Ullapool Mor 130mile Sportive

Hey people!

Been quite a while since my last post, mainly because I just wanted to take a break away from all things cycling, as I tend to do at the end of my racing season. I find it is good for both a mental and physical break to take some time off the bike. Currently, I've just been chilling out with some mates, doing a bit of cross training (running/hill walking) and weights to break out of the "cycle" as it were ;-) I'll be getting back into my routine at the beginning of November, so already looking forward and planning for that.

As promised, here is the wee write up on the Ullapool Sportive event by the guys at Hands on Events which I did a few weeks ago. Really enjoyed this - despite the awful weather of wind and heavy rain, it was a real nice wind down to the season. I've stolen a pic from someone else's site (hope they don't mind!!) so here is me in all my low-intensity glory en-route!


Myself and fellow Hebridean CC rider, Roddy Murray left our B+B and rolled up at 7am to the Sign in Station at Ullapool Village Hall. I also managed to get myself interviewed by the BBC so you might yet see me on the BBC adventure show next screening! (Blatant plug)

We rolled off the start together at around 7.30am, with daylight just approaching. Initially, the roads were dry, but that didn't last for long, as once the rain hit, it didn't stop until I rolled over the finish 130miles later! Given 12000ft of climbing, I decided to pace this one out on my own, so rolled away from Roddy and found a nice rhythm. At around the 20mile point, a bunch of around 20 riders caught me so I jumped onto the back and decided to see how things would go. Up one of the first major climbs, and over the top, the lads at the front were setting a fair tempo. It wasn't exactly Lactate Threshold but pretty firm given the distance! I decided to follow anyway and see how things would pan out. To my surprise, I looked around at about the 50 mile point and realised I was one of only 4 riders left at the front! Everyone must have been dropped on the big climb.

After that, I decided i'd had enough of "racing" for the year and wanted to fully enjoy the event so dropped back and settled into my own pace again. After a few miles, I could see I was gaining slowly on another rider up front. "Ideal" I thought, someone to pace with. I caught the other rider, and we worked together, sharing the headwind and chatted away through the endless winding roads and climbs. We didn't see another rider for quite some time, so I was fairly confident we were near the head of the group, bar the 3 riders i'd let go up front. Eventually, we caught another 2 riders, who decided that they would make use of our rhythm. One of the guys (on a Cervelo) came across a bit arrogant, and wouldn't work with us, but the other decided to help out, great! Not long later, the ratty guy on the Cervelo got dropped (no loss there!), and we were down to three.

I got chatting with the new guy as we battled past the second last feed station, who turned out to be a school teacher. Not long after our water stop, my initial pace mate waved us on as he had decided the pace was too much. I looked down at my odometer, and it read 40miles to go. That was a long 40 miles, let me tell you. It felt as if we were climbing for all of it, although it was probably just heavy legs. As we approached the finish, I was beginning to feel a sense of achievement, as we passed lots of riders come home on the smaller 65mile route who had well and truly hit the wall. Hitting the peak of the last climb, my friend and I (can't recall his name!) shook hands and hammered the descent to the finish. As suspected, my mate tried to hammer away but it appeared I had more left than he thought as I was still on his wheel. On the last run-in to the finish, I went for the sprint and won! A nice sporting finish to a great day on the bike (all 7 hours of it!) - and in plenty time to make the 5.15pm ferry back to Stornoway.

As it turns out, I actually crossed the line in 6th place, which wasn't too bad considering I didn't even race! Perhaps next year I will go for it and try and take the win. My friend Roddy did real well, coming in an hour later than me, and also a great effort from other Hebridean CC riders, Gavin Earons and Steve Liddle who completed the 65mile Route in respectable times. I might mention that Gavin beat Steve to the finish too, not bad for a Grand Vet! :-D

Anyhow, that's enough writing for the evening. I'll keep you all posted on my winter progress, so check back soon. 1deg C today with hail and high winds on the Isle of Lewis - the winter is definately here - oh dear :-(

SXC Round 7 UCI C2

Afternoon people. Thought it was time for an update on recent happenings in the life of the only Hebridean XC racer! Haven't posted sooner purely due to the fact i've been completely fried for the last couple of weeks. My body is going to welcome the off-season break!

Anyhow - I made it to the last round of the Scottish XC series at Glentress the other weekend. Not to be making any excuses, but I hadn't been feeling myself all week. My dad had come down with a throat/chest virus thing and although I wasn't sick, I felt that I was trying to fight something off - energy levels just not at their usual, and the legs weren't feeling up to scratch on the bike.

