Fatness

Couple of odd things this week

• Found out why I ended up 2nd Sat and not 1st-I ate too much and had extra weight in my belly for the sprint. Had I eaten less I would have won apparently
  
• I am fat. My cheekbones do not jut out like the other French racers and I enjoy eating
• Apparently I do not train enough because I do not train upwards of 30 hours in a week like everyone else
• There is no benefit to intervals-long, slow miles are how you get faster
• I was chastised for eating on a 3 hour ride today, this contributes to my fatness
• My stem is way too short, I need at least a 130 to make my back more flat on the bike, Americans have incorrect bike setups
• Drinking milk is going to make me fat and slow. If I drink milk it will make legs cramp with lactic acid too
• Again drinking Orange Juice is going to give me lactic acid
• If I eat eggs for breakfast I must train minimum 5 hours to burn them off or else it contributes to my fatness
• 1 coffee is ok every now and then, but 2 coffees in a day will make me slow
• It is ok to put the American in the gutter on team training rides
• Also ok, to leave the American in the wind for extra time in training, half wheel and ride offset to put him in the wind a little bit more
• lastly, in racing everyone on the team is looking for good results to keep moving up the chain, so its acceptable to chase the break with the American in it.

These are just a few things I learned this week, but if anyone really knows me, trust me I am neither fat nor do I believe I have a bad diet, just cultural differences. Had a awesome argument over nutrition the other day. Stay tuned for the "optimal" french diet leading up to a grand race, the race and post race. It is going to blow your mind. The riding has been quite interesting as of late, spent today in a constant rain/hail storm for 3 hours and godawful wind. Certainly looking forward to some nice weather where I am not washing bike after every ride and trying to dry everything out everynight.

recap of weekend

Well, on Friday evening watching the news, it was explained that a huge front had just moved in and was going to be around for a couple 4-5 days. Already, it was dumping cats and dogs and about 5 degrees. I was most certainly not jazzed at all about racing in this.

Jump to Sat. morning and lining up with the other 140 folks and we are all sitting in vehicles or vans until the last possible moment to depart because we want to spend as little time in the cold wet weather. I was told that a breakaway was key today and I needed to be a part of it. It was insane, I could not see more than 10 meters ahead of me, the road is about wide enough for 3-4 cyclists and we are racing full gas from town to town and countryside in between. Well, I worked my ass off to get in the break, but one went without me, bummer. I eventually bridged with one other guy to the break after 15 minutes of wanting to puke, I have never gone that hard in my life, but god dammit I was going to be in the break today! With the 2 of us that made ten altogether. yada yada yada, race and at the finish I ended up second in the sprint and lost to a guy who comes from a sprint background on that track-go figure. As a side note, I also got second place on the day for the daily KOM comp.

Sunday was more of the same. A 10 Km loop, half in town and half on the narrow winding country lanes in the countryside. I awoke to even harder rain today and knew it was going to be hard. Once again the break was going to be pivotal today and I worked so hard to make it, but it was not to be. With two major climbs on the circuit, that made two major descents and I cannot tell you how many wrecks I saw. Wheels would just slide out from underneath and the latest that I had heard was 6 or 7 collarbones broken yesterday. I can honestly say that yesterday was one of the most miserable, cold and wet days that I have ever had in my life. The cold rain seeped into your legs making them feel like chunks of leads, you would will your hands to shift but they would not work and good luck feeling your feet, they were gone after 10 minutes. I finished the day, something 2/3 of the field can't say, but I just rolled it in with a group, not willing to risk ending my season early for tenth place.

I am quite happy with the weekend, hey, a podium is great and feel like I am learning more and more after each race. Got a few days to recover to get ready for the next bit of racing.

second place

got a minute here. finished second place today and second in the kom comp. daylight savings is happening tonight, so off to bed. details to come, but feeling good for tomorrows espoir cup one day race.

Chillin

Had a fairly easy week this week. I have 2 bigger one day races coming up this weekend so I have just been noodling on the bike, hoping to save the legs. I am certainly not getting any more comfortable with riding in the rain yet. I love my amazing Specialized Armadillos for their flat protection-if you don't have a pair for your training wheels I would get some-last year I had absolutely zero training ride flats on them folks, well worth their money. On that note, I have also had zero flats here this year, but these tires folks are not the best on the cobbled streets in the rain. I almost feel like cornering moto style with my inside leg clipped out :). There is nothing like sliding through roundabouts rather than carving.

