Saturday, April 28, 2012

A day in my life

These last two weeks have been pretty casual for me. Here is what my daily schedule consists of. I wake up at around 8:30, eat some waffles, cereal, and bananas, and then I go on the computer to check my e-mail and facebook for a bit. By 10:00 I am sitting at my dining room table getting started on my schoolwork. Homeschooling is one of the sacrifces that I have made to help me become a better rider and be able to travel to bigger races. It can become very lonely at sometimes, but I also like having my own schedule. At noon I walk down the street to visit my dad during his lunchbreak at the middle school he teaches at. Then I walk back home and finish up my subjects. When I am done with school, I go do the workout that my coach has planned for me.

Thats pretty much what my monday-friday's are like. Besides from school, I have been doing the local spring training series in Ann Arbor. Last weekend I upgraded to a category 2 which means that I get to race with the best in Michigan this year. I never dreamed of being a category 2 a couple years ago. I have really worked hard and I am ready to race at this very high level.

Today I did at time trial at Willow Metropark. This is a 13 mile tt consisting of 6 laps around a closed course. I did not perform nearly as well as I thought I should have. My goal was to acheive a time that was under 30 minutes. The course conditions were not very fast though. I ended up getting 7th place in the pro 1/2 field with a time of 30:53. I was not feeling my best today, but I gave it my all.

Happy birthday to my awesome coach Lucas Wall!!!!!!!!

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Tour of the Battenkill

Well, I just got back home from New York. My team and I arrived at registration at 5:00 on friday afternoon and then we went to recon some of the course on our bikes. After the ride, we went to go get dinner at this cool old hotel in the downtown area of where the bike race was. After dinner we went to our hotel where all five of my teammates and I slept in one room. Lets just say that it was crazy.

We woke up early in the morning and I had two giant waffles and some bananas. My start was at 11:30 so John, Weston, and I arrived ten minutes early at the start line. The race started off very slow and picked up a little now and then. I am not a fan of junior races because of the fact that no one wants to keep the pace up. 40 miles in everyone was still together so I decided to change that. I attacked on a flat gravel section and broke away by myself. I gained at least a minute gap and charged ahead for 7 miles until I was caught by seven others. Besides the seven that caught me, the field was torn apart into shreds. I was happy to see that I did my job and that my teammate John Murdock had made the group of 7.

When I got caught the breakaway was going very fast and I did my best to try and stay on. The 7 sped up though and I got dropped. So for the last 15 miles I worked with another rider to stay away from everyone else. I dropped the other rider with 5 miles to go and then time trialed to the finish. I ended up eighth and John endud up sixth out of 43 riders. I am not happy with my result, but there are no excuses.

I am very thankful for my supportive team, parents, and family that let me do this race.

p.s. I threw up after the race. I guess that means I did my best and I should have no regrets.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Back in the Groove

Wow, I have had a great start to my season so far. I was fortunate enought to be able to do Valley of the Sun Stage Race in Arizona in February and then head off to Belgium for a couple weeks of racing. Needless to say, I have had a good early season. Since getting back from Belgium I have been able to catch back up on school, see some friends, and get in a couple of local races. Training is back on schedule and it feels good to be back in the regular routine. Today I am heading off to Ohio to meet up with some teammates who I am going to carpool with to a race in Cambridge, New York. This race is called the Tour of Battenkill. It is a 62 mile long race with some tough hills and gravel sections. The great thing about this race is that it has a fairly large junior field and I will have teammates in it with me. I never enter a race that I don't think I can win and this race is no exception. I am very fit right now and Lucas Wall has been doing a good job of keeping me on track with my training. There will be some very strong competitors, but that is why I am going all the way to New York for this race. I am always a little nervous when going to a big race, but I am feeling confident in the fact that I have done all that I can do to prepare for this race. My next post will be on how this race goes. Thank you for reading!