Mount Leinster Challenge

But really it all began 3 days earlier. I'd been too busy to get my usual 2 litres of water a day, or the Dioralyte needed to hydrate properly. Fast forward a few days and my legs seized like my timing belt had gone. I got over the Corrabutt, cycled towards home, 50k away, like an old man. My pedals were lead weights, my quads like a corpse's, my voice hoarse from shouting at the pain. I cycled and screamed through a downpour in Drummond. Luckily no locals were about to see the demented fool seep through, anger and snot and rain-water running down his lined face. If I'd seen me I would have been worried for my health.

Let me ask you a few questions! Do you love the Mount Leinster Challenge as much as I do???? Where else would you climb a hill called the Dying Sow? Where else would you smile through agony on a 20% incline to have your photo taken? Where else would your marshalls have begun a nationwide cyclist awareness campaign, or won significant races or know your name? What's not to love about a food stop that was a pleasurable challenge all on it's own? And the mountain itself? Like Ventoux, a leviathan sitting there waiting to slay you for a moment's hesitation or lack of respect. Who didn't smile on it's slopes at the mere achievement of being there, on those very inclines?

Where is the beauty in hurting yourself? I suppose it's the theatre of war. You see, every spin I go on gives me a feeling that I'm fighting. I'm not just talking about driver ignorance. It could be the simplest of things to fight against...the comfort of the couch, could be family or personal health issues, time-thief guilt, financial or work stress etc. Or a combination of all the above. But I'm fighting. Always.

However, the Mount Leinster Challenge is a beautiful theatre of war. You might meet your inner-self out there but you'll both be looking at the view! An Alpine valley that resembles a cascade of vivid green paint spilt from top to bottom on the East-side of the mountain. Or the heavy ramps resembling Caporetto sapping your will as you cycle the funnel of the 9 Stones. Or as your heart is sinking but beating furiously there's that pastoral quilt thrown over your right shoulder on the summit of the Corrabutt. County Carlow laid out like a giant's picnic blanket to the West. Hurt yes. Worth, definitely. The fact that you can endure all that in sound company and live to tell the tale is even more sublime.

Yes I suffered like a dog, yes I would go back again tomorrow. I underestimated the Challenge this year. I rode the 32km from home, approached the mountain like it was a Dutch canal bridge and got nobbled on the dead roads between battlefields. But I did meet Ben, hoping to race around Europe this Summer in between a PHD. I did meet Andy, back from Bilbao and pedalling effortlessly. And Mick, working hard in Oxford. I helped someone get their Garmin out of a ditch on the cattle-grids, chatted to old friends from other lives , has-beens and will-be's, whippets, tryers and damn fine people all living the dream in an event organised to the max. All you had to give was your sweat and time. Screams optional.

The truth hurts

I always thought living in the past makes you repeat it. Not true. Recently I went back to my past, a local league race, hoping to rekindle some of the fire I once felt while racing there. It had been a couple of years and as I drove down I had a mind filling with nostalgia. Glimmers. The zenith of my Comeragh league experience was winning one by complete fluke, jumping the bunch so as not to get completely savaged in the sprint. I wasn't passed. A couple of scalps in there too. Fluke. And that was a dozen years ago. But I always got in the front selection over Church Hill in Portlaw and had a dig or hung on to the finish with Ras riders and race winners. Or watched Sam Bennett throw up at the finish line after using the race for intervals. These are the races that Ciaran Power would use for training and proceed to tow groups around, helping everyone. I think the Aborigines call it Dream-Time, before reality arrived.
And arrive it did. Meeting the usual suspects, the Power family running the show like clockwork, Ciaran there to race and a huge number of wizened faces that, like me, should have known better.
I blame the bastards with better tattoos. You see its one thing having your ass handed to you by people younger than you. That's life. Its a whole other ball game when they are supposed to be at your level. And its a whole other universe when their tattoos are really good, full sleeved and gnarly ink-jobs. That really got to me. I can forgive anything else. I was pulled around like one of those shot cowboys in a black and white movie that get their foot caught in the stirrup. For 40 minutes. The horse was three black and blue clad robots that took turns in proving their strength on the front. And every time I glanced back there were less cyclists. I wish that had been it.
Ah sure twas grand until the real men turned up. At the start of lap three a storm broke over the race. The sun still shone but our countenances changed from happy-but-deranged-at-a-league-race to oh-my-god-what-was-that and discovering we were out of our league altogether. The big guns caught and strode through the group as if we were at a café. And they motored on so hard, so quickly that in 1500 metres the race was spread over 500 of those. 53x12 on a false flat? If you were gone you were finished.
I was gone. A chequered 17 year history at the Comeragh leagues came full circle as I turned full circle in the road and returned to the car. No mercy. Will I go back again? Hell ya!! You can't get better unless you learn to suffer harder. I'll be back damn soon!

