It's Been Awhile...

There's so much to write about that the thought of sitting down and writing out all of the "and so-and-so attacked on the left" definitely doesn't interest me. Here's some quick little highlights, so I can move on to the interesting stuff.

Went to collegiate nationals in Colorado, the Mt. Hood stage race in Oregon, and did mediocre in both. I got 10th in the division I road race and 8th in the criterium. The altitude killed me. My best result was 8th on Stage 1 of Mt. Hood, and for that I got to wear the best young rider jersey on Stage 2. Then I flew home to Orlando, hopped in my car, and made my way north to Kutztown, PA.

Now that I'm Kutztown, it feels like I never left. Everything is just the same as it was last summer. Even the house we're staying in, the little house on Whiteoak street, is pretty much unchanged. I did laundry today and - what do you know- in the 10 months since I've been gone, they still haven't gotten around to fixing dryer #2. The same little sign is taped to the inside, but the paper has a yellowish tint to it now. It reads: "do not use - clothes will catch on broken rim." It was kind of comforting, seeing it there when I opened the door.

I threw my clothes into the wash, and walked down Main street looking out for any "help wanted" signs. I had this great big plan to get a job while I was up here, but things are looking grim in that department. I've got the triple crown next week, Nature Valley the following week, Fitchburg, and the OTC in July - hardly time to find a steady job. Plus, slaving away for a measly $7-8/hour isn't very appealing when I made about $600 in an hour last weekend. Am I being lazy?

So I walked around Kutztown for quite awhile (which I later regretted because it made my legs sore). I walked down the little alleys past the clothes lines and the flowers. Does this place really exist? After growing up in Orlando, this small-town life is only something I've read about in fairy tales. The cute little houses, the small little diners, the Amish with their horses and buggies. I'm half expecting an evil witch or a scarecrow or a dashing young prince to appear.

(yeah, you know it, Amanda)

So I just got some Skins in the mail a couple days ago. I napped with them on yesterday and my legs felt great today on my ride. Is my mind playing tricks on me or do these things really work? Rebecca said that they don't really do anything for you (and that's her department, so she would know), but a bunch of people I know swear by them. Any thoughts?

Collegiate Nationals

Here we are before the road race start, freezing our butts off. My father found this picture on velonews.com.

Athens Twilight Criterium

So I'm super stoked about my performance in Athens. I made the winning break and took 4th in the sprint. See what the real journalists had to say about it:

Cyclingnews.com

Velonews.com



I knew this race would be pretty tactical. You hear stories, you know, about people starting in the back and never seeing the light of day until they cross the finish line. I promised myself before the race started that that wasn't going to happen to me.

After the scramble to staging, the scramble to the line, the call ups, and finally the scramble to the start line, I found myself in the middle of the group. I knew the first few laps were going to be critical. If I didn't make it to the front as soon as I could, I'd be wasting energy. The race started out super fast. I managed to get to the front in about 5-7 laps despite all the accelerations (why, Lord, does he keep calling out $100 primes!?!?). Once I was there, I tried to keep an eye on things and not let any critical combinations of girls (Aaron's, Cheerwine, Colavita) get away.

I don't even remember when the break went, it's all such a blur. I covered an attack and the next thing I knew, the announcer was saying, "This might be the winning move, Ladies and Gentlemen." I looked behind me and WOW, he was right, there was a pretty substantial gap there.

I worked well in the break, perhaps too much. I remember my coach yelling, "don't do anything stupid!" after I'd been pulling hard on the front for awhile. The sprint was really bumpy and I definitely wasn't prepared for all the skippings around my wheel did while I was trying to go as hard as I could. I took 4th out of 5 in the sprint in front of Tiffany Cromwell from Colavita.

My director was really happy about my race. I enjoyed it and enjoyed racing with my teammates for the first time. I came back home to Gainesville with some money in my pocket, the biggest sprinting bruises I've ever had (see below), and exams to look forward to. I'll keep you posted.


Kinda looks like someone's been givin' my arm a little love...

Food is Delicious

Food is delicous - too delicious. So, I'm starting up FitDay again, check it out. You can see what I'm eating and exactly how much, no lies. If I eat a gallon of ice cream, I'm posting it. Hopefully the public guilt will discourage me from doing it again.

http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJournals.html?Owner=velochick23

It's a pretty cool website - try it for yourself.

Tallahassee

I guess it's time for me to post something about the Tallahassee race. How long has it been since it happened? A week? I haven't written until now because I've been really busy with school and training. For some reason, my professors like to assign homework on Monday and make it due on Friday, so my weeks are usually hell. I come back from a weekend of hard racing and I've got to transform myself into a five-day homework machine. This week it was Dynamics, Thermodynamics, Materials, and ProE, all due on Friday.

So, now that I've got some free time, here it goes:

The race starts out slow. I sit on the back, keeping an eye on everyone else. We complete most of the first lap. Nothing happens. Then, at the base of a hill, there's an attack on the left. It's Elizabeth (Ford), and Angela (Atomic) follows. The two girls get a little ways up the road, but I go to the front and keep them in sight. After about five minutes, I happen to look over my shoulder and see there's a 3-to-4-bike-length gap between me and the group. I attack from the front and bridge to the break quickly.

I get there and say, "we've gotta get out of sight NOW!" We rotate smooth and hard, but the group chases harder. They gain on us, but I know this is what I want. I put all my effort into my pulls and (after about fifteen miles) the distances between us grows. Julie panics and tries to bridge solo, we see her, and we go harder. We've been killing it for awhile already but my pulls are still consistent. I suppose all that training paid off. Eventually, Julie gives up and we quickly get a five-minute gap on the group.

