So every Picture tells a story! here's a few mini reports of the last few races in picture form. Enjoy!
6th place - Elite National Cross Country Championships-
Great race - finished 6th after puncturing on the first lap! caught back lots of lost positions and gave it socks!! This was certainly my best national champs performance fitness wise. check out the sprint finish in the next photo. I would have loved one more lap though.. this is a reoccurring pattern around this time for me.
Sebastian Rakos - The Fast Chilean
My training buddy and an excellent friend- This guy is nuts on the bike! also a trained sculpture who comes from the high mountains in Chile. He's a very talented rider, and is racing road over here this year, as he could only bring a road bike over from Chile. Next season, more Mountain bike races for him!
We've had some pretty hilarious training spins over the last few months including a car chase by the national park rangers in powerscort on our road bikes!!
We make a good team, a dynamic duo, we're a force to be reckoned with!
Glendalough Lake chill out spin
Blessington training / ultimate chill out weekend
I met the beautiful Heidi, a friend of a friend out in the middle of the Blessington lakes area for lunch one day at her family home. I decided to got there off road on possibly the nicest days of the summer..! I made a giant adventure out of the whole thing. it was awesome.. Ended up staying much longer than lunch, swam in the lake that day, had amazing dinner and generally chilled out for night to the max, it was amazing!
Back to Racing - 12 Hour Mountain Bike Race - 4th Position mixed Pairs
Crazy event, quite fun, i Cane'd it for each lap, getting progressively quicker as the 12 hours went on, and napped in between our 'relay' style laps.
The night before was great fun, camp fires, bbq's lots of pasta! and some beer. Also, I was hanging with some cool Epic mountain bikers which made it more fun! I'd do it again!
Back to XC - Last National League Round - 2nd Place
I was totally flying for this… The legs felt invincible and technically i was riding well, I had some great competition with Gareth winning on his home track. my last 3 laps were steadily quicker than his, so I think he was feeling un easy by the last lap.. I would have loved one more lap!!!! Sebastian was just behind at the start as we got in to the single track around top 5, from here i rode away in persuit of Garreth. Roger Aikan finished 3rd and Sebastian in 4th. Luckily, after a few bad luck national league races i still kept my overall ranking to 5th position!
Da Cooley Thriller Marathon 4th position
This was a great race, but my self and Sebastian had an all or nothing approach to our tactics. We knew Robin Seymour was racing, and knew he would be quicker on all the technical sections (probably, 70% of the race) So the first hour includes a sheer climb up to the highest point in the Carlingford Mountains. Myself and Sebastian, simply went away from the pack early in to the race and climbed together to the top with a good gap over Robin. We felt strong in the climb but when it came to the technical part of the race, Robin smoked us royally.. in hindsight, there was too much energy expenditure with our 'gun ho' fast start and we toasted ourselves. finshing 4th and 5th
National Hillclimb Champs
My first time on a road bike for months. and I decided to give this a go. I became pretty ill with a flu the day before but still went for it, It was a humiliating race.. I had nothing, i'm best deleting it from my memory!! The flu lasted 2 weeks too, which showed my run down state after the last few weeks. Sebastian, also became sick too before the race and had a similar sluggish result.
