A day of suffering

It was a day that started off badly, got pretty dire in the middle and then tailed off towards the end. It was an awful day for me. I woke up in Nenagh with my legs feeling sore, the sure sign for any cyclist that you ought to remain in bed. Yet there I was, hauling my body out and onto the saddle for three and a half more frenzied hours on the Ras.

As I mentioned yesterday the first climb of the day came after just 10 kilometres, something I hoped I had dreamed of in a nightmare rather that committed to a blog, but there was no escaping it and with my legs heavy I knew I'd have to find a way to survive over it. Thankfully I mustn't have been alone in the sore legs department of the Ras as a lot of guys popped, and with me for company, went slowly out the back.

If I got an idea of what it was like to be Mark Cavendish winning the bunch sprint yesterday, I sure as hell knew what it was like to be him on the climb today, and this was only a third category. I put the very existence of tomorrow out of my mind and grinded my way up towards the top. Into a rhythm I began to catch a good few as we reached the top. On the other side I went all out to try and catch back onto the bunch. I knew that against a time limit I'd be in serious trouble if I didn't make back some time now.



I got in with a group though not many were working through, presumably all exhausted and not too concerned about some time limit more than 100 kilometres up the road. I pulled as best I could and eventually we got back on after a stall in the bunch.

Once more there were some bad crashes as I presume fatigue began to take its toll. The Yellow jersey of Peter Hawkins went down in a bad one and despite his efforts to get back on against what looked like a broken collar bone, he eventually had to abandon. It's amazing how quickly a race like this can bite you. One minute you're flying, the next minute it can all come apart.

And there was that sound again ... not of heavy breathing or the techno beat of my heart, but of carbon snapping. So far I'd avoided that horror.

One man who didn't was my good friend Adam Armstrong, riding for the West EuroCycles team. He came down hard in one of the crashes but got up, changed his wheel and chased back on only for me to spot that his frame was cracked at the rear stay. His bike was one week old. He got off and I thought that was him riding solo to the end but ten miles later, there he was ... in the bunch again on a spare bike. That's some level of suffering right there.

Back in the safe confines of the bunch -- cashes aside -- I began to feel a bit better, but around the 80 kilometre things started to change. I got caught up in another line out in a cross-wind and as usual someone ahead let the wheel go. I went like a man man around a few guys and chased back on but paid a big price for it. Five clicks later the road began to roll and the bunch didn't slow down for it. At about 110 kilometres, I popped. I rode on my own getting food from the team car before waiting for a few guys behind to catch up to form a small group to ride to the finish in Listowel. Four of us came in together.

If my legs felt dead when I woke up this morning then they were destroyed after 141 kilometres. But everyone gets a bad day in the Ras and I'm just hoping that's mine.

But let's look on the bright side: 153 unforgiving kilometres of it tomorrow with just the eight categorised hills. These skinny pros go so bloody fast up them. Someone once said that the day before the big climbs arrive is, for the elite riders, the end of the beginning; for the rest of us, it's the beginning of the end.

Tomorrow we climb.