Eoin McCarthy is adapting well to life with An Post Chainreaction. The young Corkman knows he's got a tough year ahead of him but is training well and feeling good.
Having soldiered on the amateur kermesse scene in Belgium for several seasons, 21-year-old Corkman Eoin McCarthy was rewarded for his consistency with a spot on the An Post-Chainreaction team for 2015.
It’s going to be quite a jump up in standard, but McCarthy is progressing well in his new surroundings.
He is training up to 30 hours a week in advance of the new season.
He’s clocking huge miles in that time - over 900 kilometres in this training week last week in Calpe; while the amount of high intensity training incorporated into his plan is quite impressive.
- Name: Eoin McCarthy
- Team: An Post-Chainreaction
- Date of birth: 21st September 1993 (21 years old)
- Weight: 68.5 kg
Training goals at this time of year
Right now it’s all about putting the finishing touches to my off/pre-season training as the race season is just around the corner.
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Now it’s mostly about sharpening up and getting some threshold and sprint work done so the first races won’t be such a shock to the system.
In a publicity shot for An Post-Chainreaction taken at the team's training camp last week (Joolze Dymond-An Post-CRC)
Monday
After arriving in Calpe on the Monday we did a steady four hours to ride the travel day out of our legs.
It was a nice ride to start with - usually I train solo at home in Fermoy, so to have good company really helps the time pass quickly.
It was my first ride in the green of An Post-Chain Reaction also, so getting used to the new kit was a treat.
I ended the days training with some foam rolling, stretching and light core work .
The latter because of such an increase in volume on the bike this next few weeks. My core work will be eased off.
Tuesday
As expected, today we started the efforts. We did a five-hour ride which consisted of two blocks of roughly 15 minutes at threshold.
We did this session on the well-known Coll de Rates climb.
I felt great, my heart rate was really responding well during the efforts and I was going quite fast up the Rates. All good signs.
In the evening before dinner I got a massage from our carer Hans.
Wednesday
Today was the longest ride I’ve ever done; six and a half hours. It was 200 kilometres and over three 3,000 metres of elevation. Solid.
On such long rides I always seem to go through a rough patch for an hour or so. Today it was between hour four and a half and five. The body just felt reluctant to move fast.
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I did some light stretching in the afternoon to wrap up the day.
Still aged just 21 years, Eoin McCarthy is progressing to An Post-Chainreaction at a perfect juncture in his development. Pictured here by Ramsey Cardy of Sportsfile on his way to taking the best county rider prize on Rás stage 4 from Charleville to Roscommon last year.
Thursday
Today is the first of two planned rest/easy days at the camp. I rode with some of the boys to a café and back.
It was one hour in total; just super easy to recover from the first block and prepare for the second.
My recovery was again aided with a massage from the magic hands of Hans. Pardon the pun.
Friday
Day one of block number two. We are working on three day blocks, with a recovery day in between.
Five hours today. I started off with heavy legs after the rest day but after an hour or so I came around and started to feel great.
We rode a three-hour loop around to the Coll de Rates and did some sprint work in small groups, two to three guys.
I ended the day with some light stretching and foam rolling to aid my recovery.
Riding on the front in Belgium last season in the colours of Terra-Footwear.
Saturday
Another long one on the cards today. Six hours. We were going up and down all day long, and ended up clocking over 3,000 metres of climbing.
Another massage from Hans today. Well needed and relaxing. I almost fell asleep on the table!
Sunday
The final day of the week, and the day before the last rest day.
Today Niko (Eeckhout) had a hard session on the cards for us.
We rode three and a half hours - a bit shorter today but with some hard intensity work on our favourite mountain – the Coll de Rates.
We rode the climb twice at threshold - so it roughly takes 15 minutes each time. Rest day tomorrow again before we hit the last block hard.
Super solid week in the legs - 31 hours, over 900 kilometres and 14,000 metres of elevation. A coffee ride will be nice tomorrow!
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