I'd just like to let everyone know that starting May 1st I will be coached by Tyler Hamilton (..yeah that Tyler Hamilton). I've had a lot of good mentors over the past couple months and hopefully I will still be able to learn from them, but I am very excited about working with Tyler. We had our first conversation today and he seems like such an easy-going laid-back kind of guy. It doesn't hurt that we can discuss what he did in the lead up to the Dauphine and the Tour when we're talking about my upcoming training schedule! Now I've just got to get to work!
I'm still shooting for Mt Hood but Superweek and Cascade Classic have also come into the picture now. Superweek should be a lot of fun and great experience then hopefully I'll be able to throw down at Cascade and really take a run at the overall.
For those of you that don't know me: I am a 19-year-old road racer (I do some CX mountain biking at the collegiate level). I was born in Northampton, England (and am an English citizen) but I have been raised in Las Vegas, Nevada (I currently live just off campus at USC in Los Angeles). I played soccer from a very young age and picked up cycling at 13 to improve my fitness. I began racing at 15, fell in love, and am now a CAT 2.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Where I've Been and Where I'm Going
Needless to say I am not where I wanted to be at this point in the season. I've had no real results to speak of and far too many DNFs. I 'officially' gave up on my dream of racing the Gila after I bombed out of the UCLA road race a couple of weeks ago but the decision was probably made for me in February.
I came into base training in November incredibly motivated to have a big year. I wanted to prove myself to my new team, to get my CAT 1 as soon as possible and hopefully put myself on track to have a chance to ride with a Trek-Livestrong or U23 Garmin type development program within a couple of years. I trained my ass off throughout November and December putting in too many miles and way too much intensity...there were times when I would put in 4 consecutive 6 hour climbing days. I felt that my recovery was adequate but needless to say I was over training. By early January I was doing 5 hour rides in Vegas with some strong local CAT 2s and I was torturing them the entire time.
When racing rolled around at the end of February I was super fit...too fit. I should have been killing people. But, still hyper-motivated I often overtrained in the weeks leading up to races and didn't have much left by the time the weekends rolled around. That and a string of bad luck left me with little but a couple decent performances at the opening CBR crit (and a $20 prime from there) and a top 30 on the way to helping my teammate to 5th at the Valley of the Sun road race in Phoenix.
It was about this time that shit started to hit the fan. I finally hit a wall and became exhausted from all of my overtraining. This coupled with my lack-luster results and some off the bike issues left me stressed and not wanting to ride much. This snowballed and my training took a knock for a couple weeks. Then the BIG one.
I was extremely excited for the chance to go back to Vegas to race the Callville Bay Classic, the race I've made my own, winning as a CAT 5 two years ago and as a CAT 3 last year. I was hoping to repeat in front of family and friends in Las Vegas. The motivation from the race helped me start to turn around out of my slump. Then on an innocent easy training ride in Griffith Park in LA the day before the race, just hours before I was to leave for Vegas, it started to rain, the dusty Hollywood Road (closed to vehicle traffic and thus slightly neglected when it comes to maintanence) got slick and I went down in a corner on a descent doing 25 mph. It should have been a nothing crash...at first I was more worried about my equipment. This was only my second ride on my team issue Cannondale SuperSix, which actually came out unscathed, and I had broken a buckle off my relatively new $400 BONTs (that probably upset me more than anything!). As it turns out my equipment fared relatively well because I had somehow taken the entire brunt of the fall with my face! I knew I had hit my face but I figured it was alright and I checked the other important parts: collarbone-fine, hip-road rash, shoulder-sore/road rash but nothing broken (except my nose!). Then I felt my face again. My right eyebrow, nose, lip and chin had all taken a hit and when I brought my hand away it was covered in blood. This was way worse than I thought. All of this is a little blury...I mean I hit my head pretty hard....but I got back on my bike and continued on. I figured I would have to stop by the medical center when I got back to campus but I figured it wasn't terrible. Riding was a trip....I don't remember much but I finished off my loop of Griffith Park in a daze before a cyclocrosser passing in a car stopped and offered a ride. He had seen me from behind and mentioned how he was impressed by how I attacked a small rise. Then he said as he passed me, he saw my face covered in blood, blood flowing from the tip of my nose the way sweat does. At this point I was in pain, the adrenaline had subsided and I needed a ride back to school badly. Sometimes you've just got to trust people and this was one of those times. He threw my bike in the back of his jeep and I got in. Again, I don't remember much about the drive except I saw my reflection for the first time...I was FUCKED...it started to rain which made me even more thankful for the ride, and I called my mom...who freaked out.
