Race - Mt. Hamilton Low Key Hill Climb

Well, I don't usually do much racing during the off-season, but Ryan has been raving about this low key hill climb (LKHC) series in California, timing his flights precariously according to the dates of the races (and winning most of those he managed to do), so when I arrived in California for the first time ever, I could not miss this opportunity to do one (actually the last one of the 2010 series) too.

Mt. Hamilton Observatory

The LKHCs are mass start events up some hill. There are no number plates (you get a little red sticker with a number which you shout out at the finish, similar to the Epic Club races) and announcement of the winner or awards ceremony, no prices, etc. as the name suggests. About 140 (less than usual due to very cold weather) men and women lined up (including a mixed tandem) and after a few words regarding safety and the word "GO" we set off up the hill. I knew from Ryan that the climb would be 29.6km and guesstimated at least an hour and 20min long for me, the women's previous record was 1h 21min, so I knew to take it steady from the start. Thankfully most men did the same and there was no crazy race off. It was important to stick with a fast group though, as the hill climb included two significant descents (about 4km descent after the first 10km climb and about 1.5km descent at the about 17.5km mark).

Mount Hamilton Profile

I managed to stick with the front group (the group Ryan was in!) for the first 10km but it broke up during the first descent. After the descent I tried to work my way up again to the front bunch, but couldn't make it. In the end I stayed with 2 guys that were about my speed. After a while one of the guys dropped back and the other guy and I were ding-donging until we were almost at the top. Then, with about 200m to go we had to take a sharp right-hand turn on a small road up to the Observatory for which I was not prepared and went straight ahead. The other guy (who knew which way to go) took his chance and attacked and came in just ahead of me, grrr! But I finished with a time of 1h 20min, a minute off the previous record. I was first woman and 17th overall! This also meant that I had beaten the existing Strava record and got a T-shirt! I had felt very comfortable on the climb and did not make myself suffer. Needless to say, I am very happy with how my climbing is coming along :)

Last push to the finish line

Ryan won the men's category :). The view from the top was amazing, the sky was clear and the sun was shining, but it was FREEZING COLD with snow lying about in places. I grabbed a few cookies and some juice and my Strava T-shirt and layered up to survive the looooong descent back down.

I also found out later that I was "the top single-climb scoring rider on the day" with the highest points of the season, not bad on a climb that has 2 descents! :)

Results and a report can be found here on the Low Key Hillclimb website.

Wheelsuck!!! (Pic from here)

Winter training

I know I'm due several blogpost updates, these will come when the Xmas craze and business has quietened down a bit. While not much has been happening on my blog, a lot has happened offline and I'm well into my winter season training. Luckily Ryan and I have been able to spend a good chunk of our long preparatory miles in good(-ish) weather in California so we were able to avoid the first big freeze that kept Ireland in a cold grip. Training over there went very well, warmer weather and good company made the long base rides so much easier and so much fun. I've been on a few group rides with some very good riders and I absolutely loved it! I really can see myself turning pro after my PhD. Even the really hard rides and long tough climbs don't feel that hard when you've got some great people around you pushing you on. But unfortunately our time in California was limited and we both had to return back to Ireland after a few very good training weeks. We were lucky to return when the snow had mostly melted in Ireland and only got stuck in London for 2 hours due to dense fog.

Current view from our bedroom

Anyhow, the fairly mild weather on arrival back home has given way again to the 2nd big freeze. With temperatures of up to -12 degree Celsius, snow and ice, training outside has become dangerous to impossible. I ventured out on my mountain bike once when the weather wasn't too bad and the snow had mostly gone, dressed up like a Michelin (wo-)man in thick layers of clothing and using my new ski gloves and insulated bottles with hot juice (they both worked fantastically!), but wiped out twice on frozen puddles on the mountain. Luckily I could find areas that were rideable, mainly within the forest and it was OK as long as you kept off the open mountain. However, I felt quite restricted in my clothing and reduced dexterity in the ski gloves wasn't helping for the technical bits either. At least I was kept warm till the end.

Saris 300 Pro Indoor Cycle

But anyway, with the snow back and the temperatures colder than our freezer I've decided to stick to training indoors, made possible to the recent, very smart (in hindsight) investment by my cycling husband into a Saris 300 Pro Indoor Cycle. This machine has revolutionized our indoor training. While Ryan claims he's bought it primarily with me in mind (he used to very much dislike using his turbo trainer), we now fight over who can use the machine! It's a really heavy thing and very sturdy and set up or change between Ryan's and my settings is minimal. In addition, it's so quiet that you have to stop outside the door and listen carefully to be able to hear if the other person is actually using it. This is a big plus for me because I was always worried of annoying our neighbours with the noise and vibrations that a conventional turbo trainer creates and so basically prohibiting early morning and late night sessions before. And the best thing: It comes with an inbuilt power meter, so it's possible to have really specific workouts. And Ryan thankfully also invested into a new fan (after battling with the old broken one for a while). So, while indoor training on a stationary machine will never beat the specificity and joys of outdoor training, this is one of the best alternatives I have found.

