, guys, if your next trip goes to Cyprus, I can recommend this place! He also has a lot of local trail knowledge and gave us some advice about the course, since we wouldn't be able to pre-ride the whole thing.

Exhausted but happy after the race

Race day, nerve day. Bathroom 3 times. Warm-up, rain shower, bathroom again, call-up, mass start, off we go. 12 girls in my cat. I see a few girls in front and try to hang onto them. The course is very very rocky and a little dusty. Lots of climb - on loose rocky stuff. No power, this isn't fun, why are first races always so hard? Some really steep climbs, descents on loose rocky ground and lots of deep rain furrows (just like Ireland!). Scary stuff when fast. An open gate causes confusion, some people go the wrong way, we wait, somebody knows the right way. Some girls catch up. We go on. A puddle comes up and the guy in front of my splashes me from top to bottom - I'm well refreshed and all senses heightened. Still a few girls around me, some switching of positions. See Githa Michiels ahead and Petra Henzi overtakes me. Feed zone #1, calling out to Angelos (thank you!!), bottle hand-up works well. Overtaking Petra. More climb, we 3 girls are staying pretty close together (Githa Michiels, me and Petra Henzi, in that configuration for most of the ride). Still not in racing mode. Need to focus on the race. Focus! A deep (really deep!) river crossing. Feed zone 2 thanks goes to Theodores. More last technical climbing over loose rocky ground on steep furrowed switchbacks. Githa pulls away. Petra is left behind. Damn, I'm loosing her! Finally the top of the last climb, about 15km to go, and I finally (!) get my racing head on and start putting down the power - I see Githa pop up in the distance ahead of me and slowly reduce the gap. 10km to go, 5km to go. I'm getting nearer. 1km to go, she's 100m in front. 200m to go, she's 20m in front. I charge. I start sprinting, I pass her at 100m to go. Took her by surprise. Thank god I don't understand her language. Last few meters, and it's over. Relax....

Cyprus sunshine Cup #1 podium

Ryan thinks I came in 3rd or 4th. We'll see. We ride back to Tochni to pick up the car.

When we return to Kalavasos the results are up. I did come 3rd, wohoo! I was beaten by 10min by the Swedish national champion in 1st place and by 5min by the Italian national champion in 2nd place. The girl I beat in my sprint was the Belgian national champ - I put 7 seconds on her - and the other girl that was in our group of 3 was Petra Henzi, coming in 5th. Full results and cyclingnews.com report can be found here and a pic of the women's podium here.

A few more pics of the race can be found on mtb-live.com and I found one with me on it too.

Thank you as well to the Cypriot Shimano team for their tech support in the race. Oh, and my new 2009 Specialized S-works Epic rode really really well. Ryan managed to set up my shocks really nicely and it felt so natural. Amazing bike. Great for those climbs too.

Hope my racing instinct has been woken again with this race, looking forward to Sunshine Cup #2!

Bike porn

2009-02-17T10:11:00.000-08:00

2009 Specialized S-Works Epic

We don't usually have a lot of nice weather here in Ireland, but today was just a beautiful warm and blue-skied spring day. So, finally I got the opportunity to take out my new bike, a 2009 Specialized S-Works Epic, kindly provided by Cycleways, and of course I took some pics before it's all getting mucked up. The bike is almost set up race ready, I've only exchanged a few bits with some nice and light KCNC components.

Specialized + KCNC

Bike Spec:

Frame: S-Works Epic full carbon 100mm travel frame

Fork: Specialized Future Shock e100, 100mm travel with Brain Fade

Rear Shock: Specialized AFR remote mini , BRAIN inertia valve w/ BRAIN fade

Seatpost: KCNC Pro Scandium 350mm

Front Derailleur: Shimano XTR

Rear Derailleur: Shimano XTR Shadowe

Crankset: S-Works OS carbon crank, 175mm

Brake Calipers: Custom Avid Ultimate SL Mag

Shift Levers: SL-M970 XTR, trigger

Cassette: Shimano XTR 11-34

Chain: KCNC Superlight Chain

Wheels: Roval Controle SL

Handlebar: KCNC Bones

Brake levers: Custom Avid Ultimate SL Hydraulic

Stem: KCNC SC Wing

Saddle: Specialized Phenom SL

Tires: S-Works Fast Trak LK

Pedals: CrankBrothers - Eggbeaters

Specialized + KCNC

I was only out for a short while today (not feeling too good, maybe I'm getting sick :(), but from my first impression it's easily the best bike I've ever ridden. It's also the first bike where I get this feeling that it feels just like an extension of my body. It's so amazingly light and handles really well. I expect it to be even better once I set the tires up tubeless and I can reduce the pressure. I was a bit scared in the beginning when I felt the brain turning on (at least that is what Ryan said was happening when I called him in distress from the mountain because I felt like I was bottoming out my rear shock, but I clearly wasn't), so I adjusted it to a bit of a softer setting and it was fine then. Can't wait to get out on it again.... such a nice bike... still can't actually quite believe I'm going to ride such an amazing bike this year.... :)

2009 Specialized S-Works Epic

I've put some more pics online here.