The same was evident on the pre-ride of the Glentress course. I went out the day before with Dave Henderson to check it out - the course suited my abilities perfectly. A long, tough climb followed by a muddy, rooty technical descent and some rooty singletrack. However, after one lap of the course, I could tell something just wasn't right. Next to no power in the legs, and a general feeling of low-motivation. Oh dear. I did another lap on my own to try and regain some focus - it helped a bit.

Come race day, the weather was looking good, and with a strong field I didn't feel under too much pressure to look for the win. Gareth Montgomerie and Rob Seymour were both present, so it would no doubt be a hard-act to follow. The pace off the start was fairly brutal, I held on easy enough but didn't feel on usual form. I climbed my way into 4th position which I held for about 1 lap. The same empty legs feeling was still present from the day before but I tried to hold on as best I could. James Fraser Moodie then closed and passed me - I couldn't respond at all. For the next few laps I could see Iain Nimmo closing as well. Oh dear I thought - here goes 5th. He came past me like I was standing still. Fortunately for me, he cracked bigtime on the next climb and I claimed 5th spot back at the rather poor tempo I was setting! Meanwhile, there was no sign of Andrew Barlow - perhaps he was having an even worse day than me? Coming into the last lap, I thought I had 5th in the bag, not too bad I thought. Then on the technical descent, my chain popped off the cassette and jammed between the frame. I realised this at a moment where I went to apply drive to clear a large hole in the trail which sent me careering over the bars. Ouch! Back on my feet - trying to keep calm and fix the bike, the Torq/Kona Elite rider passed me. I got back on and passed him on the way down - he was poor at descending. Unfortunately I was pretty gone on the climb up to the finish, and he passed me again so I had to settle for 6th, a few seconds back. Happy enough with that!

So that brings the end of my MTB racing season. It has been some year, and I have learned a lot from it. Also got some fantastic results. I'm already planning my off-season training out in my head - eager to come back even stronger next season. A quick tally of the points showed myself and Andrew Barlow were tied for 1st place with 143 points for the Scottish Elite Series! He takes the overall though, as he gained 1 more win than me... bummer! I think he deserves that though, after being 2nd for 2 years running, and i'm just "the new guy" on the scene after all. We certainly had plenty to discuss after a great season of racing over a few beers in Edinburgh that night! (the next morning I had remembered why I decided to cut out alcohol this season too)

I'll shortly be putting up my report on the 130mile Road Sportive event I did in Ullapool last weekend so keep posted.

Happy Off-season

Paul

One final effort...

Well, as the end of the racing season is looming, i'm putting in one final big effort for my last couple of races. I have to admit, all the racing and training is starting to catch up with me and my body is starting to scream for a rest period. It was a bit of a struggle getting back on the bike this week after taking time out for my cousins wedding, but I now have some fresh motivation after some steady miles to get the legs turning. Cycling is strange like that. After rest, I always need a nice steady, low intensity run to bring the "legs back" if you like.

Anyhow, i'm not going to let the body into hybernation mode just yet :-D I have two planned races up ahead - the last round of the Scottish XC MTB series at Glentress, and the week after, a 130mile road sportif to wind down for the season - this starts and finishes in Ullapool, just across the pond for me! After this, i'll likely take a few weeks off, park the bikes up and just relax. I'll only ride if I feel like it. Nice to get training routines out of your head for one point in the year. I also like to do a bit of running/gym in the off-season so that will definately be on the cards. Keep posted for updates on my closing races.

Over and out.

First Elite Win!!

Evening Readers.

Not had a chance to post for a while as i've been busy with racing/training and also best man duties at my cousins wedding (glad that's over, I nearly hit VO2 max HR doing the speech!!). Anyhow, i'm happy to say that last weekend I took my first ever elite win at Drumlanrig Castle for round 6 of the Scottish XC MTB series. Delighted!!

With such bad luck at Fort William having crashed out and damaged my thumb I was really fired up to get a good result at Drumlanrig. Having stayed at my mate Dave Henderson's (Pedal Power Race Team) again in Edinburgh on the weekend of the race (cheers as always dude), we both travelled down and were in high spirits. For some reason, I felt so relaxed about this one, even more so when I saw the competition was going to be high with both the Creber brothers, James Fraser Moodie and Andrew Barlow on the start sheet.

