Hi everyone. Just reporting back from the Giro Del Capo in south Africa. It was a really hard race. The fact that we only had two very short races completed before the Giro del Capo made it difficult for myself but I got through it good considering that. It was a fantastic race and a fantastic experience to race with some very good riders and teams.
It felt great to be in the company of riders such as Felix Cardenas , Ryan Cox . the German National pursuit team were there. Jesus the size of them. Their huge, but I suppose compared to me everyone is huge. I enjoyed the race a lot. The heat was lovely. It was great to get away from the cold weather and into the 40 degree heat. A bit of a shock at first but I got used to it.
The worst thing about the race was the wind. It was brutal. The cross winds were awful . The best teams just went to the front each day and lined it out. I actually got blown into the ditch at one stage on the 2nd stage. But all in all it was a brilliant experience and hopefully I will move on from this and do well in these races in the future.
The first stage was tough enough. The crosswinds made it really difficult. There was a crash in the middle of the line out and it split the field into 3 groups and the pain of chasing back on was awful. I was saying to myself just one more minute and it will ease of. It came back together after some hard riding and stayed like that until the final climb. The climb was about 6 miles long with a 15 km decent into the finish. The decent was very fast. I felt pretty nervous on it because it was so twisty. I nearly went off the road going around one hairpin so I took it easy. The stage distance was 110km.
Stage 2: 187km.
Time: 5hrs 30.
Today was very tough. Mainly due to the wind. It split to shreds within the first 15 km due to Barloworld going to the front and lining it out. I was in a line out that went from one side of the road to the other. It was savage. There was two groups ahead and there was no way anyone would get to the next group.I finished in the main bunch but we were not working hard to catch and we finished well down.
Andy finished really well. He crossed the gap to the front group with a few others. Savage ride. Glad to have that stage over. After the stage we were talking about how hard it was and one of the guys said why don’t we do a sport like golf, at least when you get a hammering it doesn’t hurt as much.
3rd stage.
175km
Time : 4hr +
Ave speed: 39km
Todays stage was a lot nicer than yesterday. A few riders went clear early on and the bunch slowed down to about 15 km an hour. Lovely. But then we hit the first climb. It was a 10 km first cat. And it was pretty fast as well. It was lined out the whole way up it. I was Hurting a fair bit but I wasn’t going to let the wheel in front go away from me. I said to myself if im getting it hard everyone else has to be hurting as well. The decent was class. The roads were so smooth and fast. We were up about 600 meters or more. It was unbelievable.
Then it was steady for the rest of the stage until the last 30km. We hit the second climb. Also a first cat. But this time it was 16km long. And I went back for bottles just before we started it. I was fecked when I got back to the bunch. What a wrong time to go back. I was in good company going up the climb. Malcolm Lange that won the first stage was there, Guido Fulst .I was hurting but so was everyone else. But I rode well on it. Got a good rhythm going on the climb. Got over the climb really well. I was in a good group. A few germans , Belgees , and so on. We we flying down the hill. Around 85km per hour. It was class. The view from the top of the climb was unbelievable. I have never been up that high on a climb. Some feeling to be decending for 20 km . A nice change to climbing for 16 km .
Then it was the TT. 5.5km up a mountain. Time for me was 14mins 33 secs. Winners time was 12mins 30 secs or something stupid like that.
The final stage was supposed to be easy. Was it hell easy. Two pretty hard climbs and to make it worse it was raining for the stage. The hardest coming in the last 30km. Along the coast. So it was pretty windy as well. I finished a few mins down, though I punctured on the climb . But I flew down the decent. I went all out. I felt really strong and wanted to get back to the group. Plus it was the last stage and I wanted to come in as quickly as possible and finish it. I rode hard for the last 20 km. There was so many people along the side of the roads cheering everyone on. Brilliant support. Lots of cheerleaders along the road. I lost my concentration at one stage during the race because of them.
It was a good day and it was a relief to cross the line and be finished the race. Oh ya one other thing. The final stage started at 6:15 in the morning. We had to up at 3 for breakfast and the first half an hour of the race was in the dark. It was class. Going out the road at 25-30 mile an hour in the dark. A bit nervy but class as well. I enjoyed the stage race a lot. Great experience . One down and hopefully a lot more come.
That it for this diary entry. Ill report back in a few weeks.
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March 4th Hello everyone. I think its time I updated my diary. Its been a few weeks. Hope ye are all keeping the training up and ye are starting the season in good form. The last week has been great. I got two races in last weekend. The team got two fairly good results in Bray and Newry. Conor Murphy got both of them but I was in the break in newry with him so I was happy enough.
Then the Murphy and Gunne Continental team Launch team launch (See www.irichcycling.com for full report and pictures) was on last Tuesday. It was a class day. It was so professionally organised. There were loads of people there. The most famous of which were Sir Alex Fergusen and Sean Kelly. We had tons of photo shoots to get done as well. Every 5 mins I was changing in and out of different gear and then it started snowing. Just my luck!!!.
I am travelling to South Africa on Sunday morning to ride the Giro Del Capo. We fly to London tomorrow at 1 and then we have a 6 hour wait for our flight to South Africa. Very Nice. But im really looking forward to it. Its my first big stage race so its gonna be an experience but ill give it a go. The likes of Ryan Cox and David George are riding so it shows the quality of the race. Great to get the opportunity to race against them.
So this is what I have done the last two weeks.
