It's been a while but things on the bike are looking great! I have been getting out about 5 days a week and over last week and this week I will have over 400 miles. All I am really looking for is a great start to the year at Hillsboro the first week in April.
I have a new bike and I think that is helping me tremendously. It is 3 pounds lighter than my old rig, as well as it has STI shifters. It was supposed to be a loaner from a friend on the team but I felt bad using such a nice bike so I offered to buy it from him and he agreed. Larry is his name, and he has really been helping me out these last couple of months. I have sort of been looking to him as a coach of sorts. It is strange being in a sport where you really have no coach, so getting help from friends is really nice.
I have my first 100 mile ride tomorrow since I was 13 or 14 years old. I remember that ride was the worst ride of my life. It was my 3rd attempt at doing 100 miles and I was determined to do it. I think it took me 8 hours and I did 40 or 50 miles of it on my own because I was dropped from my group. I think I will fare much better on this ride, although I don't think that we will set any speed records since we have a lot of slower guys that are not quite in shape for the season yet. Not that I should really talk, I have only just started to feel like I can hang somewhat with the fast guys on the team. And really if they ever wanted to drop me they could in a split second.
I need to start working more on my intervals and getting my power up higher. I am not really able to turn my big gears as well as I think I should. So now over the next few weeks that will be my goal. I know that I can spin and I feel very comfortable doing that, but I need speed. My top end just isn't where I want it to be. So I will have to work.
Later.

First solo ride outside of the year

I was able to get out of the house today and ride my bike and it was a good ride. I put in over 40 miles, it took a little over 2 hours to finish. I really had a lot of energy and had no real problem with the wind today (15mph). It is just another example of how my training is working and that keeps pushing me harder to succeed. I am really going to be ready for the race season to start at the beginning of April.

I AM COOKIN NOW! I feel awesome! I have been working my ass off this last month on my road bike doing some good miles. I was shooting for 400 miles this month but I have instead put up 539 miles. Granted only about 100 of those miles were outside but who wants to be riding outside. I road outside today and it was hairy in some places. Ice everywhere, and tons of wind to blow you right over. But I felt good, really good. I could have done way more. I have been paying more attention to how I am feeding my body while on the bike and all this other work I have been doing is paying off. This is only going to feed my desire to be even better. Last year I was really getting down on myself because I came into my team as a new guy at the end of the season. These guys were finishing their seasons and they were fast so I would get dropped every day. Well I think that might change this year. I have been doing a lot of updating to my bike and I have some more to do. I think I will at least be really competitive with my group of guys (Cat 5s) at least I hope so. It will be a major blow if I show up to the first real team ride and I still get smoked. Well I have about another 1000 miles to click off before the season starts so I better get to that.

So what I am really into now days in bicycle racing. I used to really be into it when I was a kid. For about 3 years in Jr High I raced mountain bikes with my good friend Corey Steinbrecher. We both raced for our local bike shop, Pro Bikes and Likes. They were some awesome people and I loved to spend all my time there. I even worked there for about a year when I was 13, they never told me what I made an hour and would most of the time try to get me to buy bike parts instead of paying me but I loved it. Then I got into some other stuff and kind of lost interest in racing which was kinda sad now because I had a good shop of a sponsorship if I kept going. I also used to be pretty good at baseball. Played that for 10 years until high school. I got tired of coaches looking at me and never thinking I would be any good because I was small. I wasn't the best offensive player, but I was fast and a great defensive player. I once gunned down a batter from left field at first base. I thought that was cool. So in high school I joined our boys gymnastics team at Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn IL. I got really good really fast and by the time I was a senior I was in the top ten in the state and was going to the University of Illinois to compete for the varsity gymnastics team. While there I competed on Floor Rings Vault and High Bar. We were Big Ten Champs in 2004 and 3rd in the nation twice, 2004 and 2005. So when I got out of gymnastics I didn't want to do anything athletic at all. Gymnastics was a huge part of my life. I put a lot of things on hold to do it and now I was going to just relax. So three years down the road I no longer look like a lean mean fighting machine. I'm looking a little round and my clothes are not fitting so well any more. That is when I decided to climb back on the bike. The problem was that I didn't really have any money to throw down on a new bike. I was putting my wife through nursing school and we didn't have a lot to spare. So my dad gave me one of his old racing bike, and Cannondal 3.0 Crit bike from 1989. I tore that thing down to the metal and rebuilt it into a beatiful looking bike. Jet black. So since last August I have been training my butt off for this race season, I did race a mountain bike race last August and placed 2nd in that, but I want to really make a splash this season and see if I can really kick some butt. I have some good goals set for myself and so far I am breaking them. More on that later.