ianmcclure's blog

Hi guys,

It’s been way too long since I have been in touch with you, for which I can only apologise. Since talking last I have gotten over my virus which hampered my 2010 season and am back getting towards my best for my new RadioShack team. I write on the second rest day here in what’s been a crazy Giro d’Italia so far.

Yesterday I got myself involved in the 18 man breakaway, I had highlighted Stage 15 in particular as one which suited me, with 5 categorised climbs that suit my style. It was without doubt one of the hardest days I have ever had on a bike, early on in the day my RadioShack teammate “Poppo” or Yaroslav Popovych clipped off with 6 other riders and I got myself into a strong chasing group which included Garzelli, Di Luca and a few others big hitters and within no time at all we were across to the lead group on the road and got to work quickly.

Clouds loomed on the horizon and the gap went to almost 10 minutes at one point, it was nice to be back in the midst of the action again.

The countdown to the Ardennes Classics is officially underway here in Maastricht and I plan to complete my preparation for Amstel Gold with a training ride over the final 50 kilometres which I expect will decide Sunday’s winner.

I have regained my condition having caught a flu just after Catalunya but I’m still a bit off my best heading into the race.

Spending Easter recouperating at home in Donegal really helped but returning to action at the Circuit Cycliste Sarthe was a bit of a shock to the system.

I really suffered on the first day but after that I could feel myself getting better, athough my 10^th place in the final stage was more by accident than design. I was helping Xavier Florencio go for the sprint but he crashed going into the last corner and I came through to get that result.

I had a great week after Sarthe and really enjoyed some great training rides during another four days at home. It was great to catch up with the lads at the Four Masters Cycling Club and to join them for the annual Knockalla Leisure Tour on such a cracking day.

The more things change the more things remain the same. It was snowing when I left Donegal at Christmas and it has been snowing since I came home this week to celebrate Easter with my family.

I’m convinced that the snow is following me from country to country. I thought it was just bad luck when it started snowing in Girona in March forcing me to relocate to Gran Canaria to prepare for Catalunya but this is just taking the biscuit.

Cold and wet weather really affects me and it’s no surprise that I’ve caught a really bad dose of the flu.

It started coming on just before the start of Catalunya which was frustrating because I had completed a solid block of training in Gran Canaria and I was looking forward to racing.

I talked to the team doctor and his advice was to start the race and to play it by ear each day.

I struggled through the first few days but I was crawling by Saturday. I was not serving any real purpose finishing in the gruppetto and continuing on was just making me worse.

This dose has been hard to shake and the headaches, sweats, sore throat and aches have been lingering all week.

The countdown to the start of my 2010 season is officially underway here in Girona and it is only a matter of days now until I kick things off with the one-day Clasica de Almeria.

I’m looking forward to my return to racing and I have to say that I’m pretty happy about how my preparations have gone over the past six weeks.

The team training camp in the Algarve in early January was a reminder of just how much work I needed to put in to get back on top of things after a slight injury and the worst Irish weather in 50 years derailed by winter training schedule.

The guys who are focusing on the early Spring classics like Milan San Remo, Gent Wevelgem and Flanders were flying and were doing an hour or more on top of the three or four hours I was riding.

I got done what I wanted to do each day and I was being careful so as not to aggravate the knee injury. My knee is practically recovered now and I have had no problems going for longer and harder rides.

The past two weeks have really helped me to regain my condition and I have been steadily building my strength with four to five hour endurance rides and two hour intensity rides.

I thought I had experienced it all this winter until an earthquake measuring 1.6 on the Richter scale struck my hometown in county Donegal on the northwest coast of Ireland.

Although it only lasted a couple of minutes the earthquake was nothing compared to Arctic conditions that have gripped the country since mid-December.

Ireland is currently enduring its worst winter since 1963 - which just happened to be the coldest since 1740 - with temperatures dropping to minus 12 degrees Celsisus.

The country used more salt and grit in three weeks than it would ordinarily use in one whole year just to keep main roads open and Dublin Airport was forced to close more than once.

The weather has certainly had an impact on my training schedule which had already been upset by a slight knee injury that I picked up in Switzerland towards the end of November.

I had planned to start training again on December 1^st but the injury held things up for almost three weeks and when I was finally fit to get back on my bike the weather conditions were so dangerous that it was unwise and unsafe to attempt to ride on even the main roads.

The racing season is finally over and I’m looking forward to at least four weeks break after one of my most satisfying years in the professional ranks.

