Lara Gillespie learning to keep her cool as she makes Irish cycling history

Dealing with the heat during the Giro d'Italia was a struggle for Gillespie

Lara Gillespie is the first Irish woman to start and finish all three Grand Tours. Pic: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com

Lara Gillespie really felt the heat at the Giro d'Italia, and not just because she was in the points classification shake-up.

The Enniskerry speedster was fourth overall in the race for the maglia rossa after the survivors finished the ninth and final stage in Saluzzo, a 143km mountainous test.

In doing so, Gillespie became the first Irish woman to start and finish all three Grand Tours. It is another record to fall the way of the 25-year-old, who became Ireland's first female track cycling world champion last year.

Yet she only realised her achievement when she opened Instagram one day and saw it on the Sticky Bottle page.

"I thought Mia (Griffin) was the first, but I guess she was the first to start all three (in one year) and then I was the first to finish all three," said Gillespie.

"So yeah, that's really cool, and I hope there are many more girls to come and follow along. It's definitely possible."

A sprinter, Gillespie even briefly wore the red jersey early on. She came third in the first stage but got bumped up to second due to a relegation and moved to within four seconds of the pink jersey worn by the GC leader.

Lorena Wiebes, the original stage winner, was disqualified because her bike did not comply with the UCI's minimum weight regulations.

"That was a little bit interesting and a bit sad," Gillespie recalled. "We only found out when we were on the way home.

"It was just a bit of a shock and it rarely happens in cycling that someone gets fully eliminated from a whole stage race. But me coming second or third is the same as coming fourth, to be honest.

"I got a little bit boxed in during the last 200 metres and if I had done one thing differently, then I could have been in the leader's jersey for a day or two.

"The next day I came second as well, but I really had to make a maximum effort because it was really hot that day. I really suffered in the heat, even though I did heat training basically every other day for over a month."

Along with the blistering pace set by eventual Giro winner Elisa Longo Borghini, coping with the 40-degree temperatures was an issue.

Gillespie arrived with UAE Team ADQ for the Tour towards the end of last month and found some specific ways to help deal with the incessant heat, using ice and other cooling strategies.

But it was still a struggle. "The heat is definitely something that I was battling and fighting for my life with," she said.

"The first three or four stages were really hot. My Italian teammates didn't find it hot at all, but I'm just quite sensitive to it. It's mostly my feet that suffer. They're burning off of me and it's all I can think about."

Gillespie is usually happy to wait through a 160km stage to do an all-out sprint but she really felt it towards the end of that second stage into Caorle.

"I could feel at the end that my heart rate was about 210 and it took a while to come down, which would be quite unusual. I think it was more my heart feeling the heat," she said.

"I think you have to really grow up in this heat not to be so sensitive to it.

"Every second day I was in the bathroom with the heater on in a sweatsuit doing heat training after my outdoor training. I would do four hours outside, then do the last 40 minutes inside under the heat lamp with a sweatsuit on.

"I'm already trying to adapt, but my coach was like, 'We did so much heat training. Why are you still suffering?' He's Italian. I was like, 'Yeah, but I'm still Irish at the end of the day.'

"It's more that I know I can do it, and there are more things I can do to help cool myself down, or my teammates know more about it.

"From then on I was mostly in a support role and then there were another few sprint opportunities and some close calls with crashes or whatever, but it was a great experience overall and I learned a lot," Gillespie explained.

"Unfortunately we didn't get the GC win, but the whole team really fought for it until the end."

She is now living in Kaiserslautern with her boyfriend, the German track cyclist Luca Spiegel.

Gillespie says it's her "dream lifestyle", where they are able to train together and apart but help each other with their different perspective on the sport, while being in the same routine and rhythm.

"We're also getting to travel the world together at these big competitions," she said.

"It's really amazing because I think this lifestyle, it's very hard to understand if you're kind of on the outside of it, and we spend a lot of days away from home or away from each other.

"I think having that understanding and that extra support definitely makes a huge difference for me and my nervous system, anyway."

She is home for a couple of weeks and will race in the national championships in Castlebar and Cong from June 25.

The Tour de France is off the agenda for her team this summer, but Gillespie is targeting the Tour of Britain next month.

"They're not home roads, but they're almost like it in a way, with the short rolling climbs and the rougher roads compared to the likes of Belgium - just sticky roads, and maybe a bit of bad weather. I think that will be really cool," she predicted.

"I think that will suit me a bit better than the 40-degree Italian heat."

After that, the Track World Championships take place in October.

"I would love to defend my title there," she said. "Obviously that's a big feat, but the plan is just to go there in really good form.

"I did a World Cup with the track national team and got a podium there, and that was really cool. It was also the first time I got to wear my rainbow jersey, the world champion's jersey.

"That was definitely a highlight of the year so far."