Hi guys, it's the day after Cycling Ireland Development camp and with a 3hour ride yesterday morning and 6hour drive home I'm pretty tired. So I better do this while everything is fresh on my mind. We arrived at 6ish on Friday night and settled in to our rooms, got something to eat, met the guys etc.. Got a good nights sleep in as we probably needed it for the the spin the next day.
Saturday - Waking up at 7am isn't the most pleasant thing in the world at most times, but this time wasn't too bad was feeling good and ready to go. Went for breakfast at 7.30 and was expected out on the road at 9.30ish. So I stocked up on some rice krispies and a rough scrambled egg that run straight through me (too much info, yes!). But anyway back to my story, we were ready to go at 9.30 and we set off. The first climb was expected around 15km in but no-one was too sure where it was and there was crazy rumors going around about it being 30%, so I was always trying to stay up around the front and out of trouble. When we hit the early slopes I was feeling quite good and new I could do something but wasn't sure how long the climb was so didn't know when to have a dig. About 400m from the top the pace got upped and I attacked and was first over the top! On the decent the plan was to slow us down and regroup before we got going properly again. The rest of the spin was ok, we rode into Omagh in a relatively big group and was an easy enough day! We then had squad talks from 2-6 and by the time that was over we were all starved, Dinner was next on the cards then chill out time.
Sunday - Woke up Sunday morning and was delighted to see it wasn't raining (yet, it was soon to rain). Went down for a big breakfast especially after hearing in the talks about how much calories we should be eating, scary stuff! Was planning on moving up groups but when I asked the coaches they said all Juniors were going together which I was happy about. We got going around 9.30 again and there was a bit of confusion in the first few km's. The Juniors were meant to wait at the hotel while the u25 men had a few minute advantage on us, but we just hopped in with them and it was one big group. There was motorbikes flying up the side telling the juniors to wait back and leave the 25's go first. The lead-car then slowed up and got us re-grouped before we started steadily riding up and over. After a few k's we started to catch the u25's again and some of them had a few accidents on the pot-holed roads. So inside the first 10km's or so we had to be stopped a few times, wasn't ideal as the first climb of the day wasn't too far in and had a bad warm up for it! We were stopped 2km from the climb so I knew that was a good time to be staying up around the top few riders and not to be dropping near the back or inside lines. So I stuck 2 or 3 wheels from the front and tried to stay off the front as much as possible, after all, they did say it was race mode over the hills! So about mid way through we were being slowed down by the car as we were catching the u25's again, couldn't believe it. Eventually one of the lads made a move past the car and I found myself following him. We rode through the group and there was lots of confusion at the top it was all over the place, not even sure if the selectors saw who was over the top first. Then at the bottom of the decent they gathered us all together for yet another stop and told the Juniors to go ahead this time and the rest to wait. From here on we were doing up and over and going hard over all the hills. It split up quite a bit and after the 2nd draggy section of the road there was a group of 9 or 10 Juniors and 2 coaches (Ryan Sherlock & Rory Wyley). From here on we continued to ride up and over and went a bit harder over some of the hills, until 15km to go when we were told to race. As you can probably gather it was pretty intense stuff. There was lots of attacks, I gave a few digs myself but never committed 100% as I knew I might need the extra energy and there was always the fear of the counter-attacks! ha. I was simply just following wheels and trying not to let anyone go. For the 15km it wasn't too pleasant there was always attacks even if they weren't from the juniors. I think there was meant to be a sprint a couple of k's from Omagh but nobody seemed to sprint. Were we all tired? I dont know..
When we arrived at the hotel I wanted to get out of the wet gear and hop in the shower asap to avoid any sickness. We were scheduled to have an Anti-Doping talk at around 1-1.30ish and after hearing the one at the last camp I was really looking forward to it. I find it very interesting and they really do educate you on how easily you can test positive. Imagine, you can test positive for taking certain types of Lemsip! Crazy! My Dad and I then soon got on the road for our 6hour journey. I think the journey up was better, we were a lot more tired on the way back!
Overall I think it was a great weekend. Love meeting up with the guys and having a catch up. Now I'm looking towards the first race of the season which is only 3 weeks away, and the shortlist announcements. Fingers crossed!
I'll leave ye with a picture of the bike. Bye for now
Eoin
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