2010 British Mountain Bike Racing Series Round 5 - Newnham Park, Plymouth

The last race of my season was the 5th round of the British Mountain Bike Racing Series, held in Newnham Park, Plymouth.

The line-up was impressive, with 17 Elite women from 8 different nations signed on, including Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesjaa (NOR), Rosara Joseph (NZL) and Amanda Sin (CAN). Word was also that my old rival, marathon specialist Sally Bigham would be riding this race. The fact that I was gridded 7th just showed the high calibre of women taking part.

On a beautiful sunny day we lined up. The 6.5km course featured two cold deep water crossings, two punchy granny ring climbs and two supersteep descents, a few bomb hole sections, some fast singletrack descent, a bit of fireroad and another bit of grassy flat.

We set off and the speed wasn't too crazy up the grassy slope and I managed to stay with the front group. However, soon Gunn-Rita and Rosara opened up a small gap, followed by Sally Bigham and Emmy Thelberg. I wasn't able to stick with them and soon found myself on my own. Lap 2 ticked by uneventful, but on lap 3 I was caught by Amanda Sin which I had to let go, but I could overtake Emmy Thelberg, so I stayed in the same position. Every lap I could still see some of the girls ahead on the grassy climb, but I couldn't close the distance, so that I finished the race in 5th place.

International podium: l-r: Amanda Sin (CAN), Rosara Joseph (NZL), Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesjaa (NOR), Sally Bigham (GBR), Mel Spath (GER)

While this is a good result considering the competition, I felt I hadn't left it all out on the course and had arrived too fresh at the finish. Gunn Rita won the race with a very close 2nd from Rosara Joseph, but the biggest impression was made by Sally Bigham who placed 3rd in her first ever national level cross country race with a gap of only 1min 15sec to Gunn-Rita. Another person to look out for since she's thinking of doing some more "just for training"....

And so the season has ended for me. I had planned to race in the Irish National Marathon Champs as a non-contender, but a college deadline had me firmly placed in front of my laptop on the sunny Sunday of the race. Well done to Cait Elliott though who found her legs and raced to another national marathon champs title.

Thanks to the guys from the WXC team for feedzone support.

Elite women top 10:

1 Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjaa (Nor) 1:45:14
2 Rosara Joseph (NZl) 0:00:09
3 Sally Bigham (GBr) 0:01:15
4 Amanda Sin (Can) 0:05:59
5 Melanie Spath (Ger) 0:06:37
6 Lily Matthews (GBr) 0:08:23
7 Maaris Meier (Est) 0:09:58
8 Emmy Thelberg (Swe) 0:11:34
9 Melanie Alexander (GBr) 0:12:01
10 Elliot Caitlin (Irl) 0:13:24

Full results can be found here.

Thanks also to Martyn Salt and the team from InEvent for running such a consistently well organized and high-quality racing series in the UK. Pity not more of the Irish or mainland European racers are making it over for it - it's are well worth it. I'm already looking forward to doing them next year!

Ras na mBan 2010 - Sneem, Kerry, Ireland

(l-r) Mel Spath (Usher IRC), Olivia Dillon (Irish National Team), Natalie Creswick (Shred Racing Rapha Condor)

When I signed up for the Ras ma mBan this year I tried to find my blog post from last years Ras and noticed that although I had them all written, I hadn't actually put them up because they weren't quite finished!

Anyhow, after a good race last year, I was looking forward again to this years edition or Ireland's premier women only 3-day stage race, again held in Sneem. Due to the tireless work of the women's Commission, led by Valerie Considine, the race is gaining on popularity and the number of race entries this year was the highest ever. Again, Louis Moriarty offered us a great deal to stay in his hotel, Sneem Hotel, so we knew we'd be taken care of to the highest level.

Riding along

This year the race organizers have introduced a new County Rider Classification, adding an extra incentive for the Ireland-based riders to do well. The stages were the same as the year before, so I knew what to expect.