Anyway this story is already way too long so in simple details: total 18 stitches in my eyebrow, nose, lip and chin, broken (but not displaced) nose, got a bottle of much needed Vicodin, teammates picked me up and took me and my bike to Vegas as I still wanted to race, got home, slept, decided against racing, saw a plastic surgeon and was then tortured for 4 days watching my teammates racing the race I had so badly wanted to win.
The crash not only set me back physically but mentally. My first race back was probably not very intelligently the Merco Classic Grand Prix in downtown Merced at the beginning of March. My cornering ability was ruined and I was a nervous mess. Then about 15 minutes in someone slammed on the brakes in front of me, so did I and Justin Williams slammed into my rear wheel almost bringing me down with him. If that was enough, he had somehow dislodged my rear wheel which I didn't notice until I went skipping trough a turn and almost lost control a few seconds later. If my crit balls were questionable before the race, they had definitely disappeared by this point. I got a neutral wheel, got back into the race, and tailgunned for a while but I didn't have the fitness to hold on to the yo-yo at the back of what was more or less a stacked NRC peloton (Bissell, UHC, Bahati, Yahoo, Fly V). After another mechanical I called it a day. The following day went slightly better. My pack riding was still sketchy and I was almost brought down mid-race once by a road-kill racoon. And a second time I actually did go down when another rider crashed in front of me in the peloton. I found myself lying in a soft pile of dirt at the side of the road unscathed, got up, dusted off and chased back onto the main field. All in all I had a relatively good day, motorpacing off the NRC crowd and even following Rory Sutherland on a little attack up a small hill before the finish. Unfortunately, although I was hoping for a better finish I got caught up in a crash that brought down my teammate Alex Jarman with less than 3km to go. I didn't go down but was forced to slam on my brakes, shredding my tubular and distancing myself enough to write off any chance of a top 10 in the bunch sprint (a break containing one of the Jacques-Maynes brothers had already taken the top 10+ places). The following weekend at the Tour de Murrieta, it was more of the same. After a non-to-shabby (yet non-to-impressive) TT, I DNF'ed the crit due to my recent testicle-ectomy and motorpaced for the duration of the circuit race, unable to move up the field (again due to my testicle-ectomy). After that I went to Vegas for a 4 day spring break were I enjoyed riding on some familiar roads and started to get back into the swing of things. I even went out to a local USCF-sanctioned Tuesday night crit where I drove a break for ~40 of the 45 minutes, picked up $60 in primes and a 6th place.
Then San Dimas. Another one of my favorite races. I finished 3rd as a CAT 4 but suffered last year with bronchitis. Well San Dimas was a shit show. I still can't put my finger on exactly why, but I was putting out absolutely no power. I cracked badly on the TT and went 50 seconds slower than I had when I was 16 years old in the CAT 4s! The road race was more of the same. I couldn't match the acceleration up the climb, got dropped and was time cut from the race. I don't want to say more...it was HUMILIATING.
Since then I've been fighting to get back on track but I've been feeling fatigued a lot...almost as if I have chronic fatigue or something. I sleep 10-11 hours a night sometimes and I'm still beat. Regardless I'm fighting to get back into a good pattern of training and hopefully I'm on the up and up.
At the moment I have a block of three hard road races coming up, De Vlees Huis RR (90 mi) in Bakersfield this weekend, Devil's Punchbowl RR(80 miles and a lot of climbing) the next weekend in the Palmdale area and San Luis Rey RR (103 mi, hilly) in San Diego the following weekend. Along with a few solid training days I'm hoping these races should help me get back to a good place come May. On top of that I'm starting to feel a little more confident in crits after last weekend's Dana Point Grand Prix and with a little fitness in the bank from this month and some solid training back in Vegas throughout May I'm hoping to be able to put the hammer down at Mt Hood at the beginning of June and really show the form I've been working for since November.
