Update part 2 - French racing - Tour de Bretagne

Anyhow, trying to largely ignore that I was sick I got ready for my highlights of the year, the Tour de Bretagne and the Tour de Limousin. I had been planning on doing these races since before I was riding for TIBCO: I was doing these with the DID Ladies Racing Team, the first Irish women's Elite racing team that I had helped get off the ground at the beginning of this year, for which, ironically, I was now guest riding for in these two races. The trip to France with my teammates was so eventful, I could nearly write a blog post for every single day, but we've agreed that "what happened in France stays in France". So I'll keep this blog civil and keep all the rest for my tell-all, no-holds-barred book ;)

Hmm, how can I fit more bikes onto the car - Photo Credit Stewart Carr

So, our adventure started with loading the trusty DID Team car with Amy, Mary and I as riders, Stew as man for everything (mechanic/director/soigneur all in one go) and Amanda as our soigneur and as many bikes as we could fit onto the custom roof rack to take the ferry from Wexford to France. At the harbour I got re-educated on the geography of Europe, and found out that we were not just a couple of hours from France, but up for an overnight ferry trip..... Well, lets just say my stomach wasn't happy, still struggling to get rid of that stomach bug.....

van Garderen TdF TT - Photo Credit Stewart Carr

We made it to France and started our long drive that incidentally led us straight across the Tour de France TT stage that was on that day. Add screaming girls upon that revelation and of course we had to stop and have look at how the pros do it. Trying to tease the girls away from the TdF buzz was like telling a kid its time to go home from the playground, we made it to our very own stage race HQ. There we were joined by the scotswoman Julie "guns" Erskine and Siobhan McNamara and French Woman Clemence Copie for our team and Caroline Martinez as our 2nd driver and media person. The whole race and entourage stayed in a French boarding school, complete with French food in the French canteen (road racers know what that means - baguette and nutella and sugary cereal for breakfast, EVERY DAY!!!). Grand so, so far so good, the team was complete, we were all signed up and ready to race. The race itself was 4 stages: 3 long road stages and 1 ITT. Oh, and allow me to mention that we were there at the height of summer, at about 37 degrees heat during the day.

Photo Credit Stewart Carr

Stage 1: We were all dropped eventually. I still wasn't feeling to well and suffered all day, finally getting dropped the 2nd time round the finishing circuit. I found a groupetto to ride with until we were finished, somehow managing to ride an extra lap.... The next day was the ITT, a technical enough course, again in super hot conditions. I had an alright time, placing in the the first third, but not really anything to write home about. Day 3 and 4 were again two long and hard stages, on tiny roads with a huge bunch, up and down and lots of corners and the sun burning down relentlessly. It was crazy! I finished with the bunch both days, but only just about.

Update part 1 - Post Nationals local racing

A week after the Road Nationals in June I finally graduated, putting an end (for now!) to my academic commitments. So yes, I'm a Dr. now - no, not that kind of doctor, not a REAL doctor as some people may say... Anyhow, it was great to graduate and finish that chapter of my life.

Instead of taking a well-deserved break after the nationals I did some local racing: I won a Corkagh Park Ladies crit as the freshly crowned road champ.

Racing in Corkagh Park - Photo Credit: Brendan Culleton

I also tried my luck in the Stephen Roche GP - mainly because I could show my dad what racing is all about (the first time he's watched me racing!) and because it is a crit and I really started liking crit style racing since my experience in the US and because it was just down the road from where I live. I was still tired from the weekend's racing, and racing against the men was just turning out to be too much. I started off in the A3 group and was able to stay with them for a couple of laps. But the course with only three corners and the two long straights did not play into my favours. I did well in the courners, but I couldn't keep up with the lads in the long straights. Eventually I got dropped and pulled out even though I was still ahead of the A1 and A2s, but my legs just said no.

I also started the Mullingar GP on a horrendous day with pouring rain, low temps and a super strong wind. I let a few people go in the race before attacking numerous times myself to get away as did Fran Meehan and eventually Fran and I got away and made it across to Fiona Guihen and Anne Dalton. We worked well together from then on, Fiona got dropped and then, about 10km from the finish I punctured. So I had to wait for neutral service which was behind the bunch who were several minutes behind us - race over for me.

After the disaster of a race in Mullingar I got sick with a stomach bug. I should really have taken it as a sign, because in hindsight I could just see how tiredness had been building up since the start of the season what with all that travelling and racing all over the world. But no, instead of taking it easy, Mel kept trucking on. I kept on training (on the indoor trainer, to be close to the toilet) and even stupidly enough thought I could try and race the Eddie Tobin Memorial men's A1/A2 race in Bunclody. Deep down I knew that I wasn't well enough to race, but somehow I'm very good at ignoring these things. However, even riding to the start of the race I felt something was horribly wrong and I knew within the first few minutes of the race that I had to stop. Note to self - don't start racing when you're sick.

Stay tuned for my update marathon!

Wow, where has the time gone? I'm now already two weeks into my training for next season and I have really been slacking off on my planned blog posts about all the racing and traveling that I've done since the Road Nationals in June, oops. So I've decided to provide a summary about all that happenend since then - so get yourself a cup of coffee and make yourself comfortable :)

After having written everything down I noticed I had a massive blog post, so I've decided to cut it into individual posts and publish one every day until I'm at now. These posts will cover the following:

1 - Post Nationals local racing
2 - French racing - Tour de Bretagne
3 - French racing - Tour en Limousin
4 - Body says no back in Ireland
5 - Sweden World Cup
6 - Lotto Tour in Belgium
7 - Ras na mBan
8 - Road World Championships
9 - Irish Hill Climb Champs
10 - Off season and start into the new training season

Enjoy!

Wicklow Mountains Training Ground

World Championships Video Diary #4

Apologies about the bad acoustics.....

World Championships Video Diary #3

Oh, and I forgot to mention that one of the riders put chocolate sauce over his dinner instead of gravy by accident.... ;)

World Championships Video Diary #2

Here you go :)

World Road Race Championship Video Diary # 1

For the World Champs I'm going to try and put on a little video diary every day. Today was just a travel day, so not much happening, but I hope the next few will be a bit more interesting :)