Well I better explain the title, Thursday morning I woke up to a very pleasant surprise. I received an email from the HP Director Phil Leigh letting me know I had been accepted onto the Irish National Junior Elite & Development Road & Track Team for 2011. Of course I was delighted, what a way to start a Thursday morning! After reading the email and looking at the recipients of course I was anxious to see who my team-mates were going to be but didn't find out until later that evening, and I'm very pleased that all of them made it as well. But, not to forget, these squads are not closed and riders can be added or dropped from the squads at any time. I find this good as it gives everyone a better chance and riders will have to continue to perform throughout the season to keep or gain their place on the team.
Next on the cards they are going to be testing all 15 of us on the WattBike's for leg speed, peak sprinting power and 3 minute peak power (endurance). This is to build a profile of data that can help us move forward and identify our strong points and identify areas we may need to work on etc.. Personally I can't wait for the test I think all my turbo sessions should really take their place when it comes to this. We won't be long finding out! In addition to this test we are having a day on the Track on the 5th of March. Turns out the 5th will be a very busy day for me. Have to be up at Sundrive at 9.30 and back to Killarney that evening for 6.30. Looking forward to it regardless. Then we were asked to enter a few early season races so the coaches can further assess our racing style and ability. These races will then be used as a selection process for the Easter Stage races, like the Gorey 3-Day etc.. I originally planned on racing the Lacey Cup in Tralee on the 27th but one of these races they would like us to go to is on the same day. So thats the Lacey Cup out of the way and in comes the P.J. Logan Cup!
Cycling Ireland have a great report on their webpage about the camp in Omagh last weekend. One part I was particularly happy with was the credit us Juniors were given. For example:
Asked about the camp afterwards, Camp director Stephen McKenna said “it’s very encouraging to see such a strong turnout of riders from each part of Ireland, and also from England. We were particularly impressed by the ability and positive riding demonstrated by our Junior riders, and certainly we have a crop of great potential here for the future”.
Performance Director Phil Leigh commented, “I have been very impressed by the high standard and dedication of our young riders, their positive attitude against the challenging weather and road conditions were a credit to all of them. We had an excellent response from women riders for this camp in Omagh and from what we have seen over the weekend and in previous camps, we can now select riders for our Junior, U25 male and U27 female development squads for 2011.”
I was delighted to hear such positive comments coming from both of the coaches, and it's really great to know they have faith and belief in us Juniors.
Finally I would like to thank my coach Stephen Barrett who has helped me to get where I am, and I can't thank him enough, Thanks Steve if your reading this. Anyway I'll wrap it up at that, and I'm sure there will be more updates soon. Hope everyone is enjoying the blogs.
Here is a link to the squad - http://www.cyclingireland.ie/Home/High-Performance/HP-Documents/Junior-squad-2011.aspx
Ciao,
Eoin
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