"Hit and Miss" start to the season!

It's been a hectic last few weeks for me, with the race season starting and other work and day to day stuff getting in the way, so haven't had a chance to post! Ok, so i'm just a lazy bugger really, but i'll use that as an excuse anyway. On a more positive note, it looks like my winter training has worked very well, as I managed to take 2nd Elite at the first round of the Scottish XC series at Kirroughtree - yeah!!

Being the first time i've ever raced at Kirroughtree, I didn't know what to expect. On saturday practice, I instantly enjoyed the course, and knew it would make for some good racing. After a crazy fast start with adrenaline filled younger riders such as Hamish Creber and Kenta Gallager lining up the start line, I settled into a decent spot around 4th-5th, sitting just behind the lead group. After a couple of laps, I was up with them, and decided to sit pretty to find some recovery. Meanwhile, UK pro Paul Oldham had shot off up front (no suprises there!). So, I pushed on with the group behind, and was soon setting the pace at the front. I decided to put a few digs in on the climbs, and as the laps dwindled down, Hamish and the Irish (?) rider fell back, so it was soon just me and young Kenta Gallagher. On the 2nd last lap, I pulled a small gap, and unfortunately he punctured so all I had to do was push on and 2nd spot was mine. I had caught glimpses of James Fraser Moodie behind, so didn't want to back off too much, knowing he can be strong at the end of a race. Thankfully, all went well and I took the credible 2nd spot - what a great start to the season! :-)

The weekend after, I was heading on down to Nottingham for the 1st Round of the British XC. Having recovered pretty well after SXC1, I was looking forward to racing with top UK pro and Elite riders. Now first of all, let me just say that this wasn't your typical Scottish XC race course. It was FLAT. Like pan flat! So I didn't fancy my chances being of a smaller build, but it should make for some fast racing (or so I thought).

With 50 riders lined up to start, I was gridded 2nd or 3rd row from the back. Unfortunately, after a frantic paced start, another rider came into me, took me down along with a few others and there was instant carnage and bikes flying everywhere. I took a rather nasty blow to the head, breaking the rear of my helment which caused me to black out for a moment. I was kneeled down, when the ambulance crew came running over, but I decided to get up and try and continue. By that time, I was dead last by quite a margin, but managed to claw back 4 places on lap 1. Realising I was hurting from the crash, things kind of just went downhill from there. My lower leg was swollen and sore, with that and some bike mechanical issues on lap 5, my race came to an end. Bugger! That's racing for you!

Once back home, I realised the crash had taken more out of me than expected. I should have really gone to get checked over, but just wanted to get going (as you do when things don't go well). Having decided a few days off the bike would be best, I delved into a state of complete exhaustion for the whole week, sleeping 10-12 hours each night. Also, I had this terrible headache that wouldn't shift. However, the cuts and scrapes healed up quickly, and by the weekend, things were looking up and I ventured out for some easy spinning. Right now i'm feeling back to my usual self thank goodness, which is just as well as I have a race next weekend, which is SXC round 2 at Aberfoyle - bring it on!

Anyhow, enough for now. The photo above is from SXC round 1, just after I caught the front bunch. Great race. For now - turbo for some interval work before the caffiene kick wears off ;-)

Later People

Fine tune your Nutrition

Hey All. Just a quick post. Recently, i've been reading Monique Ryan's book - "Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes". It makes a good read, with loads of interesting info, and I can highly recommend it to anyone wanting to fine-tune their nutrition for both training and racing. I'm also using it quite often for reference, too. Weather has been pretty rough up here as usual, but training is going well all the same :-)

Freeride Spain Training Camp

Well, i'm just recently back from a week long training camp in the South of spain. Really enjoyed my time out there, and got some quality training time in. Our stay and accomodation was organised through the friendly people at http://www.freeridespain.com/ (thanks for a great stay Simon, Emma and others!) who I would highly recommend. We stayed in a small town called Lanjeron, north of Granada. The view from our apartment can be seen below;

I flew out a week after some fellow race pals, Andy Barlow and Gareth Montgomerie, had arrived, so I certainly had a bit of catching up to do. Thankfully, the poor weather and rain that had hit the lads for the first week cleared, and it was all sunny, clear skies for me! There were also a few others over for training, all of which were at a decent level of fitness - and a great bunch for the craic! The roads and climbing out there were just top quality - tour style climbs and descents, beautiful scenery and weather - I will definately be going back next year. Here is a shot of us all at a water stop, somewhere up in the hills;

And so arrived mistake no1. I had travelled out, just off a heavy training week, fatigued and hungry, so straight into 4-5hr training sessions in the mountains quickly took it's toll. On day1, I felt ok and got through, but a big ride on day 2 with 3 monster climbs saw me crack bigtime and forced to jump in the van at the bottom of the last descent, 10km to go. However, after a rest day, I started to find my legs and things went much better from then on. Let me tell you, the climbs out there are damn steep - and they don't stop after a couple of km like in the UK. 10-15km would be more accurate! Top quality training! In total, I clocked 22hrs on the bike in 5 days of riding which was around 700km with a massive amount of ascent (and descent for that matter).

So, after getting back home and getting some rest in, I can say my form is very good indeed. Let's hope it puts me in good shape for the start of the MTB race season which is now just 5 weeks away! At the moment there has been a delay with my Orbea Alma frameset from Sandy Wallace, but let's hope it arrives in time. Just one last pic for that mystery bike that kept appearing in random places around Lanjeron... never seen with a rider!