Got out for what I thought would be an easy day, but I can honestly say that I have never ridding in rain like that, nor seen a movement come in so quickly. Honest to god, life was peachy, just a bit dry and within 3 minutes the sky went black, temp dropped 20 degrees and the rain just got harder and harder. The best way to explain it is the coming of the Death Eaters in the first scene of the newest Harry Potter film. Oh yeah, by the way, the Potter series rocks!!!

This photo does not do justice to the weather, but just 300 meters ahead of me should be a big old ridge thats 250 meters high, yet I can't see beyond the yard. Thats how crazy it can be here, nice one minute and crazy the next.

nice day in the neighborhood

Actually had a nice springtime day over here in france. The weather finally hit over 10 degrees and I was able to introduce my nice white legs to the sun again. This winter, I had about 5 weeks of total time down in California to train and in that time I built up a nice little tan. Well after a month over here in cold, wet northern Europe all of that hard work was for naught and I get to start all over again, oh well.

I have got a nice quick week this week. After finishing up my race on monday, I have 2 more 1 day races later this week, so for the most part it has been recovery this week.

On another note, I got to experience a first this week. At lunch on Sunday, day before race, I am doing my best to stay hydrated and because of this, feel the need to go to the restroom. So away from the table I go to find the toillete. Unfortunately, I only find one door and not two so I wait, assuming there is one toilet and when someone walks out, I go in. Well, I see multiple stalls and urinals which was great. As I am standing at a urinal a gal walks out of one of the stalls and begins to wash her hands in the sink right next to me. Before this moment I really had to use the restroom, but somehow miraculously I now have stage fright and stop immediately. There is something quite odd about shared restrooms like that. She was treating it like any other day, but I could not even go until she left. Lets just say that it will take some time to get used to sharing a restroom with a gal.

so there you go, one of the many odd moments out of a normal day for me here.

Fun day at work

Yesterday got to race Mortange Au Perche. Its an awesome race during a carnival in the heart of the town of Mortagne. The race is essentially go uphill for 3 minutes as hard as you can, descend and repeat. I knew day was going to be fun when we showed up to the race to find that we had tailwind on the climb for the day. For those who have raced Walla Walla before, think of the finish climb for the big road race, 30 times. I was told the early move never makes it, its too hard of a race so wait a bit before hitting it-well guess what, the early move did stick it. With about 2 hours to go and 85 folks or so left in the group and the break up the road what did I do, I worked. With about 2 hours left in race I went to the front and did as much work as I could do I whittled the group of 85 down to 6 in my group and eventually was the first non breakaway finisher. Thats something nice to have, but it only continues to make me hungry for better results. We only ended up having 26 finishers total thanks to an extremely hard race, we essentially did elevation of a double bogus yesterday with hill repeats on a climb of a half mile long. Yes, the racing is getting easier by the week as I start to learn who to watch and what the rhythm is like, but it will not happen overnight.

So thats the racing part of the day, I thought I would also share some photos of what the training has been like recently. Needless to say, I am still trying to figure out how people enjoy wet, cold weather riding. Notice how the roads are nice and shiny, the other word for that would be slick.

USA Cycling

Thought that I would like to make a few fair comparisons as to why I am exceedingly disappointed in USA Cycling and quite impressed with the race structure over here:

1.Registration over here is not a huge ordeal-show up and give your John Hancock next to your name, finit
2-I do not have to fill out god knows how many number of forms that we have to back home, guess how many I fill out here? 1 at the beginning of year and its good for the whole season-what a concept?
3-Races cost like 4 euro-top that
4-Officials here are not yelling at everyone for stupid shit i.e.-no helmet when rolling around, folded numbers because guess what numbers here actually fit, especially a relief to not have a yellow line for racing, and frankly no one here cares where you go piss. For those who do not know at Tour of Utah we were able to skip the first 8 km of a stage of the race to go to bathroom so that we would not go midrace-major lame
5-The FFC is meant to turn out good racers, not make money for a few folks
6-Officials here have somehow figured out to do all of the placings by eye and no of this new electronic stuff and they get it right, even with a field of 175!
7-Guess what USA cycling, bidons are going to get tossed mid race-waste of energy to go back and give them to a car. Here they just get picked up post race and its not a big deal. No need to fine everyone for every bottle tossed, races are charging enough, just pay someone to pick them up.

To round this out pretty darn impressed with how fluid everything seems here and looking back on it, there is a lot that racing back home leaves me wondering why it doesn't get changed? Got a fun race coming up on Monday, 30 tours of a 3 km circuit. Day is going to be 1 km uphill 1 k flat and 1 k downhill. Wish me luck.