So, we went down to Limerick for the 2nd round of the Biking Blitz race series, held by Niall from Biking.ie. These events are great for getting people interested in Mountain biking and for beginners, and also for promoting the man made purpose built mountain bike trails that are appearing over the country.
These type of trails kind of scare me though! I'm not great at riding them at all! The wooden bridge sections are amazing, and make you feel like your in a lord of the rings forest, but I still seem to go over most of these trails kind of slowly. I guess its practice though. But, my heart lies with the amazing natural trails, i.e. places like Djouce in Wicklow!
Anyway, it was a good 'training' race especially after a tough 3 week block of races + fairly hard training. I completely suffered from the get go from the cold. I never complain about the cold, but for the first time ever, my body just didn't seem to warm up at all in the 3 degree's temperature! Sleet/ hailstones were firing away at the start line making it pretty chilly. I should have worn more clothes, that's for sure!
The race ended up being longer than expected, and when its so cold, you can easily forget to drink your fluids! So 1 bottle of USN CytoPower HP, and a Vooma gel was my race fuel for the day. But luckily the Vooma gel's extra caffeinated kick, paired with the Zesty blackcurrent CytoPower HP, allowed me to get through with out completely 'blowing up' at the end. Afterwards, I had a shaker of the extremely tasty Recover XCell. This is unbelievable for recovery, and is definitely the most effective way of recovering after a hard session as its made up of a protein / carbohydrate mixture. You can get these products, in Thinkbike , Cyclesuperstore, and online at http://www.usnireland.ie/
3 lessons - buy some new winter gear, practice the man made trails, and drink more USN Cytopower hp!