Stage 1: Friday, 17^th September, Road Race, 60km – Sneem – Kenmare – Sneem, map here
The main feature of this course is the long drag up to Moll's Gap and that's usually where the action happens. My legs felt good in the morning and the bunch stayed together until the start of the climb. My aim for this race was to do well in the queen of the hills (QOH) competition, so I went to the front and went for an early attack, but nobody went with me and I was soon caught again. The speed on the climb increased and more attacks followed, most of them short-lived. However, half way up the climb somebody attacked and a strong group of 6 people started pulling away. In this group were the US-based Irish National Road Race Champion Olivia Dillon (Irish Team), Linda Ringlever (Moving Ladies), Alli Holland (Shred Racing Rapha Condor), Matthysse Mathilde (PSUK Cycle Race Team), Natalie Creswick (Shred Racing Rapha Condor) and Gillian McDarby (Usher IRC).

At the front

That's when I made my first stupid mistake. Gillian from my team was in the forming breakaway, so instead of making it into the breakaway myself (which would have been easy since I was at the front of the bunch and they weren't far gone), I sat up, happy that Gillian had made it and that we had a team member in the breakaway. But unfortunately Gillian was dropped from the breakaway soon after, at which point I decided to try and chase them down, hoping I'd get to them before the climb was over. I didn't catch them before the descent and kept chasing, making it into within 22 seconds, but then my legs started cramping up and I had to ease off. Finally I was caught by the bunch and stayed with them to the finish. The leading group of 5 had created a gap of over one and a half minutes and my queen of the mountains jersey went out the window. I wasn't at all pleased with myself. At least Gillian had a good sprint and won the county rider jersey.

Results of stage 1 can be found here and a report here.

Tough road conditions on stage 2

Stage 2a: Saturday, 18^th September (morning): Road Race, 80km – Sneem – Tahilla – Killarney – Sneem, map here
This stage is always my favourite since there is a lot of climbing in it, we climb the same hill 4 times, on a narrow windy country road with lots of gravel and stones on it. There was QOH points to be gotten on the 2nd and 4th lap. While there were a few attacks, the bunch stayed together during the first lap. In the second lap I attacked myself (too early) and was chased back down. I attacked again (this time at the right time) for the QOH and got over the line first, wohoo! The third lap there was a sprint prime that Alli Holland won, but the bunch was still together going up the hill for the last time. Towards the top though, Olivia Dillon, Alli Holland, and Natalie Creswick attacked and I was just at the right spot at the right time and managed to hang onto their tail.

Going for the QOH on stage 2

We quickly created a small gap and the speed was super high, so there was no chance for me to go for the QOH. I thought it to be better to try and hang on anyway, since it looked like we were increasing our lead. How exciting it is to be in the breakaway! We hurtled down the hill, again I had no clue when to chase and when not, I just stayed with them and hoped we'd stay away from the bunch until the finish line, because (although I think I'd have a good sprint) I am way too scared for a bunch sprint. And we did! I was superhappy with my performance, my heart rate profile showed I had a higher heartrate on the descent than on the climb, lol. The result meant I had now climbed into 6th place overall and was first county rider, with a lead of 17 seconds over the next few people who arrived in the bunch.

Results of stage 2a can be found here and a report here.

Stage 2b: Saturday, 18^th September: (afternoon): 5km TT
The TT is so short that I was pretty confident that I won't loose my lead of 17secs. Olivia Dillon set an amazing time of 2min 53 secs, with the next closest rider at 3min 7secs, but as she's based in the US, she was no danger to the county rider classification. My time was 3min 10 secs, enough only for 12th place. I went as hard as I could, but I forgot to get into the drops and my legs were dead after this mornings ride, so I can't be unhappy with that.

Gasping for air after 3min of pain

Results of the TT can be found here and report here.

Stage 3: Sunday, 19^th September: Road Race, 90km Waterville loop, map here
Since the QOH competition was pretty much won by Natalie Creswick, I was told that it would be the best idea to hang in there and try to defend the county rider jersey. This meant I had to leave the pain inflicting on the climb to the other riders, boo. But it made sense. I had to look out for Rita Boyle, who had gained 2secs on my gap in the TT and was now only 15 secs behind me. The other two dangers were Jenny McCauley and Catherine Devitt. To be honest, my legs were so tired at this stage that I was happy enough to just sit in. I made sure that I was positioned towards the front to be able to react on any dangerous attacks (I'm actually quite pleased with my positioning overall - it only took me 3 years to get there... ;)). One English rider managed to get away on the flat loop after the first of the two ascents of Coomakiste, but she was caught again on the 2nd ascent. The bunch fell apart on the 2nd ascent though, so that a smaller group formed on the descent on the other side. The Rapha Condor girls tried again and again to get away, as did a few others, even Cait went for it at one time, but all were chased down again quickly. I kept an eye on my opponents. I knew Rita was very strong on the TT and thought she might try to get away and time trial it home from the last little drag onwards. However, we stayed together and started descending on the other side.

