Spring Break... I wish mine was as exciting as those teen Hollywood movies portray it to be. After returning from Chicago I had one night stop over here on campus and then took off up north to Quincy, Illinois for a couple of days training in the country at Dave Stroot's house. We had a sweet little set up in Dave's aunty's farm house with all the modern conveniences and pretty much all the food we could eat. The first day we rode for 5 hours in pretty much perfect weather the second day was a windy, cold and very wet 3 hours.
About as exciting as it gets on a five hour ride...
Friday it was back to LU for a quick team meeting then off to Lebanon, Indiana for a weekend of racing. First off was the Team Time Trial, which is definitely our teams strongest discipline, but shortly after the start we lost Stroot due to a broken chain but Owen, Frank and myself still managed to put in a strong effort to come in 3rd. In the afternoon I had to back up for the road race which was held on a very unforgiving course which featured a gnarly steep hill and some sketchy cross wind sections. It's by far the best road course I have raced on with a large crowd on the hill each lap which really had a great atmosphere about it. Owen and myself made the break of the day and spent 5 laps of the front in a group of nine. I ended up 5th in the uphill finish and was pretty pleased with the result.
The team cargo van choc-a-bloc.
Qualifying for nationals has been on all the minds of the boys and is very frustrating because we are clearly one of the top 3 mens A teams in the conference but get screwed by other schools because they have females that by just finishing the womens A race get points that count towards Team Qualifications. I'm not trying to be sexist or anything but it's incredibly frustrating for a team with no females that would easily be racing at Nationals if the sexes qualified separately. Our only hope now is that a few of us can qualify individually, fingers and toes crossed I will make it.
Can I recommend to any sporting fan or anyone that needs a bit of life motivation that they read Bradley Wiggins autobiography "In Pursuit of Glory". Not only is a great read it's very motivational even a non cyclist can take something away from it. I hardly put it down, and finished it in three days and I have taken some great lessons away from it.
Anyway I have to go and study for a World History test now but as always, take care!
Chev.
