Race Report British NSP Round 3 - Grizedale, Lake District

Soo, last weekend saw the 3rd race in series of the British NPS taking place in Grizedale in the Lake District, UK. Ryan and me took the overnight ferry from Dublin to Birkenhead (just opposite Liverpool), which leaves at 10pm and takes 7 hours, meaning that you are woken for breakfast at 4:15am (not that I really slept anyway, with all that rocking!!) and leave the boat at 5am... We drove the 2.5hours to Grizedale to check out if the course is already set up, but at that time the organizers were just waking up. So we made our way to Hawkshead, a few miles away, where we would stay in a B&B. We thought of getting a coffee first and then check into the B&B, but none of the Cafes were actually open that early in the morning. So we wandered around a little like zombies in circles in this tiny amzingly beautiful and picturesque Beatrix Potter village, until we thought it late enough to be able to check into our B&B (about 9am...) and thank god they had our room all ready, so we just went in and went to sleep. A few hours later we got up, had an early lunch and made our way to the race course, where the car park had already started filling up with mountain bikers for the pre-ride. We put our bikes together and went off.


A view into a little road in Hawkshead - there were flowers everywhere!

The course basically consisted of fireroad climbs, linkers and flat sections mixed with technical singletrack climbs and descents. The most notable bits where 2 technical singletrack climbs and a single track section with a very steep and technical descent of the loose dusty earth and stone type with a short steep kicker climb. The singletrack was almost all purposebuilt hardpacked all weather trails with the fireroads being quite gravelly at times. I found it hard to get a good flow on these singletracks, as they weren't that smooth and lacked berms. One lap amounted to about 275m of climb, which is quite significant.


The course from a bird's view.

On the race day itself, all the usual suspects and then some found themselves on the start line. The most notable "new" rider was Kate Potter who had missed the previous 2 UK NPS races due to other race engagements and had placed 33rd in the Fort Williams World Cup the weekend before, so seemed to be one to watch out for. From the gun shot there was tight battling for places. The first tight righthand corner on hardpressed gravel just 200m from the slightly downhill grassy start lead to a bit of a messy turn. On the fireroad climb towards the first singletrack climb, there was more fighting for positions as was on the climb itself, leading to some girls getting a little stuck, which was the chance taken by Sue Clarke and Jenny Copnall to enter the singletrack descent first, followed by me. With no real overtaking opportunities on this track, we all rode nicely in line. Then Sue Clarke was struck by bad luck and punctured, having to stop to fix it. There was a bit more jostling for places on the top fireroad section and the tricky steep singletrack before the finishing order was already emerging with Kate Potter in front, steadily increasing her gap on Jenn O'Connor in second place, who was more closely followed by Jenny Copnall. At the start of the second lap one girl was still in 4th place, but I was able to catch her on the top fireroad section to move myself into 4th. For a while I could still see glimpses of Jenny, and I was hoping to catch her, but couldn't keep up with that speed. I rode most of the other laps by myself, finishing about 3min behind Jenny and about 6.5min behind Kate Potter. I didn't feel I was riding the course well, so I was happy enough with the result. Maybe I didn't push myself so hard because I knew what was coming up on day 2 of the event? ;)


Ryan and I in our new and shiny Torq sponsored gear :)

Full results, report and photos can be found here. Jenny Copnall's experience of the race are recorded here.

Some more pics by Rob Crayton can be found here and pics by Oliver Coat are here.

And I'm sure, Kate Potter will soon put her race report online here.

Sunday Enduro race

Sunday saw the Enduro NPS Round 1 race also in Thetford, UK - both the NPS and Enduro races are always coupled together.

I had left the decision about what distance I would do till the morning before the race. I was put down for the 50km race, but decided last minute to go for the 100km (8 laps of a 12.5km course, re-using some sections from the XC race from yesterday, but with some added new sections, similar to the day before) - I was feeling ok after the race yesterday and it would be a great test to see how my body would deal with a double whammy back to back racing like this. The weather again was beautiful and sunny and we girls gathered at the start line, this time only 8 girls in the 100km Ladies Elite category. At 10:00am we went off and thank god, the speed was slower from the start. When I went off there were 2 girls that went off together ahead of me and I tried to follow them, but was not able to close the gap to them in the first lap. Considering that the race was 100km long I didn't want to kill myself either in the first few laps and thought I would have enough time to work my way up to them eventually. I stayed at a constant speed, and the gap between the 2 girls in front and me also stayed quite constant. Eventually one of the girls started falling back behind the other girl in about the second lap and I was able to catch up to her and overtake her. The first girl though stayed at about a distance of 50-100m ahead of me for the following laps.