When race day arrived the weather turned sour. Constant heavy rain turned the course into a complete mudfest. This didn't seem to phase me at all though, in fact, I was kind of looking forward to it. Having the right tyres for the job definately improves your confidence in these kind of conditions. Pulling up on the start grid, I was suprised to see that there was no sign of James. Instead, I had Ross Creber, Andy Barlow and Iain Nimmo to contend with. Iain always seems to come on strong at the end of the season so I was prepared for a suprise, especially after his recent 3rd place at Fort William. Off the start, the pace was suprisingly calm. Myself, Ross and Andy got a bit of a gap and settled into a nice pace. I kind of expected Ross to attack pretty early but he seemed to be staying put. About half way round the first lap, I felt well within the comfort zone. I'm a pretty tactical rider usually, and like to stick to wheels and "follow to the death" if you like, but today for some reason I felt really confident, and decided go things alone and lead from the front. Needless to say, the plan worked. I just rode away on a climb from Ross and Andy and didn't look back. The gap continued to extend until the end of the race, with me even managing to put a faster lap in on lap 4. On the last lap, I had such a lead I decided to back off and nurse things home as the conditions were so bad. I really didn't want a mechanical. Within the last km or so, I started grinning to myself. I could feel that winning glory already. I crossed the line 3 minutes up on Andy Barlow. Turned out Ross appeared to be having a bad day and pulled out of the race on lap 2. Amazing feeling, that's what I call extreme euphoria. Let's hope there will be more to come :-)

I've been chilling out a bit this week, although still putting some miles in. I have to say, my recovery was really good from this race. Instead of dead legs for most of the week, the snap was back in 2 days. I've found out recently that i'm slightly lactose intolerant so have cut the dairy from my diet. Hard thing to do, especially as I love milk, but the soy replacement tastes great. Perhaps this has something to do with my great form too? It certainly didn't hold me back, that's for sure. I've taken the day off training today as yesterday was committed to being best man at my cousins wedding. Ok, almost - I snuck in a swift interval session in early morning before getting changed into my kilt (don't tell the groom!!). A great day though, which topped off my week nicely.

Just one major race left on the calander due to the British NPS Round 5 cancellation farce (Annoyed at this - I could have done with the points for my National Ranking). Anyhow, Sept 21st sees the last round of the Scottish XC MTB series which is also a world UCI E2 class event. I'll be expecting some major competition as plenty Elite boys will be chasing the UCI points so i'll be digging deep for my last big effort of the season. Let's hope I can hold this form! The week after, I have a 130mile Road Sportif which starts from Ullapool, i'll be doing that with some of the local Hebridean CC riders. Looking forward to it.

That's all for now. Slainte Math people!

SXC Round 5 and Scottish Road Race Champs

Afternoon Readers!

Well it's been an interesting last few weeks. Unfortunately SXC Round 5 at Fort William didn't go to plan at all. Myself and fellow racer Dave Henderson were all prepped up and on our warm up lap 30mins before the start when I made a mistake into a fast technical section and took a rather big off. I jumped straight back on, thinking I was ok, only to realise my knee was pretty smashed up and I had wrenched my thumb badly. I hammered back up to the start to see the ambulance guys with thoughts of getting it patched up, but by the time I reached the damage was evident. The thumb was pretty painfull - I couldn't hold the bars properly or shift the gears and it had swollen up so badly my glove was tight on my hand. Oh dear. So that was it, race over and a trip to Fort Bill A+E for an X-ray. Thankfully it wasn't broken, just a bad ligament sprain. That's racing I guess! It certainly made me realise how much you need your thumb for every-day tasks, normally simple tasks were transformed into complete missions for the next few days :-D

As we speak, now 2 weeks later, the swelling/brusing is pretty much gone from my knee and hand, although the thumb is still quite painful, so i'm keeping off the MTB until it is fully healed.

One area where it didn't affect my riding is on the road bike. The road shifters don't require any thumb input so I could ride the road bike with no issue at all. Having obtained selection for the Scottish Road Race Championships in Hawick recently, I thought it would be a good event to make up for the past weekend.

The 9mile course was quite technical as far as Road racing goes, with narrow winding country lanes, some short climbs and long flat sections. We had to complete 9 laps of the course, totalling 81miles which was pretty tough, let me tell you. I was going into this race after a hard weeks training too, so was pretty tired to start with. To get maximum training benefit, I decided to go with most of the attacks, but unfortunately none managed to stay away until right near the end, where I got into a small chase group behind the leading group. I ended up finishing 15th out of an 80 man peleton, which I was quite happy with. I quite enjoyed the switch to road, it made for some different racing, and also hurt the legs in a different way, with all the accelerations and attacks. With MTB, it is more of a constant, TT style effort, and I certainly noticed that I didn't have that "snap" that I had last year when I focused training towards some Road events, so a great result considering.

