Wednesday, February 17, 2010

colorado weather can be weird

my training has really gotten back on track since being sick, its been good and very reassuring as i was starting to get worried. i had a good weekend of training, this past saturday i rode up to estes park which is a pretty long climb out of lyons, and is about 2000 feet higher than boulder. the weather was super nice, it was close to 50 down in boulder...im sorry for the shitty weather back home...when i got up to estes park it was nice and sunny and pretty warm...for 8000feet. i rolled into the gas station convenience store to fuel up on 1000 calories or so of little debbie and hostess treats in order to lay down some mega watts on the way back to boulder. well much to my surprise when i came out of the store the sky had turned gray and it was snowing. i slammed down my twinkies and danishes, threw on my jacket and jumped on my bike and got the hell out of estes park. its a climb out of estes then you start descending back towards boulder. i slammed it out of estes and within 5 minutes of climbing the snow was behind and me and it was warm and sunny again...so weird. otherwise nothing notable to share, the volume has been coming back up and ive been getting some good efforts back in my legs so starting to feel better about this whole bike racing sport once again. i wish i had something funny to write, i feel like this blog was way funnier when i started it and now its taken more of a serious turn...thats unfortunate somewhat, or not. still dont know if we're into redlands or not, im pretty excited to come back and do jeff cup and race withthe guys if i dont get in, so either option would be sweet...id actually kinda rather do jeff cup...but then again id rather do redlands...just one will make me bleed through my eyeballs way more than the other.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

looking for something

stuff has been going pretty well, after tucson i had about one week of going pretty easy then it was straight back into the training grind, and for 3-4 weeks training was going awesome. i had some really good rides. i had an awesome ride in the mountains with matt cooke, that really helped my confidence going into this season. i was doing more volume then ive ever done and having some really good workouts. then about two weeks ago my roommate was pretty sick and a few other friends in the dorms were sick, it was only a matter of time guess, i got pretty sick. i was pretty shitty feeling for awhile and it took a while to get over it. ive been back on the bike for about a week now but have seriously been struggling to get through a single ride without wanting to throw my bike and many other things against a wall. its been rough ive been pretty bummed about where my riding is right now. today i finally had a decent ride for the first time in a bit. nothing special just 2hrs but i did one good effort and actually felt some semblance of myself on the bike so it was very reassuring, as i was beginning to think i might never be able to break 300 watts again. so it feels like training is heading back up and hopefully in another week or so ill be feeling some confidence again because serious racing is just around the corner. collegiate races start in a few weeks on march 6, and i will do some of those for sure. also, i will hopefully be racing at redlands and san dimas. i have the chance to race redlands on bikereg-cannondale, as its team entry only. right now i am just waiting if the team gets in or not, if we do i will be doing san dimas for kelly which is a cool so cal 3 day stage race and redlands for bikereg which is a 4 day nrc stage race. if not i will be home for jeff cup with the team, either option would be fine with me, it'd be nice to be home and race with the team but to race redlands would be good prep heading into the season to get ready for gila and onward. otherwise everything is going well in boulder, we had some snow, im not sure i can even call it that though compared to what yall have been getting in dc, crazy stuff. the garmin u23 team is having their training camp in boulder this week which is kinda cool, they seem to be the premier u23 team in the country right now, i guess along with trek-livestrong i'd throw down some serious watts to be on either one of those teams at least thats the plan...come june hopefully. ive been thinking about it lately and to win at u23 nationals and pull a big upset over those two teams would be the ultimate, that was sort of the situation i was in at fitchburg with no teammates and going against 7 of the best guys in the country on hottubes, but its a whole different level in the u23. we have a strong little squad of us on kelly though, three of us first years, me, kevin gottlieb, and steven black. then one more u23 in russ brown. it should be exciting to go to u23 nationals, i think we can ride for a jersey in the road race at least thats my plan, it should be good. well thats what on my mind recently, if i cant feel fast at least i can think about it right? well hopefully in another week i will be back on my game. school has been going very well, im taking only 12 credit hours which is minimum full time student, but id rather do this and be able to do my best in training and school rather than mediocre in both and take a tougher load. im taking calc whihc is going well, ive had two tests calc, and bio its going well which is very good. i guess this is a pretty long blog post, its been a while so i guess it is kidna fitting, i just had some stuff i wanted to write down i guess. to everyone back home i guess keep training even though it sucks, this kind of weather can let you get way ahead of a lot of people that wont train inside, or at least wont train seriously. one of my best friends is living in dc, and doing 4+ hour rides on the trainer, and serious work, if people wanna hang with him you better put your nose to the grind stone.