Training is well under way, as the new season approaches
The cold and dark winter months are nearly gone, however it is somewhat colder this February than what it has been in December & January, but this hasn’t stopped our members from training hard over the off season (on & off road, in or outdoors).
We have a few heading away to compete at the Dirty Reiver (22/04/17) an off road adventure that covers 200km around the Kielder Forest district in Hexham, so these keen gents have been putting in some good off the beaten track efforts lately, with the most recent being an adventurous tour around the forests of Castlewellan, Moneyscalp and Tollymore. This will be no easy feat for these riders as it will push them to the limits and make them dig deep into their reserves more than once during this event – so we’d like to wish them all the best and keep up the training.
Secondly we have our on road open riders with full road licenses, these guys have gone from HR zone training to watts training, or even both with some going strava dark to keep it all hush hush. A few have bought new bikes, upgrades and been putting in lot of hard interval training sessions, along with joining in on reliabilities to gain experience in a competitive and fast field of riders. During the past week we had we had a few away training in different European countries building up base and core fitness as well as pumping some big miles and elevation. So we’d like to wish them all the for the race season especially as the first race is this Saturday 18th February at Annaclone run by Banbridge CC.
Thirdly our MTB guys have had a dirty winter with fun in the mud and slipping and sliding all over various forests to gain fitness and endurance. Young Drew ‘hill repeat’ Armstrong has been selected to ride for Mech Monkey as a ‘Solo Sponsored’ rider although he’s still a KCC member, so he is looking forward to a very busy and competitive season attending the enduro and XC events in Ni, Ireland and across the water. We’ve also had several of our youth attend training days run through Ulster XC to help them build up skills and confidence for the incoming season that starts with the Spring League on the 26th February.
Too Note – our committee (well Ross) has agreed the new interclub league TT & race dates for 2017, more to follow on the link over the incoming weeks. Currently we are finalising our program and task list for our inaugural open RR on the 1st April around the Balloo triangle for A1, 2, 3, 4 and juniors (more details on CI and our web over the incoming weeks)
Finally we’d like to wish all those out with injuries a speedy recovery and we’ll see you out again soon – take care!!
