A BLOGGER WITH NOTHING TO SAY

Training, but not racing. Not even any good group rides to report. Went camping last week with the family and several other families. Spent a ton of time on the road. Long relaxed paced rides. What most experts call base building, except I've been building base since January! Also, I'm not too sure that the grilled camping food along with copious amounts of "Mr. Daniels" in my coke did anything but set my fitness back a tad. Congrats to all the local riders on there results in Iowa City. Looks like several of you are really flying this spring. I hope to have something more (credible) to report in May. Because a blog with nothing to say is a waste of time! But then isn't it always? Ty

I PICKED A BAD WEEK TO RAMP UP MY TRAINING MILES

After seeing all the result pages on bike Iowa, I looked into the mirror and decided to get off the sidelines and kick the training up a notch. But I forgot to tell mother nature about my plans. So several days of rain, added with several long work days, adds up to more boredom hours on the rollers! I hate my basement! Maybe my next house won't have one, and i"ll have no place to ride rollers. I am still debating the actual fitness gains that may be had by riding them. I added in some early morning "hill repeats" at the local cemetery to break it up a bit. This was a good thing. Last cross season, the run ups were an Achilles heel. So the old adage of practice your week points was my plan. Running up a really big hill countless times only bolstered my conclusion that I'm way out of shape. Super glad that my desired race season doesn't start till September!!! Still, I gotta pick it up. Ty

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS

Been a while since my last post. Sorry. It's been a stressful week or so in my life. No need to get into any boring details, but riding the bike went way down the priority chain. Life can come at you fast. You are rollin along on smooth pavement with everything under control, and then POP! Next thing you know you're in your own version of a Dr. Phil show. In times like these you always find out who your true friends are. The people in that small circle in your life you can always count on. To all of you out there, and you know who you are, THANK YOU!!! After a ton of hashing things out, and making some of the toughest decisions of my life, things are moving back towards the normal side of life. And with that today I had time for a looooong ride. It was a tad chilly and as always I over dressed for it, but I just wanted to ride forever. It felt good. And as it always does in that therapeutic way, helped. After Kent park, the season is now in full swing. I am way behind on the training curve, and that's o.k. for now. The way the other guys on the team are flying this spring, it won't take long just holding onto the tail of training rides to get back into shape. Thank you again for all the prayers and words of encouragement sent my way this week. They were received and heart felt! Ty