There were no pre-rides the day before so I headed up early to get in a practice lap on the morning. The course was cool but really tough. 100% singletrack, much of it on thick grass with a few schlompy patches to power through and lots of sharp rocks. It was full of short, steep kickers with 2 slightly longer steep, rocky climbs each followed by some nice descents. There were a couple of steepish, rocky chutes but overall nothing super technical.

Ready to go

We started with Ciara McManus going off like a rocket and getting ahead to set a ferocious pace. I managed to hold on to her and sneaked ahead a few minutes in as she slid out on an off camber section. Beth was right on my back wheel and later pulled ahead on one of the short climbs. I had to really go flat out to hold her within easy sight for the next two laps. I had my work cut out, she was flying up the climbs but I found myself lacking power and struggling to keep up – give me a long, steady climb any day!

On lap 3 Beth began to pull away, I totally blew up, just couldn’t keep the pace up and dropped nearly a minute on lap time. The course was so intense, there was no chance to recover at all, straight from a hard climb into a fast, physical decent and then repeat! Getting chance to drink was nearly impossible.

On the 4th lap I really dug deep, trying to find some extra energy so that I could work back and raced the Masters men to help keep pushing. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t go any faster. With no sign of Beth in front of me and I began to realise there would be little chance to catch her but kept going just in case. By the last lap I nearly had to give up braking as I was getting finger cramps every time I pulled the levers and was pretty happy to cross the line just before a torrential downpour began. I finished in second place, 2.5 minutes down (full results here).

Rain drenched presentations

Thanks to UCD, Met and Think Bike for their support and to Dromara CC for the organising and a great course.

I was really looking forward to this one, last race of the year, an opportunity for some competitive racing, as well as great weather and one of the best courses of the year. Mel Spath of Torq/MAD was once again my main competition, and I was hoping that i’m fit enough now to be able to have a good race with her.

I knew I was really going to have to push myself physically and make the most of any technical advantage if I was going to have any chance as Mel still has an edge on me fitness wise. I was feeling good on the first climb, right on her wheel going into the singletrack at the top. Pretty early on she had a nasty looking crash and I passed by. It didn’t take long for her to be back behind me but she seemed to be struggling on the technical trails. I just kept pushing on and began edging away.

I was on my own a lot of the race in the end, although the juniors were often close by so I tried to race them to help stay focused. The course was amazing, a perfect combination of climbs (nasty at times but not too long) and then the reward of really fun singletrack descents, a mixture of some fairly difficult technical bits and some really fast swoopy stuff.

By the last lap I was convinced Mel was seconds behind and kept imagining I could see here torq jersey closing in. I pushed on, preparing my head for a fight, but was still feeling good enough to be really enjoying the riding and almost felt like another lap by the end (well maybe without the up hills!).

I finished first, finally feeling back to fitness, and happy with the way I rode. It wasn’t until afterwards that I realised how mush Mel had hurt herself in the crash, fairplay to her for finishing at all. Bit of a pity it wasn’t the close fought battle I’d been preparing for but it was fun all the same enjoying some great riding. Shame that’s it now until next year!