It’s fantastic to be at home in Donegal without having to think about getting out on a bike for two or three hours.

I travelled straight home after the Tour of Lombardy and I plan to stay here through to the start of the New Year.

It has been a long season and I wasn’t surprised that I was not feeling my best at the start of last Saturday’s race.

My legs were slow to come round and you need to be pretty fresh to do well in a race like Lombardy after nine months racing.

The race opened up on the climb of the Ghisallo after the bunch caught an early four man break which included Nicholas Roche.

I was in good shape coming over the top of the climb with 44 kilometres to go, riding with the lead group of Evans, Gilbert, Basso, Sanchez and Cunego.

I wasn’t missing that much on the penultimate climb of the Civiglio but that little bit of tiredness set in and I didn’t have it in the legs for the final 16 kilometres.

Giro del Piemonte
184kms

It was good to stretch the racing legs in today’s Giro del Piemonte but I know that I have lost the sharpness that I had at the start of the month.

I got through the race without any difficulties but the lack of racing in the past two weeks definitely had its effect.

I felt average for most of the 184 kilometres from Novi Ligure to Fossano but I was riding to conserve strength for Saturday’s Tour of Lombardy.

Today’s race was typically Italian, flat for the fist 100 kilometres, hilly in the middle and topped off with a climb on the finishing circuit.

We were forty or fifty kilometres into the race before a breakaway of two riders went away and the bunch settled into a steady tempo.

The three climbs of the Monforte d’Alba, La Morra and Novello weren’t too taxing and the speed only shot up over the final 30 kilometres.

I joined a lot of other riders who took the decision to sit up on the final climb which came with 3 kilometres to go and I finished in the bunch.

Philippe Gilbert showed once again that he is in excellent form with a victory to add to his wins in Paris Tours and the Coppa Sabatini.

The curtain is about to fall on this year’s racing season and the biggest challenge for me right now is to stay focused for the Giro del Piedmonte and the Giro di Lombardia.

The tail end of the season is always the most difficult and the battle to stay fresh tends to be more in the mind than the body.

Just thinking about winding down is one of the worst things that you can do because you start to really convince your body that it’s time to give in to the fatigue.

I haven’t felt too tired since I returned to Girona at the start of the month and being here has helped me get into the right mindset.

There is no place like home but the difficultly with Donegal is that it causes me to unplug mentally and it’s easy to give in to distractions.

The weather in Girona has been really great for the past fortnight which has allowed me to clock up a good mixture of six and three hour spins.

I’ve only had one race since the World Championships and the riders who have been competing in the GP Beghelli, the Coppa Sabatini and the Giro dell Emilia in recent weeks have an edge now.

The end of this year’s racing season is almost at hand and I’m en route to Germany today after a flying visit home.

The Sparkassen Munsterland Giro is the penultimate event on my racing calendar and I’m looking forward to it.

I have been chosen to lead the seven-man Cervelo Test Team together with Martin Reimer who is hugely motivated for the event.

Martin in the German National Champion and we will be working hard to help him win the race which takes place on the Day of German Unity.

The national holiday commemorates the unification of Germany in 1990 and huge crowds are expected to line the 200 kilometre course.

Munsterland is also Germany’s number one region for cycling with no less than 65 clubs and 4,500 kilometres of cycle routes.

I have never ridden this race before but I’m assured that it is one of the highlights of the year for German cycling fans.

Martin is a solid sprinter and the course is made for sprinters as Andre Greipel proved last year when he won the event.

World Championships
262.2kms

I have never been a specialist in one day races and it takes one to win the World Championships.

The course in Mendrisio was made for those with staying power and it didn’t surprise me that a rider like Cadel Evans won.

It was energy sapping and each one of the nineteen 13.8 kilometre laps was a wearing down process.

Almost half of the 200 riders who started pulled out of the race and I’m pleased that I wasn’t one of them.

Finishing 40th overall isn’t a bad result but I could have placed higher if I had it in the legs when the attacks came in the final 40 kilometres.

A race over 262.2 kilometres is always going to be about who has it at the end and I was conscious of that from the start.

I was happy to sit towards the back of the peleton during the opening laps to spin my legs and to avoid any serious crashes.

My form was strange all day. I felt more like a diesel engine. I wasn’t feeling super strong but I was able to keep going at a steady tempo.

Your legs get like that coming out of a three week tour like the Vuelta a Espana and you just ride through it.