Leaders before the last stage

But then disaster struck: A person in front attacked and Rita Boyle reacted a little too quickly and fervently and, after touching wheels with Olivia Dillon in front, lost control over her bike and went down hard. As I was just behind/beside her, I could see it all happening and prepared myself for a fall, or at least for riding over an obstacle, going into a defensive mountainbike position. Rita's handlebar and wheel went down just ahead of me and I tried my best to keep my bike steady when my front wheel rammed into her handlebar. I managed to stay upright and kept on rolling. Something felt strange though on the bike, a little too flexy perhaps, but I couldn't detect any fault, so I kept riding on.

Misty weather on Sunday's stage

There were a few more attacks on the slightly downhill home straight and I had to chase down Jenny a few times too. At the end again, I declined Olivia Dillons leadout offer (I know, my brain was really not working at that stage any more) and decided to go in front myself, as I am scared of bunch sprints. So basically, what I do is I just ride as hard as I can until everybody overtakes me to the line. Anyhow, my aim was to defend the county rider jersey that day and I had achieved my aim. I was very happy :)

Later on I found out that I had broken 3 of the carbon spokes and scratched the fork in that incident with Rita - thank god the bike held up!

Short results and a report of the last stage can be found here.

I took that cup home again

I am very grateful to Stewart Carr for lending me his amazing Lapierre road bike - I am so happy I didn't crash myself, the replacement parts could have been a lot more expensive!

Thanks also for Florence, my roommate, for the sports massage after the time trial - it really helped!

Thanks to the Usher team for their excellent support and thanks to Mick Usher for the useful advice.

Thanks to Louis Moriarty and the staff at Sneem Hotel who make our stay there a very comfortable and luxurious experience.

Thanks also for Declan Quigley and Eddie Lynch for the lift down to Kerry and back.

Louis Moriarty and me

2010 Ulster XC Champs - Tollymore Forest Park, NI

The week of this race was meant to be my last hard (20h) training week, after building up from 16h to 18h the two weeks before, but halfway through the week my legs packed in, so I decided to take it easy for the rest of it and use the Ulster XC Champs as my last high intensity session before the Ras na mBan one week later. Ryan and I both went up to the beautiful countryside of the Mourne Mountains - memories of my Mourne Mountain marathon adventure welling up. And during the race I remembered that I raced mtb here years before, in 2006, as a non-contender in the open National XC Champs, when I was still a beginner....

Waiting for the start with the juniors (photo by Martin Grimley)

Anyhow, we arrived in the lovely forest park (why don't we have more of those around Dublin???) on a nice sunny day and got ready for a practice lap. Word of the mouth was that the course would have been fantastic in the dry, nice and fast and flowy, but the wet weather beforehand had made it into a muddy slidery course - damn, I got the wrong tires on my bike! The practice lap confirmed it, I think I washed out about 10 times and came off the bike about 5 times. There wasn't much climb but there were many corners, with the course sweeping and swooping around the trees, so it felt a little bit like cyclocross.

Mr. & Mrs. :) (photo by Martin Grimley)

Unfortunately I was the only Elite woman signed up, which is a bit disappointing, as I was looking forward to having to push myself hard. So my aim for this race was just to ride as smooth as possible, and practice clean cornering. However, when the race started, some of the later categories caught up with me and I had a bit of a battle with Mick from EPIC for most laps. The race itself was good fun, with me concentrating on my skill and I felt I was conquering the course more and more with every lap. Some nice features of the course included a steep switchback climb, that I almost made a few times and a fun bomb hole.

On a lonely podium (photo by Joanne Callum)

In my last lap I got an extra incentive to go a little faster when I saw Ryan catching up with me, so I sped up and made sure he didn't get me. While the racing was less exciting, I really enjoyed riding the course and still got a great workout out of it since the fairly flat nature of the course meant that there was not much time to recover. I'll do this one again next year, but hoping for more competition then!

Full results can be found here.

Da Cooley Thriller, Carlingford

And now a report about my latest adventure: the “Da Cooley Thriller”, held last Saturday in the Cooley Mountains around Carlingford. I was a little reluctant to go racing up there again, painfully remembering getting lost on its course (as did many others) due to poor marking a few years ago. But a long time had passed since then and I had a 4 hour mtb spin in my training plan, so I decided that doing the race would be making the training that little bit more interesting. And so Oisin, who gave me a lift up, and I arrived early in the morning in the beautiful picturesque village of Carlingford at the race to some very breezy and quite fresh weather.

