A Return to Bike Racing.

I'll begin this post as I will undoubtedly begin countless others: I have not been keeping up with this blog. Not for lack of anything interesting, and certainly not because I have had too little time... I'm not sure why really. But now that race season has unofficially officially arrived, there is suddenly a reason to chronicle my exploits beyond:

I woke up.
I got on my bike.
Four hours later, I got off my bike.
I am out of shape.
Repeat.

In the interim, I have done many exciting things with some of my favorite people. I took a training camp (vacation) to Florida, where I was able to put in the first real miles of my training since my injury. I was joined by my girlfriend Lacey (who was arguably the only one that actually needed a vacation), perpetual protagonist and general facilitator Smith Anderson, and Adam Bernstein who is ready, more often than not, to leave Boston on a whim for excitement. I also met up with all around good guy Ned Connelly, who also happened to be taking refuge from the total hellish shit-storm the North East was unleashing at the time. The trip could not have come at a better time. I was able to spin my legs for hours in the warm, return to wherever we were staying, and let the stresses of whatever was troubling us melt in a sea of over-indulgent eating and copious amounts of lying down.

Magical.

The trip to Florida was closely followed by an event that always has a big red X on my calendar. The Landry's Indoor Time Trial. It is less of a target race, and more of a great excuse to hang out with your friends, inside, drinking before 12, and calling it exercise. The goal of the day was to embarrass Smith with unrelenting power and fury that I know my legs can produce. I lost. I refuse to let it go. It was a great day.

I just returned from the last of this three-part allegory: The Virginia Training Camp. We tried to organize something similar last year, but we failed in a rather spectacular fashion. This year, however, I had 5 other intrepid souls that thought spending their spring-break in the mountains of virginia with nothing but bikes and bro's was better than getting sloppy drunk in south Florida. I can't say I don't question their decision, but I sure as hell appreciate it! The trip started for me in Plainville CT, where I entered my first race since the Mayors cup. Expecting nothing more than to be dismissed from the peloton quickly due to my hilarious fitness level, my plan was to sit in the field and do absolutely nothing. I told Keith and Mark, two teammates who joined me, that this was my plan. I had every intention of sticking to it. I would imagine, at this point, you can infer what happened.

You're right!

On the second lap, there was an attack, and I went. I went for several on the day. I've replayed the secnario in my head over and over. It wasn't that I was feeling particularly strong, it was that I had completely forgotten how to race a bicycle. Every time someone attacked, I went. It was horrible. I was horrible. After 50min of me losing feeling in my legs, we arrived with two to go. There were two away when we were on the finishing stretch. Then someone clearly saw me struggling and graciously took it upon themselves to end my race early. It was the only humane thing to do. Somewhere in between the moment he came across my wheel, and my ceremonious ejection from the race and my bicycle, I became very sad and angry. Mostly because tumbling to the ground at 28mph is unpleasant, but also because I was in fantastic position. While I know it would have been a sprint for third, it was a sprint, and I like those.

The very next day, I drove to New Jersey to meet the band of brothers with whom I would be suffering in the mountains. We consolidated our gear into two cars, and departed. 5 hours later, we arrived. Our house was much nicer than expected. Three beds, three aero beds, and a TV... what more could you ask for? The first day of riding was Epic. Far too epic for me. 77mi, 5.5 hrs, and probably somewhere in the vicinity of 3,000,000ft of climbing made for one of the hardest days I've ever had on a bike. It was followed by an 87mi day, with as near as makes no difference, the same amount of climbing. The only distinction was that most of the climbing was done in the first half of the ride. Two big BIG days, and I was
already beginning to feel it. Mercifully, it was pouring the next day, so we donned the rain gear, and did one 10mi loop of recovery. Satisfied with ourselves, we returned home to play video games and eat a disgusting amount of food (it's origins I will not mention out of sheer embarrassment). We rounded out the week with two more medium-length rides due to similarly threatening weather conditions. The first was the same 10mi loop as the previous day, however, we were able to repeat it. At the end of the loop, there is a town-line. Having been throughly embarrassed by Kyle Bruley on all but one climb (on which he still beat me, but not as  badly), I decided that it would be a good time to remind him that I am indeed faster. Once the excuses had settled, we divided the group into teams on the final lap, and designated Shopengarten, and Mike Shinall would be the anchormen in a sprint to the death. Kyle Butler and I would lead Mike, and A.J. and Bruley would lead HOP. Long story short, Mike won handily after Bruley made a slight miscalculation, and began his lead-out with 1200m to go. It was a really fun way to end the day.

It was a proper training camp. We went down with one goal: Ride our bikes. Everything else was secondary. It wouldn't have been nearly as successful or fun without the group of guys that went, and I cannot wait to do it again.

I've ridden over 1200 miles in the past two and a half months. Depending on where you stand on the spectrum of insanity that is bike racing, that falls somewhere in between "holy shit you are halfway across the country," and "you haven't been doing enough- man up." Considering the three months before this my total milage hovered right around 150, I'd say I'm doing a damn sight better than where I was in December. My goals for the remainder of this month, and the majority of next month remain the same: Big miles. I have no big priority races in March or April. I have a solid two months to continue to build my base, and come out swinging in June.  Things are looking up.