Racing preps

2009-02-16T01:50:00.000-08:00

It's only one week now before my first race this season. Ryan and I are going to take part in the Cyprus Sunshine Cup, a series of UCI points races (2 C1, 1 C2 and 1 S1) spread around the centre of Cyprus. I'm really excited to see how my winter training over the last few months has helped me improve and get faster. My training this year was quite different from that last year. Last year I just did a lot of short, high intensity exercises early in the morning - I remember getting out before breakfast at darkness, just to be able to get my training done before work. This year I am a lot more flexible with my time and I was able to do a lot more long endurance rides after having had breakfast - something I could only do at weekends last year. And of course, this year I spent 2 weeks in Gran Canaria in January for base training where I was able to put in lots of long miles in beautiful weather. So my race preparation has been quite different this year. Only last week I started doing some high intensity VO2max and anaerobic capacity drills (boo!) and this year I already feel sooo much stronger than last year this time. Hopefully that's a good sign for the coming season.

Another profile of pain - last weeks anaerobic capacity drills

However, racing prep is not just on the bike, it's also off the bike and sometimes even takes more time than riding. Off-bike racing preps involve things like choosing your races for the next season, cultivating and creating sponsor relationships, sourcing gear and bike bits (all processes that have started at the end of last year), finding airports, finding and booking cheap flights, finding and booking cheap accommodation with broadband Internet (both Ryan and I have a full-time job/PhD), finding and booking a cheap car, prepping the bike (bike fitting, exchange bits and pieces, testride, adjust things here and there, prepare tires etc.), go to the physio to get your knots untied etc, etc. And then it's the actual bike and gear packing for the journey itself! It seems like we are never finished doing bike stuff outside the riding itself. Unfortunately it's not just riding the bike!

Guess my new bike! ;)

However, it is nice to see when it all comes together and I am really happy about the help that we are receiving from our main supporters Cycleways/Specialized, Torq and KCNC this year. I can't wait to ride my new shiny amazing bike wearing my new shiny cool looking gear! :)

Snow snow snow =====> Turbo turbo turbo....

2009-02-05T02:41:00.000-08:00

Hmm, I must have complained too much about Irish winters always being so dull and grey and not having any snow, because it has been snowing, sleeting, slushing for the last few days! Traffic is chaotic, my commute painful in the sleet.

Nonetheless, on the first day of snow, Ryan and I ventured out up on our local training ground 3Rock to check out the scenery and if it would be possible to do some off-road riding. But there was even snow on the single trails within the forests! We had to stick mostly to fire roads for safety reasons and gave up about an hour and half into the ride. I've never seen so much snow in Ireland, ever!

It's really really beautiful, but it means I'm bound to the turbo trainer in the meantime, sigh....

Back in Ireland...

2009-01-25T12:29:00.000-08:00

... and guess what, it's raining! And it started so well this morning with nice sunshine... Ah well, it's actually not that bad, because after coming back really late last night (drunken woman caused delay of take off for an hour, missed next aircoach on arrival, no taxi for ages at Bewley's Hotel) and sleeping in I spent most of the day doing house chores (3 loads of washing!!) and college work that I had procrastinated on.

Dry riverbed in Maspalomas, Gran Canaria

But I wish I was still on Gran Canaria! Looking back, it was a really good decision to go there for base training. I cycled a total of 41 hours and about 980km with 19500m of climb in the two weeks that I was there (even though I was sick for a few days and had a muscular pain issue which reduced my time on the bike), so it was really good for building a good base for this season's racing. And you can actually cycle for 5 hours in one go without getting rained on there (it's hard to get a 5 hour stretch of no rain in Ireland) and being able to climb for 2 hours solid if you want to. We had very little rain on Gran Canaria, but we were told that it was actually one of their coldest and wettest winters - lol, it's sad that a cold and wet winter on Gran Canaria is still better than a summer in Ireland....

Famous dunes of Maspalomas

I only had one puncture on the whole trip, after I rode a really rough stretch of road and had stopped off to buy some water. When I came back to my bike it just made a loud PFFFfffff.... it had ripped a big hole into my tire and tube. It was a good decision to take the road bikes - the ease of it! Practically no maintenance apart from that one puncture. And it also meant we could start our training as soon as we went out the door and didn't have to drive to trails (we also didn't need to rent a car).

Lighthouse at Maspalomas, Gran Canaria

Gran Canaria really is the place to go for cycling training in the winter. It's only a few hours from any European airport and accommodation is very reasonably priced, especially if you weren't as posh as us requiring Internet. And the weather is just perfect, with temperatures between 16-20 degrees at sea level (6-8 degrees on top of the mountain) and sunshine and blue skies all day round (for the most part and depending on which side of the island you cycle on). We even did some pro-cyclist spotting, I tried to hang on to JB Junior from the Astana team one day and Ryan spotted the German Albgold team with my competition Katrin Schwing and the Subaru/Gary Fisher team training together. We both actually saw loads of cyclists, pros and leisure.

Beach at Maspalomas, Gran Canaria

The apartment in which we stayed, Atico 3, was also really suitable for our needs: a small and simple but very comfortable place in Vecindario - with free ADSL Internet connection (that was our most important pre-requisite because both Ryan and I had to keep on working from there). The price was also very reasonable, especially since we had a two-bedroom apartment for 4-6 people all for ourselves :). The German hosts very both very nice and helpful. Definitely a place to keep in mind in case we want to come back!

Jeez, it just started raining again. Today it has just been pouring with only a few breaks of no rain (but still clouds of course). I am really considering relocating to Gran Canaria for the winter.