Anything to do with adrenalin

Phew. Its been a crazy few weeks. Since Wales and my biking accident I’ve been to Kerry where I worked on a Team Building day with Outdoors Ireland, for Promed a Killorglin based company, visited the new Play At Height climbing wall in Dingle, won The Cooley Raid and I’m off to Switzerland on Thurs! And I’m complaining about having no social life on top of it all.

Wales
Day 1
The Wales trip was absolutely brilliant. We arrived on Friday evening on the Oct bank holiday weekend, settled in, and the following day hit the Coed y Brenin trails. An epic 7 hour day ensued where we covered 99% of the trails, broke a bike, and saw some gnarly falls as each one of us had a brief up close and personal encounter with Wales finest trails.

Day 2
Tony the Tiger at Klimacs, without a doubt, the best mtb experience I’ve had to date! I’m hooked! A bit of a slog climb up to the top on boring fireroad but oh, was it worth it or what. A long downhill through the forest leading to smooth switchbacks with huge burms at every corner. It was like being on an amusement park ride! Every single one of us came off it with huge grins on our faces, I actually wanted to go up again, having completely forgotten about the climb. In the afternoon, we aborted our Snowdon plan because of extensive flooding and returned to Coed y Brenin for the other 1% of trails we missed the day before.

Day 3
Our final day is when all hell broke loose. We packed up and head South to Penmachno. We were all feeling a bit weary on the day and accidentally got split up. It was Chris, Eoin and I who survived the climbs and decided to take the ‘long’ route, whilst Mags and Kevin opted for less mileage but more skills practice!
Penmachno is fabulous, amazing views of Snowdon across the valley floor, and plenty of single track and open mountain trails. However, come hour three, I was feeling a bit ‘bonky’. I knew we weren’t far from home. I concentrated on that coming into, probably the best section of the trail, along the side of the mountain, with plenty of technical bits and pieces. All of a sudden, panic struck, I knew this was going to be a rough one. Without time to put my arms out in front of me to break the fall, I went body first onto an alcove shaped, rocky area to my right. I hit it with a resounding thud, sternum, left cheek and right knee took the impact, and I fell back, winded. Chris came upon my bike and funnily thought I had gone to pee somewhere, until he saw me lying on my back with a bloody face. It took me at least 20 mins to stand up again (I was seeing stars) by which time Eoin had reappeared, and force-fed me shortbread, the only goodies left in his bag (forget about sugar, buttery shortbread works just fine!).
When I came to, the first thing that came into my head was the mock camera interview I was to have in college the following day! The second, was whether or not that stone had gone through my cheek, how bad had I cut it? Because it was bleeding quite a bit. Luckily enough it wasn’t that bad, although I’ll probably scar a little. There goes my modelling career anyway!

The guys brought me to a lovely clinic on the way to the ferry who patched me up. What an end to the trip, definitely unforgettable but definitely worth the souvenir on my knee and face! Can’t wait to go back.

Today was spent relaxing and getting gear organized for Wales after a tough spin on the bike yesterday up the Hag’s Glen in Killarney. Although not the most technically challenging of rides, its a definite bone shaker! I was so happy to have my new Specialized Safire FSR under me.

Been feeling a bit tired as I’ve been training non-stop for quite a while so I’m taking a few days off before our Wales mtb trip. 3 days of single track in Coed y Brenin, I can’t wait, I’ve been looking forward to this trip for ages!
Dublin has been blown asunder today, as I was standing on the street at one stage I was nearly blown onto the road! I hope Wales isn’t as windy. We leave tomorrow at 5pm, hopefully the wind will have died down by then and we’ll be able to cross the Irish Sea without any fuss. Travelling in our group are Eoin Keith and Chris Caulfield, hopefully they won’t ever be too long waiting for me at the end of sections on the trails! It will be my goal to try and stay as near to them as I can for the weekend! Will bring the camera and get some nice pics hopefully.