Back in the saddle

Its been nearly a year and a lot has occured, but I found life very dull without my trusty bicycle adventures. As many of you know I returned to school and have been doing well enough to earn a full academic scholarship if I maintain a 3.0 GPA. Currently I have a 3.94 with one BA that I would rather forget about, and I have yet to receive anything less than an A through Calc 2. That part of life is well, and I also have been serving tables now for nearly a year. The money is much better, but sometimes the stress sucks the life out of you. Onto racing though, and how I have felt thus far in my "comeback" to the scene. I began training about 7 weeks ago now with weeks of 7 hrs, 10 hrs and 11 hrs, but have yet to do any specific speed or anaerobic work. I decided to begin my racing with the Fisk Knob Time Trial near Grand Rapids. The first 12 miles was successful as there was a massive tailwind and I was rolling, mind you this was mostly downhill. The last 6 miles was into a dreadful headwind and it was miserable. I ended up riding 45 and some change for 18 miles, so all in all not a bad start. Then I proceeded to do 2 STS races in Ann Arbor and the first was horrible as I forgot how to corner in my time away and totally forgot about the accelerations out of corners. The second race was the last STS race of the spring and I felt like Hincapie (no chain), but I was told to sit in and get used to the flow of races again. This past weekend I traveled with Alvin Nordell, my recent training companion and race traveling buddy, and it could not have went worse. I worked 10+ hours the day before spending all of that on my feet, then ate a greasy pizza for a prerace meal. I figured I would not show any ill effects. When I got to the race and started to warm up, I still felt incredibly full and sluggish. For the first time in my life I produced a self-induced vomit scene, to try to lighten my stomach. This did not ease the problem, so I thought the hell with it and got to the line with a minute to spare. I started out and didnt feel particularly snappy as I would have liked. Long story short, I could not get on top of any gear all day long. It just was not my day I guess. During the ride, I did notice two gentleman 15 seconds ahead of me going back and forth in each others draft, and anyone who rides a TT knows you stay out of the draft of a rider, as to not get a time penalty. You know who you are and should be happy that two of you could not beat someone who has been training for 6 weeks. Anyhow, there are bigger fish to fry this summer and I am looking forward to progressing into where I once was on my bike. Hopefully I will maintain this over the summer, but in retrospect this blog means very little to me. OUT!

If anyone knows where pictures of the races can now be found please leave a post, as it would be greatly appreciated.