Tuesday 21st
2hrs
60km
Ave hr : 140bpm
Max hr: 186bpm
Just started my recovery week so taking it a bit easier. I just did a few short sprints . felt grand. Sprints were good. Got the speed up really quick.
Wednesday 22nd
Vo2 efforts.
Max hr: 193bpm
Ave hr: 150bpm
Today I only did 2-3 efforts. Short enough. Remember it’s a recovery week so I don’t want to over do it.
Thursday 24th
2hrs. steady
Ave hr: 140bpm
Sat 25th
60km race
Sun 26th
Race 70km
In break for the race. Felt strong. Very happy.
Monday 27th
2hr 30mins.
Steady .
Ave hr: 130bpm.
Today I felt really good , especially considering I did two races at the weekend.
Wednesday 1st
4hrs
Vo2.
6 efforts at 90% of max hr. felt good .
Max hr: 193bpm
Ave hr: 152bpm
Today I felt good. I kept the efforts the same cadence and power which is good. Happy with session.
Thursday 2nd
4 hrs
I did some efforts today @ 80% of max hr. felt strong today. A good bit stronger than previous weeks. Speed of efforts was a lot higher. Really pleased with session.
Saturday 4th
1hr 40 mins.
Took it handy today. No need to do to much today . I have too much travelling the next few days. Did a few short jumps. But nothing that would take much out of me.
So that’s my diary for the last few weeks. I hope ye enjoyed reading it. Il try and update it during South Africa and keep ye up to date on how im getting on.
Talk to ye next week.
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Hi everyone. I think its time I updated my diary and give everyone a look at what I am doing. I left ye in middle of January so i'll start from the 24th of January to now. The weather has been great for training so getting in the miles has been a pleasure, not much westerly winds which we often get this time of year in the west and very little rain.
This was the start of my recovery week so I didn’t do that much at all. It was a bit easier than other weeks.
Tuesday 24th January
Strength endurance
65km
2hr 30 min
Ave hr = 140bpm
Ave power= 133
Wednesday 25th
Endurance
2hr easy
Ave hr= 133bpm
Friday 27th
Small bit of intensity.
Ave hr= 143bpm
Ave speed= 27km
Ave watts= 147
Saturday 28th
Today I went down to a training camp in cong. I didn’t do to much hard efforts during the spin. I went down for the crack as it was a recovery week and there were a few lads to train with. A bit of a change from training on my own.
Sunday 29th
3hrs easy
Ave hr= 133
Ave speed= 27km
Ave watts= 148
So that was a pretty easy week as ye saw. But I still did a bit of strength endurance on the Tuesday and some high heart rate stuff on the Friday. Its good to do a small bit on your recovery week. Stops you from getting to lazy during your spin. Not that that could happen!!!
Tuesday 31st
Today I did some fitness tests with the srm. It was very hard. I suffered a lot on the short test but the longer test I did fairly good on. I suppose fitness tests are meant to hurt ya.
3hr
Ave hr= 152 max= 194
85km
Ave watts= 170
Ave speed= 29km
Wednesday 1st
I took it easy enough today as to recover properly from the test of yesterday. I did 3 hr fairly comfortable.
Ave hr = 139bpm
Ave watts= 140
80km
Friday 3rd
Today I got back into the swing of things. I was pretty busy for the day so I could only do 2 hrs. But I got some good efforts done. I was very happy with the way I was going. I felt great.
Ave hr= 155bpm
Ave watts= 174
60km
2hr
Saturday 4th
I did a good spin today. I met a few lads from the team and we went out for a few hours through the beautiful Wicklow hills. Again today I felt good. The spin was fairly long so I brought a bag of food with me and it worked. I didn’t get one bit hungry.
4hrs
Ave hr= 148bpm
Ave watts= 147
Distance= 120km
Sunday 5th
3hrs
Ave hr= 139
Ave watts= 150
Today I did a few efforts on the drags. Big gear with low cadence. Most of the spin was steady.
I got my race program for year at the weekend some exciting looking races to be officially announced soon. And I also got my team bike. Very nice.
Its only 4 weeks to the start of the season. I cant wait. Its gonna be fun and an experience. I hope ye are training hard. Thats my diary for the past 2 weeks so hope you found it interesting. I'll talk to ye in a few weeks.
Keep up the training. Derek
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The season gone was my first as a senior cyclist and it was a successful year for me as a cyclist so thanks to my coach Paddy Doran for all the work he has done with me.
As regards next year and goals etc, I want to do well in every race but there are some races I want to do really well in and compete in. My main goal for the 2006 season is the world championships in Austria. But to get there I have to do well in a lot of other races so I hope to ride some of the big classics in England and do some races abroad.
The stage race that I would like to ride the most is the FBD RAS so hopefully everything goes well and i'll get on the team to do it. I want to a lot this year and gain in experience in racing abroad and hopefully get some results along the way. I did a bit of racing in Belgium last year and did well but I want to get a taste of some other racing. So maybe France, Australia for the Sun Tour and maybe even America.. You have to aim high. One race I want to win is the Nationals senior or U/23.
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| Cornering in the rain |
At the moment I am training and I have a program that my coach Paddy Doran designed for me. I finished work last week so I am full time from now on. I have done a good bit over the past few weeks but I got a bit sick and had to take a few days of. But I am getting in the miles and doing some strength work as well. Its all about the base this time of year. My first race Big for Murphy& Gunn may be the Tour of Majorca if I get on the team. That’s at the end of March. But ill probably do the Bray GP at the end of February.
