Race Day No.5: Ras Luimni

Hello everyone, today I raced the Ras Luimni which was held in Caherconlish, Limerick. With the clocks going forward by an hour last night, the alarms for this morning were a bit confusing but everything was ok, thank god! Just thought I'd throw that in there.. Anyway this morning when I woke I was a bit disappointed not to see the clear blue skies like yesterday, it was dull and cold! Today was always going to be interesting as the underage season was kicking off for the boys. With Jack in the u12 event, Dion, Conor Healy, Suraj Theratile and Mad Mick O Hara all in the u14 and finally David and Corey Hayes in the u16 event the club had a good showing! We arrived early and the lads got ready for their races. The mood in the camper club was good, but you could feel some of the lads nerves as it was their first race. Understandable I suppose! Anyway in the end Jack finished his first ever race in style only coming in a minute or two down on the winner, Dion was 4th, and David and Corey were in the leading group of 16s but just outside the prizes! Good start to the season for the Underage.

Jack was in the mood!

Anyway enough about all them, this blog is about me isn't it? haha! My race, where to start. On the build up to the race I was looking forward to racing the normal but when I met the man himself Dan Curtin the plans for the day changed. He told me to race the A1/A2 race and to be honest I was very excited as I wanted to try one for a while now, I obviously knew it would be faster and harder but this made me even more excited and I couldn't wait! So after socializing a bit I got ready and lined up at the start.

Being with some big names in Irish Cycling was a bit nerve-wrecking but when we started the nerves quickly shook off! Straight away the pace was set very high and attacks were going inside the first few kilometers. It didn't take long before the main breakway of the day slipped away and with a riders from The Edge, Sport Active, Blarney and Carrick Wheelers all in the breakaway it was almost certain that they were going to stay away. Even though I wasn't on the break, I was in the main group, and believe me it was still very fast. Especially when you compare it to the other races I've done. Most of the time the race was lined out and it was great knowing I didn't need to worry about anyone being dangerous around me as I knew all the riders in the race were serious hard working riders and there was not one dodgy moment, even at the finish it was safe! In the end, there was 4 riders away, then another 3 and then there was the bunch. In the final kilometers I was being pushed around a bit and found it hard to stay around the front 10-20 riders. So when I eventually got to the outside I got a nice ride up towards the front on the Kanturk train (A whole 2 riders)! Like I always do, I started the sprint and held off until around 75-100m to go when 4 or 5 riders passed me, all top sprinters! (Daniel Clifford, Mick O'Reilly, Thomas Lavery and Brendan McLoughlin) and I finished up around 12th 13th-ish! I am very pleased with my result today and it was definitely a great experience, now I'm really looking forward to racing the 'A' race again in Fermoy. Paidi O'Brien of the Sport Active team took the win today in impressive fashion and I'm going to attach a link of the review on Irish Cycling if your interested on reading more.

http://www.irishcycling.com/publish/news/art_5455.shtml

Fooling Around Out Training!

Savage Weather Saturday!

So, thats just a quick update on how my race went today and now I'm really looking forward to next weeks race which is in Fermoy as I mentioned above! I'll have another blog update before the race I'm sure. So that's it for today, Stay Tuned!

Eoin