Race Report Irish NPS Round 5 Tymon Park, Dublin

Having made it to the flight back from Italy, and it having left on time, there was a good chance for Ryan and me to make the Irish NPS Round 5 which took place in Tymon Park, Dublin, a more unusual location for a mountain bike race – normally home to CycloCross races due to its flat park land nature, less than 2 hours after we should arrive at Dublin airport. While on one side I would not have minded too much if we would run into some problem or delay so that we wouldn't make it, since I had only having slept about an hour the night before, was exhausted from the marathon race and had a more than suboptimal race nutrition preparation (croissants, cake and bread with Nutella in the airplane) - I was on the other side hoping that we would make it, since this would give me the chance to still win the Irish NPS series.

Pre-race nutrition.... ;)

With "Another Ryan air on time flight", we were even early in Dublin, so the chance was pretty high that we would make it to the race in time, so we called our friends to keep our bike ready for us at the race start so that we could go straight to the start if necessary. Here I have mention in a big thank you to Ash for offering me a lend of her bike, and Ollie for setting it up for me. While Ryan drove, I changed into my cycling gear in the car and arrived in Tymon Park with half an hour to spare to get the bike ready, fill my bottles, sign in and get used to a bike I had not ridden before.

Cait still in the lead (Photo courtesy of Alan Donnelly)

4 girls lined up for the start of the Elite Women’s race, including Cait, who was getting back into shape fast after her break from biking due to travelling, and Linda, who had just made the step up from the Sports Ladies category. I knew Cait was going to be my strongest competition, and would rightly use this situation to try and win this race to keep her chance at winning the NPS series, one of her last chances, with me having finished ahead of her in 2 previous NPS races.

Being chased by Cait (Photo courtesy of Alan Donnelly)

The whistle blew and we girls went off for our 5 lap affair. Not having had time for a practice lap and riding a new bike, it took me a while to get used to it and the course, which was totally different from how I remembered it from previous races: it was a pure mud pit! Some sections were totally unrideable and almost unwalkable, with puddles of foot deep mud and shlomp to be navigated through (memories of Mountain Mayhem flashing by). The mud immediately caked onto your bike and made it hard to turn your wheels or change your gear - you were basically limited to the one you were into before you went through the mud, or had you spinning through and slide on the slippery sections, and the normally fast grassy section was now a deep swamp that sapped all your energy… not something that lifted my mood after having raced in bone dry and dusty Italy!

I went so hard I wasn't even smiling! (Photo courtesy of Alan Donnelly)

As expected, from the start on Cait took the lead, navigating well through the muddy sections and slippery singletrack and powering through the boglands, already putting a gap on me. My plan was to take it easy on the first lap to get to know the course and then try to catch her and take the lead. I could see her ahead of me the whole time and took care not to allow her to get too big a gap on me. In the second I went full power to try and catch up to her, very slowly decreasing the gap between us, but it took me another full lap to finally catch up to her in the 4th lap, where I overtook her on a flat grassy section where I knew I could get her if I put my head down and worked hard. I finally managed to get into the single track before her, but she stayed closely on my wheel for the rest of the 4th lap, catching up to me at some of the little kickers that were too slippery to ride over, but required you to get off the bike and walk over. In the last lap then I decided to give it all to pull away from her, going as hard as I could and summoning all my hidden energies while trying not to bonk and was able to put half a minute on her in the last lap coming in first, and covered in mud from head to toe.

My heartrate stayed up the whole race (ignore the elevation, Garmin was playing tricks on me!)

This was one of my toughest races this year, being so utterly unprepared and physically tired, riding another person’s bike without having done a practice lap and with Cait giving one of her best performances and really giving me a run for my money. But I didn’t win this race with my legs; I won it with my head. It is amazing how much power you can still find from nowhere if you just want something hard enough. I really wanted to win this one, maybe to make up for some of the disappointment in the World Champs the day before, where I lost out again to Sally Bigham in a very close battle, so I pushed myself to my absolute physical limits in this NPS race. As disappointing as it is to loose out on a close battle, as enjoyable it is to be on the winning side, making this race one of the most rewarding ones for me this year. And this is what really makes for good racing: good competition that makes you push yourself that little bit harder. And talking to Cait after the race, even though she was on the loosing side of this really tight battle, she said she really enjoyed the race too. So, I really hope to seem more girls out, giving racing a go, it really isn't that scary and actually a lot of fun!

Results can be found here.

Now it's recovery mode till the German National Champs!!

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.

Race Report Irish NPS Round 3 Maghermorne

A race in a quarry?? Yes, a race in a quarry. Pretty far away too, so Ryan and me took the Silver bullet up to Monaghan on Saturday after doing a bit of a recovery ride together around our home mountains (one of the few times where we actually went cycling together! He says I'm too slow for any other rides :(). We did a bit of a hill climb effort to open up the legs for the race on Sunday and I did good - I really pushed myself. We skipped the pre-ride, it wasn't one of our A-races and besides, Ryan remembered most of the course from last year.

Start of Juniors and Elite ladies

So, Sunday noon we arrived at the race place and did a practice lap, which took me 25min. The course was really flat with a few serious kickers and short steep downhills, dusty, dry, and very gravelly, some sections had really big stones on them and washing your wheel out was a danger almost everywhere. There was no let up the whole way. In my category there was only one other contender, Cait Elliott. As she had just returned to training from several months of travel without training, I was pretty sure that she would not pose any serious threat.

The Juniors are sprinting off ahead (all pictures in this post curtesy of Aine)

We two girls set off with the two Juniors on our 4 lap race and from the start on I tried to get away from Cait. She tried to hang on for a bit, but I was able to get away about a third of a lap into the race. I sticked on with the Juniors for a bit and was caught by the Experts pretty quickly, all ahead Luke Manning, who was showing his full potential, trying to make up in the NPS for his bad luck in the K Capital Cups.

It's supposed to be a smile....

And so the race went on pretty uneventful, apart from in my second lap where I fell trying to avoid a big loose rock in the ground and being caught by another, throwing me back first into the rocky ground - my whole back is covered in scratches!! At this stage I really need to apologize to Stew - this is the second race I fell in front of him and obstructed his way! And thanks to Luke Ireland for not riding over me when I couldn't get out of the way fast enough. I got back onto the bike and went on to finish my race in first position with a total time of 1:19:31, over 10 minutes ahead of Cait. That was a really short race - I think 5 laps would have been better, since the laps were so fast.

Riding side by side, but not for long!

Full results of the race can be downloaded from here.

Ryan had a pretty good race too, also winning his race. He was very pleased with how rode and he'll be putting his report up here.

Some photos taken from Aine can be found here and somebody even took videos and cut together little clips, so here they are in order found on youtube:

Video 1 - covering Sports and underage races
Video 2, Video 3, Video 4 - covering Elite, Masters, Vets races

Oh - and I got a (farmer's) tan!! The weather was absolutely beautiful, albeit a little windy at times.

Roll on British NPS 3!

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.