MTB Development Squad News

The Off Road Development Squad met up on Easter Saturday for a planned one-day training camp based in Carlingford for a good day’s training in the Cooley Mountains.  The plan for the day was to start off with a 2 hour training ride led by Squad Manager Ciara MacManus and newly appointed Assistant Manager and qualified sports scientist Greg May.

The route took in the half marathon route over Slieve Foy mountain as used in previous national marathon championships and included a short ride through some technical singletrack forest on the early stage of the route to test the rider’s bike handling skills followed by a series of tough hill repeat intervals on the climb up to the Windy Gap to test the legs.

Greg continued to push the pace over the short kicker climbs along the rest of the route before the riders settled into the steady climb back up Slieve Foy and the fast descent back into Carlingford.  After showers and lunch at the Slieve Foy centre, Ciara reviewed the development squad’s progress to date and the up coming goals and plans for the rest of the season after which Greg led a question and answer session on training and nutrition.

Each of the riders who attended went away with a clear idea of their goals for the season and judging by the recent results in the national points series races the training advice is certainly being put into practice.

As part of the development programme, the riders will next meet for a pre-nationals training day in July.  The riders will then compete in both the National XC Championships and Round 5 of the Scottish XC series in Perth as part of the selection process for competing in the final round of the British Mountain Bike Series in September.