- Road races - 2 in March planned. The Dublin wheelers race in Dunboyne and the Newbridge GP. The plan is to try to keep up with the A3's. Will try to get 1 road race a month in if I can.
- The Bull Raid - going to do the 12 hour pairs with Oisin this year
- Bontrager 24/12 - to be confirmed, but the plan is to race the 12 hour pairs with Oisin.
- Also looking at a couple of 100km marathon races in the UK during the summer for the craic, but will play those by ear.
- There are also a couple of multi-stage mountain bike races I might attend also, but will see how that goes
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Almost race season!
So on top of the NPS and national champs, the plan this year is:
Friday, February 11, 2011
I'm training!
Yes! Getting back into it now. Most of January was spent on the road bike just getting back the fitness I lost between October and December. I didn't even do the work commute during that time so the base miles had to be put in. I was happy with the amount of effort put in during January - it was the most I've ever put in at the start of a year and almost a record in terms of KM's traveled and hours in the saddle, so that's good. Mind you, all of it was slow and steady.


Then I went to the Biking Blitz last weekend... which was a painful reminder of (a) the anaerobic effort required for Xc racing and (b) technical skills needed (not that I ever had much on that front, but over 4 months off the mountain bike had them in a pretty shocking state).
I was late arriving and after a bit of pleading with the person at the registration tent, I got my number and legged it up to the start line. I got to near the front of of the starting grid, but I was sitting there wet and cold with no warm up. At that point I decided the first few Km's would be my warm up and go from there afterwards. The race started at 12 and a few of the savage boys pegged off up the hill. I tried keeping up, but at the same not trying to kill myself. Eventually I caught up with the lads on the climb and got ahead before the final piece of climbing singletrack. Things went pair shaped after that on the techie singletrack where I struggled to get any flow going at all. Oisin and Simon just cruised up behind me and passed, either on the singletrack or the next section of fireroad. After that I just did the best I could and finished the race about 12th. I was happy with that considering the lack of mountain biking I've been doing and no having any warm up. I went out and did another lap straight after and planned to do a final one, but the weather was so bad, I called it a day and went home.
I was late arriving and after a bit of pleading with the person at the registration tent, I got my number and legged it up to the start line. I got to near the front of of the starting grid, but I was sitting there wet and cold with no warm up. At that point I decided the first few Km's would be my warm up and go from there afterwards. The race started at 12 and a few of the savage boys pegged off up the hill. I tried keeping up, but at the same not trying to kill myself. Eventually I caught up with the lads on the climb and got ahead before the final piece of climbing singletrack. Things went pair shaped after that on the techie singletrack where I struggled to get any flow going at all. Oisin and Simon just cruised up behind me and passed, either on the singletrack or the next section of fireroad. After that I just did the best I could and finished the race about 12th. I was happy with that considering the lack of mountain biking I've been doing and no having any warm up. I went out and did another lap straight after and planned to do a final one, but the weather was so bad, I called it a day and went home.
Since then I've been doing some shorter road spins and some easy intervals - will start doing the hard ones next month. I've also to sort out a race bike for this year... but thats in hand and I'll have more info on it next week :)
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