Lawlor takes the A3 National Title on Sunday (Photo: Alan Bingham [email protected])
Maurice Lawlor of St Finbarr’s CC took the A3 National Road Race Championship title in Blackrock, Co Louth, at the weekend despite battling with the debilitating condition Chron’s disease, it has emerged.
The 30-year-old Kerry man follows a strict diet regime and must carefully judge his physical efforts if he is to avoid a flare-up of his condition, which can leave him out of action for periods.
Chron’s disease is effectively a serious form of irritable bowel but can affect the full digestive system of a sufferer; from the mouth to the lower intestine and bowel.
When the condition flares up it results in bouts of diarrhoea during which the nutrients from food are not absorbed by the body, resulting in acute tiredness and weight loss.
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Lawlor told stickybottle he has learned to control the condition as best he can by eating a healthy diet and staying away from processed food and alcohol.
“I haven’t had a drink for about seven or eight years, it’s a complete no-no for me,” he said.
“Somebody else could go out (drinking) and have a hangover the next day or maybe two days if it was really bad, but I would have one for a week.”
“It can be brought on by a range of things; anything from stress to eating chips,” he says of the condition he was diagnosed with when aged 21 years.
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“It’s a question of eating sensibly; so if you’re going to eat bread, for example, have soda bread. I’d eat low GI food, lots of whole wheat. And then with training and so on it’s a case of judging your effort properly because there is only so much your body can take."
While suffering from a condition that appears at odds with the punishing lifestyle followed by bike riders, Lawlor says his win on Sunday sees him upgraded to A2 and that he would now consider riding the An Post Rás.
“It’s something I’d take a look at alright. I rode Rás Mumhan this year but I got sick before it so it probably didn’t go as well as I was hoping it would. I did a fairly decent Suir Valley Three Day and then I got third in the Kerry Championships behind Sean Lacey and Matt Slattery. I got the sprint for the bronze medal so I knew going into last weekend I probably had a little bit of form.”
Having been back racing for five years, he says the first part of his racing career was derailed by the trappings of college; “boozing and women”.
However, a return to the sport followed in his mid 20s and now five years back, his A3 title race win was his first victory since coming back.
“I sat down with my coach Timmy Barry and we were thinking that if it came down to a bunch sprint that probably wouldn’t be a great opportunity for me. So it was a question of being aggressive, but not stupidly so. I wanted to go with some of the moves but be sensible, pick the right ones. And with Timmy the preparation has been spot on so I had that bit of form.”
He said when a 10-man group got clear around two laps into the six lap race on Sunday he was fearful he may have missed the boat.
However, some organised chasing in the bunch saw that group recaptured. And despite plenty of aggressive riding in the second half of the race nothing decisive went clear until the riders were going out onto the last lap.
“At that point three riders went clear and got a gap. Then I went with a rider from Comeragh and the two of us managed to get across. There wasn’t much messing around up front, everyone rode very hard. We had 35 seconds for a long time, then it went to 40 seconds and I could see the lads were going to keep riding. And that’s really what we did right up until the last 500 metres, there was no let-up.”
“I went into the sprint fourth in line. Padraic Doherty from Lucan was the first to wind it up. I waited for the right moment and with around 200 metres to go I went for it in the 53X12. Thankfully, the one thing I probably have is a bit of a kick on me. With 25metres to go I knew I had it, got the hands up. I’ve been five years trying to win a race so, yeah, it was a nice one to get.”
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