Then I had a problem, I had 1 bottle and a few gels that would last me about 2 laps, maybe stretching it to 3, but then I would have to stop at the feed zone for a refill. Because, unfortunately I didn't know anybody there who could do my bottles and wasn't racing at the same time, so a feed zone stop would mean loosing valuable time (Sean, you were so dearly missed at this race!). So I decided to stretch the big bottle to 4 laps and then stop to grab another big bottle and rip the gels off all my other bottles so that I might be able to do the rest of the race on that second 750ml bottle without having to stop again.... Eventually, in about the 4rth lap I caught up to the girl in first, Sally, and followed her comfortably around the course. But then in the feed zone, I had to stop to get refed, whereas she could race through and grab a bottle from her soignour. Nonetheless, I pushed into the pedals hard to make up the lost time and caught up to her about half way through lap 5 and stayed on her wheel for most of the following laps, one time even leading the race for about half a lap after trying to get away from her (I noticed she was very strong on fireroads and could pull away from me there, usually this would also be my strength, but I didn't have that kind of power left after the really hard XC race the day before, which she hadn't done, so I tried to pull away from her in my favourite bit of singletrack, which I managed, but then she caught up to me again on the fireroad sections). So she went into the lead again and I stayed on her wheel.

Although the laps were quite fast, averaging almost 23 km/hour with average lap times of 32min40secs, the speed felt comfortable for most of the race, only in lap 7 the effort started to take tolls on me and I was running low on liquid as well. So again I had to take the decision to either stop and grab another bottle of water and risk allowing her to break away from me or to try and stay with her but risking to bonk on the last lap. Finally, I decided to play safe and get another bottle as I was feeling more and more drained as the lap went on. Sally of course took the chance and broke away and pushed a good gap on me that I unfortunately could not make up for the rest of the race, giving her the win with a super fast time of 4:20:26 and me arriving in second place exactly 47 seconds after..... The next lady in third place was came in at more than 10min later.

The first 3 ladies in the 100km Enduro race

Full results and Joolze report can be found here. Pics from Joolze Dymond are available here. Pics from Rob Crayton can be found here. Ryan found some pics of us here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here (sorry, can't put them up here due to copyright).

I was very proud of my performance and how the race went, but also had thoughts going through my head such as - "maybe I should have tried to pull away earlier", "if I had also had a support person in the feed zone", "maybe I should have risked going without that last bottle"... etc. but then again, I was a little more tired from the hard race the day before, I still had a very good result and I have to say, Sally really deserves the win, she is an incredibly strong, consistent and determined rider, and I don't think I would have been able to pull away from her without her catching me again, so fair-played to her. Very interestingly our lap times both are very very consistent, the difference over 8 laps between my fastest (first) and slowest (7th) lap was less than 2 minutes and my slowest laps (4th and 7th) were those in which I collected my bottles....

Ryan thankfully had a good race too, and finished in a very strong 3rd place, making up for his DNF on Saturday. Well done!

100km Elite Man winners with a very happy Ryan :)

So, time for a few Thank you's again, firstly to Ryan for his consistent psychological support and training advice, to TorQ for also supporting me over the weekend (Ryan is now racing under their banner which I think is great because they make by far the best tasting gels that I ever had) and of course again to our B&B hosts in Magdalen House for getting up so early on a Sunday morning to prepare our breakfast.

Can't wait for my next UK race!

Going pro.....

.... nah, just kidding, but after last weekends results I felt almost like a pro anyway....

The weekend was spent mostly in Thetford Forest, UK, to take part in my first races abroad, i.e. the British XC NPS Round 1 race on Saturday and the British Enduro NPS Round 1 race on the Sunday.

Ryan and me packed up our stuff on Thursday evening and flew over from Dublin on Friday early morning to Stansted, which is about an hour from Thetford (if you go the correct way that is.... ;)). Got the rental car and decided to go straight to the race location due to the detour ("sightseeing") we had taken. We arrived in Thetford Forest an d built up our bikes, got changed and it started lashing.... :( and I was sooo looking forward to my first good weather race this season! When the rain let off a little, we took the chance and went off for our practice lap.

Course description: flat like a pan cake. A lap was 10km and consisted basically of smooth and swervy singletrack loops through the forest (mostly little walking paths) connected through some straight fireroad sections. The rain had transformed a few sections of the course into a bit of a mud bath, but apart from that is was pretty untechnical. Only 2 drops are worth mentioning, both of them bombholes - one of them with a tricky steep climb out that many people didn't get. Then there was one great bit of singletrack section that was very uppy and downy and became my favourite section of the course because you could hammer along this section, lean into the corners, fly down into the drops and use your speed to come out of them again, you could do almost the whole section without pedalling if you wanted to! The speed you got was amazing! Sooo much fun!