Upcoming Races:
De Vlees Huis RR (4/18)
Devil's Punchbowl RR (4/24)
Chuck Pontius Crit (4/25)
Barrio Logan GP (5/1)
San Luis Rey RR (5/2)
Riding Amgen Tour of California Stage 6: 135 miles Palmdale-Big Bear (5/8)
Mt Whitney SR (5/15-5/16, tentative)
Mt Hood Cycling Classic (6/1-6/6)
I came into base training in November incredibly motivated to have a big year. I wanted to prove myself to my new team, to get my CAT 1 as soon as possible and hopefully put myself on track to have a chance to ride with a Trek-Livestrong or U23 Garmin type development program within a couple of years. I trained my ass off throughout November and December putting in too many miles and way too much intensity...there were times when I would put in 4 consecutive 6 hour climbing days. I felt that my recovery was adequate but needless to say I was over training. By early January I was doing 5 hour rides in Vegas with some strong local CAT 2s and I was torturing them the entire time.
When racing rolled around at the end of February I was super fit...too fit. I should have been killing people. But, still hyper-motivated I often overtrained in the weeks leading up to races and didn't have much left by the time the weekends rolled around. That and a string of bad luck left me with little but a couple decent performances at the opening CBR crit (and a $20 prime from there) and a top 30 on the way to helping my teammate to 5th at the Valley of the Sun road race in Phoenix.
It was about this time that shit started to hit the fan. I finally hit a wall and became exhausted from all of my overtraining. This coupled with my lack-luster results and some off the bike issues left me stressed and not wanting to ride much. This snowballed and my training took a knock for a couple weeks. Then the BIG one.
I was extremely excited for the chance to go back to Vegas to race the Callville Bay Classic, the race I've made my own, winning as a CAT 5 two years ago and as a CAT 3 last year. I was hoping to repeat in front of family and friends in Las Vegas. The motivation from the race helped me start to turn around out of my slump. Then on an innocent easy training ride in Griffith Park in LA the day before the race, just hours before I was to leave for Vegas, it started to rain, the dusty Hollywood Road (closed to vehicle traffic and thus slightly neglected when it comes to maintanence) got slick and I went down in a corner on a descent doing 25 mph. It should have been a nothing crash...at first I was more worried about my equipment. This was only my second ride on my team issue Cannondale SuperSix, which actually came out unscathed, and I had broken a buckle off my relatively new $400 BONTs (that probably upset me more than anything!). As it turns out my equipment fared relatively well because I had somehow taken the entire brunt of the fall with my face! I knew I had hit my face but I figured it was alright and I checked the other important parts: collarbone-fine, hip-road rash, shoulder-sore/road rash but nothing broken (except my nose!). Then I felt my face again. My right eyebrow, nose, lip and chin had all taken a hit and when I brought my hand away it was covered in blood. This was way worse than I thought. All of this is a little blury...I mean I hit my head pretty hard....but I got back on my bike and continued on. I figured I would have to stop by the medical center when I got back to campus but I figured it wasn't terrible. Riding was a trip....I don't remember much but I finished off my loop of Griffith Park in a daze before a cyclocrosser passing in a car stopped and offered a ride. He had seen me from behind and mentioned how he was impressed by how I attacked a small rise. Then he said as he passed me, he saw my face covered in blood, blood flowing from the tip of my nose the way sweat does. At this point I was in pain, the adrenaline had subsided and I needed a ride back to school badly. Sometimes you've just got to trust people and this was one of those times. He threw my bike in the back of his jeep and I got in. Again, I don't remember much about the drive except I saw my reflection for the first time...I was FUCKED...it started to rain which made me even more thankful for the ride, and I called my mom...who freaked out.
Anyway this story is already way too long so in simple details: total 18 stitches in my eyebrow, nose, lip and chin, broken (but not displaced) nose, got a bottle of much needed Vicodin, teammates picked me up and took me and my bike to Vegas as I still wanted to race, got home, slept, decided against racing, saw a plastic surgeon and was then tortured for 4 days watching my teammates racing the race I had so badly wanted to win.
