Tales from the Rás line-out: A painful account of the savagery
County rider Paddy Clarke has battled injury and weight gain to ride this Rás on his home roads in Mayo. He's loving it and hating it.
One of the real hard men of the An Post Rás has spoken about the grim training programme he undertook in order to be fit for this year’s race.
The same rider has also painted a painfully brilliant account of what goes on during the few hours after the flag drops for the start and when the race ends.
Paddy Clarke, from Castleconner outside Ballina in Co Mayo, is riding his seventh Rás. And he is battling through as best he can.
He was 4:51 down today on stage 3 and is a very respectable 65th overall; some 5:13 off the yellow jersey.
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His preparation has not been ideal because of the knee surgery he had at the end of last year.
But when he heard the An Post Rás was coming to his home county he shelved the excuses and got down to work.
“I’m suffering a bit, the pace is the problem,” he told us in his animated way after today’s finish in Bundoran.
“I’ve only been training with A4s and A3s in Ballina CC, so to go from that to here…
“I only had two races before this; Kinnegad for Rás Naomh Finian and Rás Mumhan over Easter.
“I rode around Rás Mumhan, suffered through. I was just cycling this year to get the weight back down and get back into shape.
“But one day I was walking out of Tesco and I met Jimmy Durcan who organises all the stuff in Ballina.
“He told me the Rás was coming through Ballina and it was like ‘bang’; a switch tripped in me and Paddy went from weight-loss mode into watt manufacturing mode,” he said, referring to himself in the third person.
Clarke was a big hit on the roadside in his home turf today. People turned out with signs, painted his nickname on the road and even his dog Millie got into the mood.
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Clarke, who has won a large number of races and been yellow jersey at Rás Mumhan, was 89.8 kilos when he weighed himself that night.
“I looked at myself in the mirror. When I had knee surgery my weight ballooned, I was marooned on the sofa, couldn’t move, the weight was piling on.
“I came back to cycling in 2008 after being off it during college but ask anyone and they’ll tell you I was a heavy guy.”
That was four months ago so what followed was far from pretty as the hard slog began.
“I was useless, I went out on a club ride with my friend Oisín and a few lady cyclists. And no disrespect to them but they were all dropping me, I couldn’t hold them.
“Eight months before it I was in the break in Rás Mumhan going over the Healy Pass with (Bryan) McCrystal.
“And here I was getting blown out by recreational cyclists so I said to myself, ‘head down, train’.
“I cleaned up the diet, ate healthily, no starvation stuff, just eating clean food, monitoring my food intake, counting calories and then I committed.
“I sacrificed everything. Any hour I wasn’t working I was on my bike. I was in bed at 9 or 10 every night. I was just sleeping, training and training.”
That doesn’t mean the race has been easy for him. Far from it, actually.
“I’m noticing the distance, the moment we go over 130k… I saw it today when we hit Sligo, my legs were beginning to cave on me.
“My quads were really sore but if anyone can suffer in Irish cycling it’ll be me,” he laughed.
“I welcome this challenge, I don’t mind lineouts. I can’t see myself doing any fantastic climbing.
“The last time I rode Mamore Gap I was 68kg and now I’m 74, over a stone above my race weight. So I’m not a healthy climbing weight…
“I’m light enough to get around the flat stages but when the road goes up I’m falling into the middle pack.”
Clarke has been in many a Rás peloton over the course of his career and he describes the frenetic nature of it thus: “I have no love for it. Any sane man has no love for the Rás, you’re talking about pain all day.
“The first day was a mess, the bunch is very, very, very, very nervous. The pace today was 47 kph, that is wild speed.
“Coming down around the roads in Mayo at 50k an hour, lifting off the road, literally two wheels off the floor, we are leaving the Giro for dead.
“The pace is wild, we’re getting lined out to the nines. The bunch are all seeing stars and then slamming on the brakes.
“It’s every man for himself but overall I am content. The big target was to ride by my road in Castleconnor and I did that today.”
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