Me and my big Mountain
I HAVE written before how some years ago a friend and I dusted down two old mountain bikes and took off for a spin around the undulating roads of east Meath one fine summer’s evening. I don’t even remember the details of how or why we decided to do it, or what we planned to gain from it, but for me it was a game changer.
Here’s a memory from that evening: There’s a road known in the area as the ‘Garden Ban Road’, near the Meath/Louth border. It’s just over 2km long, mostly downhill, with a near 90 degree bend at its fastest part. I just took off, and the feeling was incredible. Something inside me was unleashed.
Pretty soon after I got my first road bike and I learned the sport quickly, firstly as part of a small group of like-minded men and women in my village who came together to form a small club, and later with the more established club in Ardee. I also learned that I had an aptitude for the sport, and I fell in love with the idea of taking on mountain challenges, launching myself into them with relish.
I was wary of dipping my toe in the vast ocean of supplements that are available, but I knew I needed extra help on top of my good nutrition plan and I was delighted when I was introduced to Quinton and Totum Sport mineral supplements.
These products are nutrition for your cells and are 100 per cent natural and safe. It wasn’t long before I noticed improvements in my stamina and, just as important, my recovery. I was able to climb quicker and for longer and my muscle soreness was significantly reduced.
In 2015, I entered La Marmotte. This was taking my new obsession up a level . . . literally. La Marmotte is an annual event in France — a gruelling 170km ride over some famous Tour de France climbs and culminating in the ascent of the legendary Alpe d’Huez with its 21 hairpin bends. On this year, the other climbs were Lacets de Montvernier, the Col du Mollard and the fearsome Col de la Croix de Fer (the Pass of the Iron Cross). They combine to give a total rise for your day on the bike of over 5,000m, far beyond the scale of anything I had ever attempted before.
I don’t believe in leaving something of that magnitude to chance and apart from having to train harder than before — I concluded that I needed to get a feel for cycling the Alps. I had to experience first-hand what lay ahead of me and so two months before the event I went on a reconnaissance mission with Paul Kimmage as my guide. We spent an invaluable three days setting off each morning from our base at Bourg d’Oisans — which is also the base for La Marmotte — learning about riding and climbing in the Alps.
But the biggest benefit of this trip was that it took me beyond the myths of these mountains and made them real for me. And each one that I conquered made me more confident, and more assured, that if I stuck to my training plan, did not become complacent about the scale of the challenge, then I could indeed become a proud member of the club of riders who took on La Marmotte.
The day finally arrived and looking back at it now, I couldn’t have been more prepared. One of the most important pieces of advice I’d been given before I left was learning to curb my enthusiasm. Full of energy and excitement, it can be easy to get sucked into setting off at too quick a pace.
I’m not saying I wasn’t suffering during any part of it, but I had a plan to get round and I knew that once I got to the bottom of the Alpe d’Huez, despite its notorious reputation, I would be fine because I had become so familiar with it. And that’s how it panned out.
If you’ve seen the pictures of this stage each year at the Tour you will have some idea what that final climb was like. People roared us on, banged pots and pans and doused us with water to repel the heat of the July day.
So, a mere eight hours and 20 minutes after I wheeled out of Bourg d’Oisans I rounded the final one of those hairpin bends, exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure. And one final surprise: my time had earned me a gold medal as one of the fastest in my age group.