The crash not only set me back physically but mentally. My first race back was probably not very intelligently the Merco Classic Grand Prix in downtown Merced at the beginning of March. My cornering ability was ruined and I was a nervous mess. Then about 15 minutes in someone slammed on the brakes in front of me, so did I and Justin Williams slammed into my rear wheel almost bringing me down with him. If that was enough, he had somehow dislodged my rear wheel which I didn't notice until I went skipping trough a turn and almost lost control a few seconds later. If my crit balls were questionable before the race, they had definitely disappeared by this point. I got a neutral wheel, got back into the race, and tailgunned for a while but I didn't have the fitness to hold on to the yo-yo at the back of what was more or less a stacked NRC peloton (Bissell, UHC, Bahati, Yahoo, Fly V). After another mechanical I called it a day. The following day went slightly better. My pack riding was still sketchy and I was almost brought down mid-race once by a road-kill racoon. And a second time I actually did go down when another rider crashed in front of me in the peloton. I found myself lying in a soft pile of dirt at the side of the road unscathed, got up, dusted off and chased back onto the main field. All in all I had a relatively good day, motorpacing off the NRC crowd and even following Rory Sutherland on a little attack up a small hill before the finish. Unfortunately, although I was hoping for a better finish I got caught up in a crash that brought down my teammate Alex Jarman with less than 3km to go. I didn't go down but was forced to slam on my brakes, shredding my tubular and distancing myself enough to write off any chance of a top 10 in the bunch sprint (a break containing one of the Jacques-Maynes brothers had already taken the top 10+ places). The following weekend at the Tour de Murrieta, it was more of the same. After a non-to-shabby (yet non-to-impressive) TT, I DNF'ed the crit due to my recent testicle-ectomy and motorpaced for the duration of the circuit race, unable to move up the field (again due to my testicle-ectomy). After that I went to Vegas for a 4 day spring break were I enjoyed riding on some familiar roads and started to get back into the swing of things. I even went out to a local USCF-sanctioned Tuesday night crit where I drove a break for ~40 of the 45 minutes, picked up $60 in primes and a 6th place.
Then San Dimas. Another one of my favorite races. I finished 3rd as a CAT 4 but suffered last year with bronchitis. Well San Dimas was a shit show. I still can't put my finger on exactly why, but I was putting out absolutely no power. I cracked badly on the TT and went 50 seconds slower than I had when I was 16 years old in the CAT 4s! The road race was more of the same. I couldn't match the acceleration up the climb, got dropped and was time cut from the race. I don't want to say more...it was HUMILIATING.
Since then I've been fighting to get back on track but I've been feeling fatigued a lot...almost as if I have chronic fatigue or something. I sleep 10-11 hours a night sometimes and I'm still beat. Regardless I'm fighting to get back into a good pattern of training and hopefully I'm on the up and up.
At the moment I have a block of three hard road races coming up, De Vlees Huis RR (90 mi) in Bakersfield this weekend, Devil's Punchbowl RR(80 miles and a lot of climbing) the next weekend in the Palmdale area and San Luis Rey RR (103 mi, hilly) in San Diego the following weekend. Along with a few solid training days I'm hoping these races should help me get back to a good place come May. On top of that I'm starting to feel a little more confident in crits after last weekend's Dana Point Grand Prix and with a little fitness in the bank from this month and some solid training back in Vegas throughout May I'm hoping to be able to put the hammer down at Mt Hood at the beginning of June and really show the form I've been working for since November.
Upcoming Races:
De Vlees Huis RR (4/18)
Devil's Punchbowl RR (4/24)
Chuck Pontius Crit (4/25)
Barrio Logan GP (5/1)
San Luis Rey RR (5/2)
Riding Amgen Tour of California Stage 6: 135 miles Palmdale-Big Bear (5/8)
Mt Whitney SR (5/15-5/16, tentative)
Mt Hood Cycling Classic (6/1-6/6)
Thursday, April 15, 2010
New Blog Finally!
I've got a new blog coming soon discussing my season up until this point (highlights and lowlights...mostly lowlights....and moving forward from here).
Problem is I typed it up on my Blackberry and I can't seem to get decent Wi-Fi to copy it over to my blog...
Problem is I typed it up on my Blackberry and I can't seem to get decent Wi-Fi to copy it over to my blog...
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