Biblical Belgian Toothpaste

I never once thought about climbing off yesterday. Yes it pissed rain. No it wasn't easy passing the carpark on each lap. Seeing more and more boots open, bikes abandoned, vacant stares on defeated cyclist's faces. Never crossed my mind. But I'm not Sean Kelly and tough as nails isn't my thing. Its just that its been a long winter, breaking my elbow only the half of it. When I sat and watched the TV in February I was a broken boy. The bike stayed in the shed communicating with the spiders. My mind was blank but despairing. Only my Coach Richie and one or two others kept at me, getting me up and going again. Non sports people don't get it. They are funny. If you break a bone its the end of you. For them a surge of adrenaline is an extra finger of Prosecco. For me, as a cyclist, I saw it differently. I'd invested heavily in my fitness from September to January and Richie got me to reboot, throw off the mantle of setbacks and get going again. And he was right. It was only a matter of weeks.
Fast forward to the Frank O'Rourke races yesterday. It was my club, the Wexford Wheeler's biggest event and it was time to repay their faith in me. All that time and effort to climb off? No thanks. So my legs were a purple/blue shade? So what? I was shaking on the headwind sections but hadn't I been out in every conceivable type of weather all winter? It was going to take more to get me to quit my first open race of the year. Besides, if my legs were a funny colour and if I was cold to the bone, so was everyone else.
So when Philip scuttled up the road in a break of four it was our race to lose. Albert filtered around the front running interference as the gap hovered at 30 seconds. We still thought it was crossable but a couple of stalls in the bunch and then it was a minute. Game over. Our guys had a few digs. But fourth and fifth places for myself and Dave were not yet guaranteed. After the race Dave said that he'd been way back coming into the last few kilometres. That was some game of leap-frog to play because there was no bunch, just a long, sorry line of sodden bodies marching home. I, on the other hand found myself too far up front, scared and exposed like a groom tied to a lamp-post on a stag-night.
I'd done a recce the night before. How was I going to use the south-easterly wind to my advantage? Driving up and down the finishing straight with me Ma in the passenger seat, I discovered a channel down the right-hand gutter that would be more exposed to wind-assist than the traditional left side I always seemed to be in.
Come race day I jammed it in a heavy gear and exploded down the right, two seconds before I reckoned the sprint would start. Instead of cramps, cramps and more cramps, I just felt numb. I doubt I'd have hurt myself if I'd fallen. However. I wasn't numb to the dude creeping up my left-hand side. On a Colnago. He used the same road-channel and the vortex of my escaping ass to tootle past and claim third. Just as well I like Colnago bikes or I'd be gutted.
I didn't have a sprint so much as a numb, jelly-legged wobble to the line. But the hardest part of the day was ten minutes later trying to hold a coffee cup without drowning everyone in the hall. I shook like I had the DTs. And then it struck me. If I had the shakes while staying warm by cycling, how on earth did the stewards, Marshalls and photographers feel? They must have been destroyed!!! Good God! And what about Sean Rowe, a cross between Gandalf [for appearing out of nowhere, anywhere on the course] and Captain Ahab [for that rain-cape and his single-minded dedication, bordering on obsession]. The bigger performances of the day were of the non-cycling variety. I had it easy. Hats off!!!!