Felix English: Back from Italy... but not for long!

I arrived home from Italy early this morning after a late flight from Prescara. I enjoyed my time in Offida but I'm definitely glad to be home!
We arrived a good 5 days before my first event which was definitely necessary, in order for us to try and acclimatize to the very humid heat. It was over 35 degrees for the whole week and I've been told that it was in the low 40's during some of the TT!
Whilst out in Italy I rode everyday going over and over the courses we had to race on later in the week. Myself, Sean and Conor must have ridden the descent at the beginning of the TT course over 5 times... which doesn't seem like much, but we had to ride to the top each time!!
Whilst out riding for the Irish National Team I was still riding my team bikes from Science In Sport. Both of which are top level machines; Scott Addict road bike and my favourite Trek Speed Concept TT bike. With the combination of HED Wheels and USE Tula bars I think I probably have one of the fastest bikes in the world!
The tough weather conditions meant that nutrition was really important throughout the week. This is where racing with the Science In Sport team once again is an advantage! I was using my GO Electroyte/Superhydro combination in my bottles which did the trick! For recovery after rides I was using a mixture of Rego rapid and Colostrum.

The races

My first race was Friday afternoon in the TT. A turbo warm up with lots of ice, water and wet towels to keep me cool. I was first rider off out of the 3 so there was no shortage of staff at hand to help! A small problem before the start when my water bottle was deemed UCI illegal, so I was stuck without anything to keep hydrated over the very warm 25km. In the following car I had team our team soigneur and the only girl on the team Ciara - who unfortunately crashed in her TT that morning on a tight corner early on in the trick descent. With the warning of a 'tight corner 1km into the course, just after you pass the orange sign' I proceeded to go full speed into said corner and I got slightly lost and went off said tarmac and ended up riding up a grass bank at just under 70km/h and produced a perfectly exectuted front flip! With my bike retrieved and me clambering back onto my bike (no mean feat with a combination of; cycling shoes, adrenaline and a very sore back!) I was away down the rest of the descent to record the slowest time of the day at the first intermediate check point. I managed to claw back some time and quite a few places on the decisive climb on the course but it wasn't enough for a result worth talking about. With only being approx 40 seconds from a place around the top 20 it was very frustrating and took me a while to forgive myself for taking the risks I took at the beginning of the race where as perfectly stated by team manager Neil "you can't gain much time on the descent, but you can sure lose a lot if you crash!".

I was left with no cuts at all from my crash but a sore back which seemed to be restricting my movement a fair bit and was causing me quite a lot of pain. The pain itself didn't really bother me too much, it was just the thought of possibly not being able to race to my full ability during the RR.
When it came down to it, my back wasn't what determined my result in the RR but my legs. The pace was very high from the gun and the tough climb on the short lap was enough to cause a lot of riders including myself some problems. I lasted 1 hour 40 minutes with the main group which I was pretty happy with! I then proceeded to ride with Conor Dunne - my fellow haircuit friend - to complete just over 100km of the demanding course. There were 40 finishers out of 180 starters, which I think shows how tough the course really was.

I'm now home and looking ahead to leaving for France on Thursday. I'll be racing for EC Mayenne, based just outside Brittany. This trip could possibly determine whether I decide to race in France for the 2012 season. Other than that there's not much going on! The rest of my season consists of; France, Olympic Test RR, Baltic Chain UCI Stage Race and possibly a big one to finish it off!

Hopefully everything comes together and I'll have some results to shout about rather than talk of crashes and injuries!!

Thanks to Science In Sport and Cycling Ireland for a great season so far!

Ciao.