Anyway, just as we finished the practice laps it started raining again, so we set off to find our B&B "Magdalen House" about 15min away from Thetford Forest in a place called Methwold. It was located just at the end of a farm driveway, with open farmland around 3 sides of it, beautiful! The countryside was beautiful anyway, I loved it!

Random pretty driving through the countryside pic :)

We were very well received in the absolutely cute and quaint B&B by the owners Keith and Lorna who really did everything possible to make our stay as comfortable and stress-free as possible. The first great thing was we were supplied with abucket of soap water, brushes and a water hose to wash our bikes off the mud and dirt - a quite sandy and rough dirt that was loudly grinding in your brakes and between the chain rings with each pedal stroke. The B&B itself was very beautiful and pretty inside, very clean and well kept and just felt very homely. After washing our bikes and then ourselves we set off to eat at a Thai/English restaurant. A lovely Thai meal was had - with 4 portions of rice for the 2 of us - we would need the energy tomorrow.

Ryan in front of our B&B "Magdalen House"

On Saturday when we arrived back at the race location the field in front of it was filled with tons of cars and people - the racing scene in the UK is just so much bigger than in Ireland, it was great to be part of such a big event.

The hustle and bustle around the start area - they had catering and sales tents!

My race started at 1pm and we 16 Elite ladies gathered at the start line, the first 10 ladies or so gridded in the first 2 rows, me having to start in the third and last row - wow - three rows of ladies racing! Never seen that before! The weather was beautiful and sunny, so that was a plus too. It was a little strange to start in a group where you don't know anybody and have no idea how you compare to them - I knew that the favourite for this race was Jenny Copnall and recognized her by her jersey, so I knew who to chase, but no idea about the others really. The whistle was blown and we were off. From the very beginning, even before we hit the first singletrack the group started to separate, about 4 ladies in front and I worked my way through the girls to try and hang on to the 4 in front, entering the singletrack in about 5th position. The speed was very fast from the beginning on and I could see that Jenny got away from the front group quite early, with a group of 3 girls working together trying to follow her. For most of my first lap (out of 5, they had added one since the course was bone dry and therefore very fast) I worked as hard as I could to try and catch the group of 3 in front of me - it was great to always have an aim in front of you. My heartrate monitor told me that I went super hard in this first lap (not that I really needed telling), with my heart rate up in the 180s! and I almost binned myself in this first lap. I had to let off for a bit by the end of it and was overtaken by some girls, but by my second lap I settled into some "comfortable" racing speed (mind you, I was still giving it my all, but at least it felt more sustainable for the race length) and overtook them again, slowly closing in on the group of 3 girls in front of me. As it happened one of the girls from that group dropped back, being my target to catch for the next few laps - so cool to have people to chase!! She had a big "TARGET" written on her bum (metaphorically) and I chased her down in I think which was the last lap - it actually really suited me that they added that extra 5th lap, because I think I overtook most of the girls in the last lap (not sure though, it's all a bit of a blur though to me, the race that is). Once I overtook girl in position 4, I saw number 3 and chased her down, and as soon as I had gotten her I saw number 2 and chased her down as well, and then it was just a short bit that I had to keep away from them until I was finished with my race. When I finished and got confirmed that I had indeed finished in 2nd place just after multiple British Champ Jenny Copnall, I was head over heels! I had come in at 2:12:45, 3min and 22sec after Jenny and had put a gap of just over a minute onto Paula Mosely who took third.

The 3 happy winners! First international success for MAD Ireland!!! :)

That was soooo much fun, but I think I've never gone so hard in my life, I really really pushed myself hard in this one, really enjoying the craic of racing against lots of very strong and good girls, you always had a target or were being chased and never spent a minute of the race by yourself. Also, it was such a friendly atmosphere, the girls chatting to each other on the trails while racing (I know my coach will now say that I didn't go hard enough if we could chat), but it was just so nice! I was told that this was their biggest Elite ladies field they've seen so far, so I am really proud of my result, even though a few of the big names were missing (such as Kate Potter and Amy Hunt).

Full results and race report written by Joolze Dymond can be found here and pictures (also by Joolze) can be found here.

Unfortunately Ryan had been less lucky in his race, having been forced to crash at 30km an hour in his first lap and hurting his already sore shoulder even more so that he decided to pull out after a few more laps to save his energy for the Enduro race on Sunday - thanks for cheering me on though!

And of course, a success like this would not have been possible without the help of the following people: Ryan for being such a good coach - sledgehammering me into fitness over the winter and it's finally paying off (I know there's an "I told you so" from you now), Eamon McConvoy for handing out the bottles and gels while his son, Conor McConvoy was racing for 3rd place, what a fantastic result! and the hosts of Magdalen House for adjusting their breakfast to our dietary needs and being so welcoming and helpful.