Right now i've taken a few days off for recovery. I've been getting pretty fatigued over the last few weeks as a lot of riders do at this time of year so the rest is much needed. It seems that all i've been doing is eating and sleeping, but i've managed to get a few little tasks out of the way at the same time. I'm feeling a bit more refreshed today, and the ravenous appetite has calmed down so I think i'm pretty much recovered. Not too many races left on the race Calander, I have 2 scottish XC MTB, a North Wales British NPS and possibly some "fun" events to wind down the season with, such as Relentless 24hr in Fort William.

Anyhow, time to wash the bike from last weekend and watch some more Olympics on the BBC. Cheers!

Fort William Bound...

Morning all! First post in a while. Things have been rather busy so I haven't had too much time to update. Over the last few weeks i've been getting some great training in. I've also been busy with other projects (getting motorbike ready for M.O.T) and work so not much spare time!

I've also had a little race. A couple of weeks ago, the Island hosted the Hebridean Challenge which is a 5-day adventure race through the Outer Hebridies. I got invited down to that to participate in the MTB and Road time trials, but could only make it to the MTB TT due to work commitments. Needless to say, I had a great ride, and even though I was pretty fatigued going into the race, I finished 1st by over 40mins. I should mention that the guys I was racing with weren't MTB specialists by any means, and they had been racing for a few days so there were some tired legs but it was great training none the less, so a really enjoyable event, and great to have it on my home turf for a change!

This weekend, i'm racing at Fort William for Scottish XC MTB round 5. This is one of my fav courses as it has a monster climb followed by technical, fast descent. The following weekend, i'm racing the Scottish Road Race Championships in Hawick too, so plenty to look forward to. Will update soon with the results.

Anyway, got to dash... time for work :-)

3rd at Scottish Champs!!

Evening readers. I'm happy to say that i've just bagged myself another great result of the season with 3rd at the Scottish XC MTB Championships. The race was held down in Glennifer Braes, Paisley last weekend which provided a controversial course which had very little total climbing and long, grassy drags across fields and through a couple of wooded sections.

My good friend Dave Henderson who is dominating the Sport category this year offered to put me up for the weekend, which was great as he lives not too far away in Edinburgh (thanks for that again Dave). We both hit the course on the Saturday to get in a practice lap, but being more of a climber, I didn't hold out much hope of doing so well on the flatter course which kind of resembled a Belgian cyclocross circuit. Despite criticism, I actually quite liked the course and could tell it would really test your fitness to the max, as there was pretty much no-where to rest.

However, come race day, we were hit with some heavy rain and on walking up to sign-in we could see that everything had changed - the course had turned very muddy indeed. The fact that everyone was mounting up 1.5" Mud tyres didn't make me feel any better about the situation though, as I had an almost semi-slick rear and worn Conti Explorer up front, and no other tyres with me. Trying to stay calm, I knocked the pressure down a bit to try and find some grip.

The race was started 200m down a rather steep, World Cup style, tarmac road climb which had been closed off for the race. Being the championship round, Sport and Elite/Expert were all started together, so there was a fair old peleton of riders elbowing and shoving once the start whistle went. I took no chances at this one, and powered up the outside, straight into 3rd/4th position behind Andy Barlow before we hit the mud. The effects of my recent cold were soon evident as I was coughing up all sorts of nasty snot and flegm soon after the start (eww). Half a lap in, I was holding Andy's wheel, closely followed by James Fraser Moodie and another couple of riders. Up front, Gareth Mongtomerie (who had just won the Elite British National race the week before) and Rab Wardel were driving things on. Before long, James Fraser attacked and I followed through, which appeared to leave Andy unable to respond (!!). That was the last we saw of him for the race. The two of us plowed on ahead, but were soon joined by my mate Dave Henderson for the next lap or so (top effort Dave!).

From then on, it was pretty much myself and James battling and trying to stay upright for 3rd position. We kept getting shouts advising 1min to the leaders, but on lap 3, I made a bit of a mistake which gave James a little gap. However, in traditional style, I kept something for the last lap, and came past him just into lap 5, with him unable to follow. With my sights then set on Rab Wardel, who I could see just up front, it was "full hammer" to the finish. Disaster then struck with about 1km to go, as the rear mech jammed up, ripping the hanger clean off!! I proceeded to run with the bike, hoping that i'd make it to the line before James caught me. Let me tell you, the run hurt more than the entire race, I must have gone completely anaerobic for those few mins until I crossed the line, thankfully with James still out of sight.

Beaten up and caked with the finest Paisley mud, I was however quite content with 3rd spot on the podium. Nice to reach one of my other goals of the season. I also figured that the recent interval work must have payed off. I'm definately one of the lightest riders on the start list so doing so well on a flat course must mean that i've upped my wattage output a bit. Just wait for a course where power to weight comes into play - Fort William is the next round and it's on the World cup circuit ;-)