During last week I managed to get out on the road a few times as I mentioned above. Thankfully the weather was good every time so I made as much use of it as possible! I had a very interesting session Thursday which I quite enjoyed, maybe not so much at the time but afterwards I felt so good! I spent the night around the hills of Ballyhooly and Glenville in a place that we like to call "Cappacross". This session was great preparation for "The Edge Classic" which I raced yesterday. I never managed to fit in an update before the race so this is meant to be it. Not much detail, I know!
So let's get talking about the race yesterday. The scene was set in the beautiful village of Minane Bridge, roughly 4-5 miles from Carrigaline in Cork. We got there just in time for sign-on to open and had plenty time to get ready and relax. When it started to get closer to the starting time of 1 o'clock I realised that there wasn't as many people as there usually is at the races. I gathered a lot of people got turned off by the hilly course, there was still quite a lot of people in the race just not 120ish which you could usually have. This is something I was happy about as I knew I wouldn't have to fight for positions as much.
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| Fooling around at the start line, not sure what I'm doing! |
The race started off pretty easy, we just rolled out the road to the first climb which was only a few kilometers in. When we hit the climb nobody wanted to commit themselves so early on but I decided to make a few tiny efforts to test the legs. The rest of the lap was all up and down, hardly any flat and the last climb which comes 4.5 kilometers from the finish line is the real tester, everyone knew that this climb was going to decide the race!
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| 2nd or 3rd time round, not quite sure! |
Throughout the day the group kept getting smaller and smaller as people were attacking a lot and almost every break that went I was on it. To be honest on the 3rd lap I wasn't feeling the best. I was pretty tired going onto the last lap and just hoped I'd have good legs for the sprint. On the last lap, on the decisive hill the Belgian mountain biker Simon Hupperetz who was riding for Limerick CC got clear and had around a 20 second advantage. Before the race everyone knew that if someone had a small advantage going over the top of the climb you were going to win the race, unless you are the worlds worst descender! Unfortunately coming onto the last climb I was positioned pretty badly and didn't even see the attack. Going over the top I fought my way to front because that's where I needed to be if I wanted any result. As I was completely spun out at 75km/h coming down the descent there was no way I could move anywhere, hence why I had to get to the front over the top! Coming into the finish I was 2nd in line behind Stephen Clancy of Limerick CC and a group of around 15-16 behind us. I started the sprint and just in the last 20 meters got passed for 2nd place. I ended up 3rd which I was happy with. 4 more points added and a result on the web. Hopefully that's a good thing as this race was one the Juniors were asked to go to to be assessed by the coaches etc..
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| Sprint for 2nd place, Comeragh CC never knew Simon was ahead! |
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| Simon Hupperetz, Stephen Clancy, Myself and Simon Ryan chatting about the race outside Butler's Bar in Minane Bridge |
So thats my update on the race yesterday. Hat's off to Timmy Barry for organising the race, the officials, marshalls, everyone who gave up there time for helping the running of such a great race. If ye want a small bit more Tommy Campbell does have a quick round-up on results of races over the weekend etc..
Link is here:
Tommy Campbell's WEEKEND RACING ROUNDUP
To wrap up, I'm just going to let ye know what's coming up. The next few weeks will be busy- Next weekend I'll possibly be racing in Stamullen, possibly! Then after that I'll be doing 3 weekends straight of stage racing! Gorey 3-Day, Kanturk 3-Day and I'm going to the UK with the national team. Should be fun! Hope you enjoyed the read. Stay Tuned
Eoin
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