After the briefing the ~200 riders for the short and long course set off through the village towards the ominous looking mountains. It was a bit of a rolling start and I wasn’t quite sure where the race proper started. Unfortunately I was stuck somewhere in the middle of the stream of riders squeezing through the narrow roads of Carlingford, mainly keeping an eye on Cait Elliott, who was my main competition in this race. I should have been positioning myself better to the front, so that I didn’t have to fight through or be pushed around by a mass of overexcited roadie-goobers in world champion gear and with funny dangerous bar ends. Finally the people strung out a bit on the first bit of climb and I was able to work my way up through the riders. But then we hit some simple single track and the people ahead of me started walking!! It turned out that there were a good few roadies doing this race – not one I would have chosen for my first mtb race experience because I knew it was becoming a lot more technical than that!

Oisin and I (photo by 'manuel6b')

Once we hit the tarmac it was important to keep with a group to be sheltered against the strong headwinds up the hill. I managed to stick onto a good group for a bit, got dropped on a climb, fought my way back on and kept going with them up towards the masts. We were making good progress on the windy road. My legs were feeling fantastic and I knew that this race would be a good one. Just before the last off-road ascent towards the masts I stopped at the first feedzone for a handful of haribo provided by the organizers. I overtook a few more people on the ascent, grabbed my bottle from Dave and started the long downhill section. I had a lot of fun and witnessed two spectacular looking (but harmless) crashes of two riders. The weather kept up mostly, the trails were sweet, the climbs were hard and my legs were pedaling without effort. I really loved the singletrack, just technical enough to keep you on your toes not too scary so that I was even able to enjoy the spectacular views around the Cooley Mountains. Time flew by and I had to watch my clock to not forget to take a ZipVit Gel (new recipe flavours are fantastic) every 45minutes. There was so much nice singletrack that it was hard to find a place to even drink!

The last descent back down to Carlingford (photo by 'manuel6b')

Finally, after endless amazing singletrack I arrived at the second feedzone station at Windy Gap, where Aine provided me with another bottle and I gobbled up another handful of sweets. Then it was up the last climb – I remembered it to be long and draggy from the last time I did it, but today it was over in no time and I found myself on the last long and fun descent through the ferns towards the finish. I couldn’t believe that it was over when I arrived after 3h19min of riding, as first Elite women and 9th overall. I felt so great I could have done another lap. I wish I had had those legs during the World Marathon Champs. Married life is good for you!

I really really enjoyed this race – maybe I should switch to marathon racing? The trail marking and race organization were perfect, with free and tasty pasta provided after the race, and early results were even up that evening with full results the following day. The ghosts from a few years ago have been well and truly chased away and I definitely will be doing this one again next year!
Thanks to the organizers for putting on such a great event on such great trails, thanks to Oisin for the lift, thanks to Dave Gill and Aine Conneff for feedzone support and thanks to the weather gods for keeping the rain at bay.

Results can be found here.

More photos here and here.

Gym Time

Due to time constraints and changeable weather I’ve recently spent less time on the bike while I increased my time on the treadmill in my local gym. It was often easier to fit in an hour run in the gym than a 2hour bike ride in the rain (although the weather is all lovely now again). I also love the complete control one has over a training session in the gym – no winds, rain, coldness or darkness to endure and no thinking about which way to take – it makes it easier to “switch off” and just think of nothing. And if I can’t find a zen state I can at least watch TV (this is something special for me since I don’t have a TV at home)!!

A week ago I decided to try out my first spinning session which the gym offers free of charge for members. Thought I could show my fellow spinners what a great cyclist I am...... haha....


Anyhow, the music was put on and the (quite cute) instructor shouted instructions at us, “Warm up on a low resistance”, “Put up the resistance”, “Pedal faster”, “We’re going up a long hill now…”, “SPRINT for one minute!!!” etc. all to the beat of dance music. We basically climbed a 20min hill at a low cadence and out of the saddle – and I couldn’t stand up for the whole time! I know cycling while standing isn’t my forte, but my-oh-my, I have never cycled up such a long steep hill! All the other girls were able to keep it up – thank god I didn’t tell them that I am a cyclist! (I have the suspicion though that my resistance level was a little higher than the ones of my fellow spinners….). I was barely able to complete the sprints and was completely wrecked when the session was over. I cannot believe how hard such a spinning session can be and I also cannot believe the buckets of water I sweated during this session.

I am definitely adding spinning sessions to my bad-weather/darkness/coldness/winter alternative training repertoire.

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