Clean Sweep! 2011 Road Nationals

I know this is a few weeks late (edit weeks turned into months). But, I’ve been on the road for coming up on 9 weeks now, and things have kind of been crazy to say the least. Road Nationals were held in Augusta Georgia this year, and the city did an AMAZING job putting on what I thought was the best road nationals I’ve been to yet.

Things started off fast paced and a little crazy just getting there. I had the second world cup the week before nationals in Spain and flew home for all of 2 days before heading back out again. I took off Thursday from San Diego to head to Colo

rado Springs to pick up Greta and her sister N

adia. From there it was just a quick short 27 hour drive to Augusta. It rained for 26.5 of the 27 hours, the other 30 minutes the ground was covered with snow. We arrived Saturday night in town with plenty of time before racing began on Thursday. I wanted plenty of time to get settled in, see the courses, and get used to the heat.

TT course was much better in my mind then the last 2 years in Bend. The course started out on the Strom Thurmond Dam and traveled out for 11k along a mostly flat to rolling road then just a cone at an intersection and back in to the starting line. Pretty simple. I got a handful of laps on the course before race day and my legs felt pre

tty good. The weather was looking to be a tad toasty for race day, the days leading up it was in the upper 90s around 3 pm, which was when my start time was. I was hoping for rain, praying, doing the rain dance, anything, I LOVE racing in the rain. Well turns out, I got my wish. It started raining around maybe 12 or 1 that day and kept raining all the way through the race and finished up maybe an hour after I was done. My race itself went pretty well, I’ve spent a ton of time over the last year working on my TT game after last years disaster at nationals and failing to make the road worlds team. As a side note, t

he TT at Road Nationals is the selection event for the Road Worlds Paralympic team. Needless to say, this was the most important race of the year. And I feel I rode the race of the year for me, so far that is. In the end, my time was good enough to win my classification, National Championship number 1 for the week, and give me a spot to the Road Worlds Team to be held in Denmark in September.

The crit was held in downtown Augusta the day af

ter the TT. I am glad we have the crit for para racing, but it has room to grow. The turn out this year was bigger then last year, but still could be bigger. For the crit, we all started together, all the separate classifications, C1-5 men and woman. Things rolled along smoothly for me. Nothing really too exciting, just hid as much as I could and wanted to make it to the line safely. Mission accomplished! Crossed the line first in my classification giving me National Championship number 2 for the week.

Saturday brought the road race and the final day of racing. The race was held on Fort Gordon, the local Army base. I do love when the military lets us race on their bases. It’s nice to get out of the normal streets for racing from time to time. The course was a bit harder then it appeared on paper. No long climbs, but lots of short punchy climbs that would take it’s toll. Me being me, attacked from the gun, literally from the whistle. I didn’t really have enough time to get my legs warmed up and felt a little sluggish in the morning, so f

igured that if I went first, I would get to control the early pace to some extent. My plan worked. Once again, the men and woman C1-5 all started together giving us a larger field to race together. Turned out my attack from the gun pretty much cut the field in half from the start, which was kind of nice in a way. I stayed with the main group for the majority of lap 1 of 2 and towards the end of lap 1 the group was getting smaller and smaller and I was dropped from what was left of the front group. I ended up riding the second lap alone in between groups. Which in the end was enough to stay ahead of anyone in my classification and pick up my third national championship of the weekend.

I know this is rather late in coming, but I started this blog on the road several weeks ago and honestly forgot to finish it. Now I am sitting on an airplane headed to Colorado springs for final prep camp before heading off to Denmark for Road Worlds.

I really can’t say enough to thank everyone that has helped me to get here. 2011 has been a big year for me, first national championships (And 3 to top it off), first time making the worlds team and so much more. Without the help of Travis (N

itro Circus), Brent from Ride Cyclery, Sonja with Zipp and Sram, Dave at Engine Ice, Brett Clare for always yelling at me, Daggs for keeping me from 35 hours a week all year long and everyone else, thank you helping me make it this far.

