Last weekend I headed up to Cong, Co. Mayo for the national junior girl’s cycling championships.
It was a historic event as it was the first ever Irish junior girls nationals held.
In previous years the numbers of girls have been too low to hold an event.
The TT took place on Saturday evening on a lumpy, 23.5km circuit. I felt a bit out of place on a normal racer, surrounded by top of the range carbon TT bikes, but nonetheless I pushed myself hard and there is no doubt that it was a great lung opener for the road race!!
The road race took place on Sunday with the junior girls racing one lap of a 56km circuit. Only 10 girls were competing, but it was enough to hold the race which was the main thing! The standard of racing was very high, with girls from teams like NRPT, Cadence and the Sundrive track team competing. I stayed with the main group for the first 20km or so, until the bunch split. I then slotted in with 3 other girls and we worked together. There was one main climb on the course and here I dropped one of the girls and kept riding with the two others. On the second, smaller climb we dropped another girl. Aisling Desmond from Galtee Wheelers and I worked together for the remainder of the race and we finished together.
It was a great weekend of racing, I learned a lot and I am proud to have worn the club colours in such a historic event.