We ride the third lap tempo. Liz jumps for first spot through the last turn and I sprint around her on the left for the win. I remember letting out some sort of victory exclimation. I can't deny I was really happy about the win. After all the irritating collegiate racing I've been doing, I really needed it.

Right now, I'm sitting at home in Orlando, taking a break from studying Thermo. We're learning about entropy generation, reversible and irreversible cycles. I can't really figure out how I'm doing in the class. I thought I was doing poorly when I got my last test back and saw I'd gotten a 13/20 on it. Come to find out, the average on that test was a 9.5. Ok, I think, I'm actually doing pretty well.

Not so fast...

Yesterday was the last day you could drop classes for the semester. I took my usual seat near the front. Dr. Sherif walks in (he's got these really thick glasses that almost touch his eyeballs) and starts class. Something seems odd. I turn around in my seat and look back at the lecture hall. The first day of class, we were fighting for seats. Today, half of them are empty. All those kids who got 5's and 6's on the exam dropped, meaning the average isn't a 9.5 anymore...

I guess all I can do is hope for the best. Getting off the computer might be a good idea too.

The Auburn Collegiate Race

I am not happy

Chatting with Kim before the time trial

The mail man suspects something fishy is going on

At the end of the 2007 collegiate season, I vowed I wouldn't race collegiate this year (see my 'collegiate racing' post). This past weekend made me wonder why I chose to forget that vow.

The drive up was peaceful enough. We listened to music and talked and laughed at Shawn's singing (not because it was bad but because of the fearlessness with which he conquered "The Circle of Life"). When we got to the host apartment and realized there wasn't room for all ten of us - that was when the trip started to go downhill. After spending thirty minutes on the phone when I really wanted to sleep, I found a place for three of us with the Cumberland cycling team. The one girl on their team had an entire hotel room all to herself and kindly offered to share it with us.

The time trial went really well for me. It was on a flat course through the Alabama countryside. I was able to remain focused. I averaged 25.4mph over the 7.8 miles and beat second place by over a minute and a half. The road race, on the other hand, was one of the seemingly longest, most annoying races I have ever participated in. It was five versus one between me and Lees-Mcrae. My shifting was screwing up at the beginning and I missed covering the first attack. Over the course of the first lap, I chased the solo break down. The rest of the race I covered all the attacks from the LMC girls. When they weren't attacking me, they were going 8 mph, and that was what really annoyed me. On the bright side, it was great sprint practice. Due to horrible positioning on my part I got second in the sprint.

The criterium went pretty much the same way as the road race. I covered all the LMC attacks and ended up second in the sprint after the Cumberland girl, who I'd kinda forgotten about at that point. Anyway, I'm racing more consistently than I was last year, so I'm not disappointed in the weekend.

So I spent most of the weekend trying to not be upset due to lack of housing, race support, and teammates. I was sick of driving such long distances, sick of cramped hotel rooms, and sick of dealing with LMC.

That's my rant for the week. Now I'm home, and I'm calm. Today I officially switched my major to mechanical engineering, and I got a flip ton of PowerBars in the mail. I got my materials test back (I did well on it), and I finished Hemingway's The Garden of Eden. I was going to try to write this blog entry with a Hemingway-like edge to it, but I failed miserably. I guess it's just not my style.

Homeless in Nashville

What am I doing for my spring break? Am I going to beach to work on my tan? Am I lazing around at home all day and going clubbing at night? Perhaps I’ve been flirting with some cute guys or relaxing in front of the TV.

Well, no, nothing quite so exciting. Instead, I’ve been racing my bike, studying, eating, sleeping, and gradually realizing that I live a unique, interesting lifestyle.

It happens that there were collegiate races in Georgia the first and last weekends of spring break. Instead of driving up for both weekends, we decided to stay in Nasvhille for the five days inbetween.

After the race Sunday, Dave and I drove to Nashville. We couldn't get into the apartment yet so we camped out at a Panera a couple miles away. We’d just spent several hours sweating on a bike, followed by several hours in a car. I was wearing sweat pants and a T-shirt, I was exhausted, and my hair had dried salt in it – I needed a shower badly. Dave and I walked in with our backpacks, made our way through the throngs of sophisticated Vanderbilt students, and sat down at one of the tables to wait. It was then that I first realized what it must be like to be homeless - no home. It wasn’t just that we didn’t have a place to stay – with my odor and appearance I was practically living the part. And to top it all off, I didn’t buy any food there. Instead, I brought in some leftovers that I was saving from lunch and ate those. And for a drink? Dave and I brought one coffee and took turns sipping it.

Eventually the guys rolled into town and we moved into the apartment. The shower felt amazing, and I certainly didn’t look homeless anymore. But I still slept on an air mattress at night and had to pull on all my clothes to keep from freezing to death under my one, small blanket.

The next morning, I woke up, grabbed all my stuff (getting dressed was not necessary since I was wearing all my clothes), and went in search of wireless internet. I walked down Church Street and gazed up at the beautiful buildings. I practically tripped over the Nashville Public Library. It was hidden inside this beautiful building with columns that blended right into the architecture of all the other buildings on the street. The library had just opened.

I made my way to the third floor and found a comfortable place at a table. After checking my email and my facebook, I sat back and looked around. The furniture was very nice – it was obviously a new building. As I looked around, I couldn't help but notice how disheveled-looking most of the patrons were. Then it hit me. Who else would be at the library that early on a Monday morning? The people who don’t have to go to work or school or stay home and take care of the kids, the homeless people. Almost everyone there was homeless, and I was beginning to wonder if I should be included in that group. I looked down at myself. Again, I was wearing baggy sweat pants, a t-shirt, and a jacket. And to top THAT all off, I was wearing a hat that had just been given to me. Next thing I know I'll be begging on the street corner for cash. And after this trip is over, I might be poor enough that I’ll have to.