Solvang TOC TT

WOW! So, I am trying to be better with this. But WOW! That is all I can say about the Time Trial at Solvang during the Tour of California. Last week, friday may 20, I was able to race the TT thanks to AEG. They do an amateur race in the morning before the pro's take off and this year they were nice enough to let me take part in it.

This is something that I dreamt of last year. I wanted to put something together for myself and some of the other para riders to be able to race there. This turned out to be a much bigger undertaking then I thought in the beginning and in the end, I was only able to get one spot for myself. But, I have to start some where right? Hopefully next year I can pull it off to make it bigger and better. Maybe ride the entire TOC? Hmmmm, maybe.... Anyhow, a HUGE thank you to Bob Kaplin, Ryan Ung, Neil Shirley, Ben Delaney, Alex Jarman, Brent/Ride Cyclery, Sonja, The Breck Family, and everyone else that helped me in this one!

I headed up on Thursday to stay at The Breck's house, nice and close to thestart. Solvang isn't that far? Right? Well, turns out mileage yes, it's not that far. As well all know though, traveling through LA can have its issues. 200 mile drive turned into a 7 hour adventure to get there. But, with basically no issues, other then more sitting time then I wanted, I made it there. Took off for a drive of the course with Benny in the bug to do a little scouting work. Then back to the house for a real home cooked meal! Jiffy Corn Bread muffins!!!!!!! Life really doesn't get much better then that. I was in heaven! What a better way to rest up the night before a race then with some real comfort food?

Morning of the race things went rather smooth, well as smooth as I figured they would for something that big. After wondering around for 20 minutes or so I finally found the area that AEG had set up for all the riders taking part in the amateur TT. Parked the car and lugged my stuff over to set up. Found a nice little spot hiding behind the local bike shop in town there to warm up. With everything set up, checked in, and ready to go. I had a few hours till start time. So off I went on my road bike to ride a lap of the course. Took off in a nice easy pace and ran into the Road Bike Action Group with Neil Shirley in it. Chatted for a bit about the race and how things were going with him. Then finished off riding the course. There were already an amazing amount of people setting up camp along the course to watch the race. *A side note, riding ballard canyon on your road bike with climbing gearing on it doesn't really give you an idea to how it will feel during the TT.

I had little time between getting back from my scouting lap and race time. Changed into my skin suit and got all my aero dorky gear laid out to be ready to race and hoped on the trainer to finish up my warm up. Things went fine during warm up and my legs felt pretty good. Hoped off the trainer a little early to make my way through the crowd to the start house. Now one of the coolest parts of the TT is that they use the same start house for us as the Pro's. Complete with THE Dave Towle doing the announcing! On my way to the start line I ran into an old friend, Todd from Sram, it's nice to see old face (one of my favorite things about racing) and sometimes you get a little extra motivation from them. So thanks Todd for a few good words before I took off. Into the starting area I went. Oddly, I wasn't even the least bit nervous, actually was joking with some of the other guys about who was going to catch who. Turns out I did most of the catching that day.

Now, I am terrible at guessing about how many people are watching a race. But if I had to guess how many were at the starting line screaming when I took off, I'd say about 15,000. Doubtful, but that's what I am going to tell myself. It was probably one of the most amazing moments of my cycling career rolling down the start ramp hearing all those people screaming for me and pounding on the fence! The course itself was a ton of fun, hard, but fun. Probably the hardest TT course I've raced yet. Things start out pretty hard there. About 100 feet in a straight flat line, then a 90 left turn and straight up a wall. The climb out of the box was actually kind of nice. Enough to get the heart rate up and legs flowing, but as long as you paced it right, not enough to kill you. Now, at the top of the hill, I heard a fire truck, but didn't really think anything of it. I just crested the hill, followed my motorcycle down the hill and right when I was up to speed around 40-45 mph that fire truck came ripping past me. I was in the middle of the road in a neighborhood that the speed limit was 25 and the truck past me. And scared the ever loving shit out of me! I think I actually peed a little in my skinsuit. Turns out the 90 right hand turn at the bottom of the hill and the barriers reached up and bit one of the guys that took off in front of me. Hope he's okay.

