Martyn Irvine (green shoes) being thrown into action by madison partner David Muntaner in Palma at the weekend
Ireland’s Olympic omnium hopeful, Martyn Irvine writes about trying his hand at near-death madison racing in Mallorca.
Well, I’ll start by saying that the last few weeks have been routine. Training, eating and sleeping was the trend.
Last Saturday however was different; and good different.
The Palma arena was holding a race. I'm not going to attempt to say the name of it but it was an all day thing and for every type of rider.
When I got to the track there was a paracycling event going, including tandems; still scares the crap outta me watching tandems creek and grown as they fly around the track. Funny thing was, after I was warmed up and ready to go my qualifying heat was called off’; 12 starters and 12 qualify?
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After a bit of down time I was soon back on the track and warmed up again, this time for the race proper; a 100-lap points.
I couldn’t tell ya exactly how it panned out but I was more than aggressive, taking a couple of laps and winning a few sprints. When the dust settled and the stitch in my side had gone away I had finished second; happy, and some good training done!
After a trip back to the house for a quick wash and some food, I was soon back at the track again.
At this point in the day it was 9pm and the madison started at 10.30pm. I knew it was a long day but it didn’t really feel like it; I was well sugared up!
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This was my first madison proper that I've actually known what was happening. I did one a few years ago but there was way too many near death experiences to call it racing.
My team mate was David Muntaner who recently picked up a medal in Beijing in the same event, no pressure!
There actually wasn’t any pressure really. David is a cool guy and doesn’t stress about anything from what I’ve picked up. We did a practice session earlier in the week where he steered me in the right direction and I was soon exchanging pretty smoothly.
For anyone that doesn’t know what a madison is I’ve posted a YouTube clip under this paragraph. One of the Spanish team in that video is now the manager of the track here in Mallorca; Joan Llaneras. He has a pretty impressive CV.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiienLPFsBk
The race itself was so much fun and we actually won it. It came down to the last sprint and the winner of it would win the race outright. I’m not much of a sprinter and as the race went on I was planning it so that I didn’t have to be.
David was in the race for most of the sprints and he won the last one. All I can say was that I learnt so much stuff during that one race and it was one of the hardest things I've done.
I also met a load of cool people in the velodrome; if only I could chat to them! ‘Hola’ and ‘gracias’ only gets ya so far!
I’m back in training mode now and that’s the way of it for the next couple of weeks. My hill efforts are improving which always feels good; I’m consistently over 410 watts for each effort which shows my form is on an upward curve.
At the track everything is going well too and fingers crossed everything will go to plan and I’ll be in top shape in London.
Chat soon
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