Last weekend was the first time the development Squad got together in full in Killarney. Dad and I had an early start on Saturday to make it down to Killarney for 9am. We were up at 4 am. Left the house at half 4 to make the 3 1/2 hr's Drive down to the Aghadoe Youth Hostel in Fossa, Co Killarney. We arrived at 8 and had time to get some breakfast before arriving at the hostel were the squad were staying. At 9 we had a talk about the structure of the squad and what Jon's expectation's for the year were, which was really good in showing us what the squad was going to be about during the year . After that we were all measured up for our new squad gear which is looking really good!At 11 am we hit the high ropes course on the grounds of the Hostel for some team building. The course is really good and was great craic going around with the rest of the team. It was certainly a different type of workout to mountain biking.
After we finished off on the High ropes at around 12:30 we all headed in for some lunch and then went to get ready to pre ride the course for the second round of the NPS and the race the next day. The track was absolutely brilliant and bone dry.
The squad lined up outside the Hostel to take some team photo's in our own club gear. Then we headed of to ride the course. Jon let us go ride the course at our own speed but we had to be back for 3:15pm to go look at some of the tricky sections of the track and sessioned them for a while before going for another slow lap of the track.
We came back to the hostel and had a lovely dinner put on by the owner of the hostel. We then had a talk about some more exciting things for later in the year and then headed off to bed.
The next day we were up at 8am for breakfast before signing up for the first round of the Kinetica-Munster Xc series held by Killarney Cycling Club. This year I am racing Junior. Last year I was racing U16 so this year there is a bit of a step up in the amount of laps I'll be doing. My plan for the race was to go at a steady pace and try to finish in the top 3.
So at 1'o clock the Juniors lined up at the start line. We had to do 3 laps. So off we went there was a sprint to the first corner in the field. Everybody filed out into single file as we continued around the field. Just before we got to the start of the singletrack Chris made a break at the front. I moved in behind Anthony and followed him for a while before making my move on an open flat corner. So at this stage I was in 2nd with Chris ahead of me and Anthony behind me. There was a small jump near the start of the course so I decided to do a little bit of showing off. I continued on through the race trying to keep a steady but fast pace. At one stage I managed to crash into a tree but that didn't really affect the race, I couldn't see Chris ahead of me so really tried to concentrate on my own race and hit all my lines. During the final 2 laps of the race the sun came out and it was roasting on track. I finished in 2nd, 13 seconds behind Chris.
I'd like to say a big thanks to Jon Hynes for organising the weekend and the Guys at the Aghadoe Youth Hostel for accommodating us, as well as Killarney Cycling Club for hosting the race. And finally to my dad for driving me down and back from Killarney over the weekend.Scott
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