The rest of the race was rather straight forward, a large amount of suffering, pain, crying and general misery was the call of the day. I guess that means I was doing it right? Ballard canyon was probably the best part of the course. You climb about 700 meters maybe? Not really sure. But for TT course it is pretty steep. At the bottom I saw 3 or 4 riders that I was coming up on pretty quickly. Someone at the bottom knew my name and was screaming they were ahead of me and to crush the hill! Going up the climb was a mess! There 4 riders in front of me, so a motorcycle escort for each of them, plus mine and 2 media cars. I felt like I was really doing a pro race weaving in an out of the cars, riders, moto's and screaming fans! At the top I saw Benny and a few others screaming and jumping up and down! It really was cool having friends out there screaming my name for me! Dropping down the climb was a super fast fun descent. The run into finish over the last 10k or so is pretty fast. Couple S turns that I hit almost too fast and passed my motor, had to scream at him a few times to move out of my way. I think he thought I had a few screws lose, he's probably right?

The last 1k of the race is a blur! I had a rider about 10 seconds in front of me as I crested the last little rise into town and saw the 1k to go. I was way past TT pace at that point. I had the town screaming, people all over the place and wanted to catch the last rider coming into the finish line. Rolling into town I took the last 90 left turn way too fast and thought for sure I was gonna yard sale it into the fence and land on the spectators, but somehow hit the corner fast enough and stayed up right, full sprint onto the line. After crossing the line I had to grab a fence to avoid falling over. I was so cooked I couldn't even manage to get my feet out of the clips. I had a handful of people yell my name and talk to me, but to be honest, I was so cracked I didn't really know where I was for probably 20 minutes.

In the end, my time was actually good enough for 22 out of the 60 amateurs that raced. I was actually surprised I had beat that many people. I was no where near close to even the last place guy in the pro race. But by now I know my place in the cycling world.

I really can't say enough about how amazing this was for me! And a huge thank you again to AEG for letting me take part in this. And everyone else that helped me pull this together. Not just for this event, but just for helping me pull my 2011 season together!

I am getting slightly better at updating my blog. Hopefully I'll keep getting better! I am off to Spain on monday for the second Para Road World Cup. Maybe I'll be motivated enough to put my blog together on the plane back home!

Thanks to Kim Weixel for the photos. Hopefully I'll get some more and can add them later.

Australia World Cup

Well, I've been back for exactly one week. And it's been, well a heck of a week to say the least. I actually haven't forgotten or been to lazy for once to do this. Rather I wasn't really sure what to say. I am still not 100% sure on how I feel about how things went down under. But, it's about time to stop worrying about how I feel. Onto the race report!

Travel to Australia was something that I had a hard time wrapping my head around. Going there, I left LAX at 11pm on a saturday night, and landed monday at 7 am. Wait, where did sunday go? I lost may 1 on my way there. I am used to losing things, a day was a new one to me though.

Anyhow, flight was fine, bags showed up on time an in order. I did however get taken in the airport! I hadn't reserved a car or anything to get from the airport to the motel. I had figured we'd just get a cab (We being me and Brandon my trusty mechanic). I saw a sign for limo service. Why not? I asked about it, and the lady said it would be cheaper then a cab ride. Why not? $100 ride to the motel in a stretch limo! It was worth it. I later found out that the cab ride was only $45. Oh well, it was worth it!

Nothing really too exciting for the first part of the week. Just got the bike together and did a few easy spins while waiting for race day to approach. I wondered around the area of the olympic park and rode some pretty cool bike paths and rode out to a nature refuge.

Things went down hill at classification. I have never had an international classification, a panel of 3 doctors meet and examine you and determine how disabled they think you are. Now, I have some disagreements on some of the stuff the UCI does in regards to this. But, I am not really going to go into that now. With that in mind, last year I raced as a C1, the most disabled of the regular two wheeled bikes. The US doctor and the Canadian doctor both agreed that they felt I was a C1 based on my neuro systems and the way I ride. Well, the panel felt a little different. I meet all the paper criteria for the medical side of things, but for some reason being able to ride a bike in a parking lot moved me up to a C2. Well thats just F'ing great! F ME! They told me that they were going to take video of me in the road race and tt and that I could contest it at spain and ask for a review. Great, so I get to fly myself to spain for that one? Awesome!