Over and out for now :-)

Mid-winter update

Hey all. Haven't posted in a while, as things have been pretty hectic between training, work and all the other things that go with it. Just coming to the end of a rest/easy week from a 3-week block of training. It always amazes me how you only start feeling tired when you back off the training - this week I have been constantly knackered and hungry, sleeping for up to 11 hours a night, although as of today i'm pretty much back to normal. I've just been putting in the odd easy session on the bike, along with running and walking to mix it up. It just shows how much fatigue you can unknowingly carry if you don't back of the training, so rest periods are very important. The hardest part is making yourself rest - I tend to be quite guilty of not doing so.

As far as form goes, i'd say i'm in pretty good shape for this time of year. Unfortunately the weather has been fairly awful of late, so I haven't managed to get many decent rides outside - instead I have been confined to the realms of the turbo trainer for on the bike stuff during the week. However, I got a cracking 16hours of training in on New Year's week (250 miles road work, and a few hours on the MTB) while I opted out of the party mode. The mainland weather was a bit iffy, so I decided to stay home and make the most of the crisp, dry winter spell we had. Here are a couple of shots from my travels;





Along with rest, i've been doing a bit of bike servicing this week. The salty wet roads had really taken it's tole on my Giant OCR winter bike. Drivetrain and rear hub was in a bit of a state but all sorted now.

And for the best bit of news, on 7th of Feb i'm heading to the mountains of South Spain for a weeks training at Freeridespain with some fellow XC racers (Gareth Montgomerie and Andy Barlow to name two). Really excited about this, it will be great to train in a decent climate for a change, a much deserved mental break from the dark, wet winter up here. We will be covering some of the "La vuelta de espana" (Tour of Spain) roads where the top pro's race, so it should be a great experience.

That's all for now. I'm just going to head out for some easy miles before our Burns Night Supper . Gie yer a haggis!

Feeling slow after breakfast?

Just found this interesting article;

http://www.theiflife.com/2008/05/21/why-you-shouldnt-eat-breakfastagain/

I've experimented recently with skipping breakfast, going out on the bike and feeding during training as needed (if it's a longer session). My energy levels are WAY higher, head feels clearer and for some reason I don't seem to be craving junk through the day. I don't think this is for everyone, but if you find that you are slow and sluggish all day after your usual early morning breakfast then it might just be worth a shot. The trick is to have a decent, carbohydrate based meal in the evening and post workout to replenish glycogen stores. Not sure how this will work in on race days yet though - i'll have to do a bit of testing.

Don't forget your overshoes

Just back from a 75miler. I didn't honestly realise it was going to be so cold, so I set off without overshoes. About 15miles in the ice blocks that resembled my feet were begining to bug me. A quick call home to send out the "team" car (aka my dad in his van) resulted in him arriving with no overshoes as he couldn't find them, and him nearly running out of fuel by the time he reached me as he didn't think I would have made it so far. So that meant I had to hand over my coffee shop cash so he could get fuel. Nice one! Now I was not only sufferring from ice block feet but white van man had stolen my cash. Argh! Why is it some days just go like that?

Anyhow, it turned out to be a pretty good ride all the same. I had actually planned on doing 100 but without money to buy food I didn't want to chance it. I'm now sitting pretty in my slippers, scarf, wooly jumper and jogging bottoms, proud to have suffered the distance with cold feet. Tommorow, I will be more prepared!

New Team and Merry Christmas!

Afternoon readers.

Hope everyone has had a good christmas. Apart from spending the first half of my holidays fitting my mothers new kitchen, i've had a nice relaxing time at home with my mum, dad, sister (who is home from glasgow) and friends. Yesterday I did a nice easy 30miler before the Xmas meal to work up an appetite. I can safely say that i've now seen all the turkey and chocolate I want to see in a while!

The thing I enjoy about this time of year is that it marks the time for when the real focus for the race season begins. Having already filled my alcohol quota with celebrations with friends over the christmas period, i've decided to use the remaining 10 days of my holiday to lay down some high volume training miles. The weather outlook is good so I might venture across the water for a couple of days and do some exploring. Not what some people would consider the best way to spend new year, but for me, being on the bike is what I enjoy the most, so that's exactly what i'm going to do :-) At the moment, i'm probably in the best form I ever have been for this time of year, and i'm feeling highly motivated so things are looking good.

For the next bit of good news, I've also picked up a sponsor from Sandy Wallace Cycles who will be supporting me for the upcoming season. He already has the likes of Hamish Creber on the Team so it will be great to be riding and racing with other top cyclists. Thanks to the support given by Sandy, for 2009, I will be riding an Orbea Alma (same as Olympic Champion Julien Absalon). It should be in my hands in the next couple of weeks so i'm very much looking forward to recieving that. I'm building it custom spec as i'm a fussy blighter with my bike setup, but it will look something along the lines of the pic below. I will keep you posted on the full spec, and the build should come in around 19.5lbs by my calculations which saves 1lbs on my trusty GT Zaskar build, while gaining a heck of a lot of stiffness. Heck, if it is good enough for Absalon, it will sure be good enough for me!



So thats about it for the moment. I hope everyone has a great new year if I don't post again before then. Slainte!!