Well, there was really nothing to be done about my classification while I was in Sydney. So, it was just try and get my head together for the road race and do what I could.

The road race was on a motor speed way and the near by drag strip with some access roads joining the two together. Nothing too technical, a little more climbing that what the profile showed, but I was happy to see that. For the road race, they combined the C1, 2 and 3 fields. I figured some of the 3's would get away early and I was hoping I would be able to go with them. Things were fine early on the first lap after we started losing a few guys. But, I had a little bit of a brain fart and slid farther back in the group then I should have and had two guys crack in front of me on what was pretty much the only real climb of the course, which happened to be on a narrow section of road. Lesson learned, well relearned. Be near the front AWLAYS! My fault, I screwed up. By the time I got around the two guys, the gap was too much for me to close. I spent the rest of the race in a chase group of 4 or 5 guys. Mostly 2's that sat on my wheel. To be honest, it was pretty silly. I rode pretty hard for a few laps thinking maybe the race would come back together. After realizing no one would work with me, or could? I pulled the plug. No one else would really do anything. I literally slowed down to 8 mph a few times because no one would come around me. On the last lap I tried a few times to get away, but with that huge kick I have, I wasn't able to get enough of a gap. In the end I finished 5th. Two guys were up the road long gone, and two guys got me at the line. Overall, I learned a lot about racing some of the international guys. The front few are strong and know how to race, the rest, well, I'll leave it at that.

The TT on paper had looked really technical and after talking it over with some people, decided against my better judgment to leave the TT bike at home and just take the road bike and a disk. Lesson learned again, always take your TT bike! Unless its a mountain TT, see San Dimas, take the TT bike. I wasn't too sure how I would stack up against the guys in the new classification, but it didn't matter what my classification was, that had no barring on how hard I was going to ride. On paper, I rode one of the better TT's I've ever ridden. Power was good, pacing was good. For once I could have maybe actually gone out a touch harder, did you hear that Brett? I didn't go out too hard for once! In the end, my time was good enough for 5th place again.

Looking back, there are lots to be frustrated with. I came home with two 5th place finishes. In my mind, a failure. Many people have said I should be happy with those. But, that's not really what has gotten me this far. Had I been classed as a 1 like had been thought, I would have won the road race and the TT. Which is what my plan was. But things don't always go as planned. I feel I rode the TT as best I could, had I had my TT bike, I might have finished in 4th at best. The RR, I rode good, but not smart enough.

In the end, I walked away with having learned a lot. I think that is the most I can ask for. I can't say enough about all my new sponsors this year and my old ones that have stood by me no matter what. It really is amazing to have so many people standing behind me and believe in me, even when others don't.

For now, I am headed off to Solvang on thursday of this week to race the TT in the Tour of California. I was lucky enough to talk AEG into letting me race in it this year. So look for some press in the coming week on that one and hopefully a write up next weekend on it.

I am also off to Spain for the second world cup in june to hope to get my classification sorted out.

Lets try a little better

Okay, so I basically fell off the face of the earth on this blog stuff. But, here's to a new season, that's been going on for a few months now, and a new year, its almost may. Details though.

Lots of new stuff for me this year. I am on a new bike, BH Bikes , a new shop, Ride Cyclery and a list of other changes. I put my own deal together this year with the help of Travis (Nitro Circus), Ride Cyclery, BH, Power Bar, EngineIce, Zipp, Sram, Conti, Fizik, and SockGuy. I'll be going after the Para World Cup series this year as well as Para Road Nationals and hopefully Road Worlds as well. A handful of other stuff in there as well.

I am headed off to Australia tomorrow for the first round of the UCI Para Road World Cup series. Racing starts on thursday with the road race and friday with a TT. I am really looking forward to the races. Weather looks terrible, which I tend to like and am used to after a rough winter for socal. And with around 30 days of racing already in my legs, I am feeling really good going into this.

When I get back from Australia, I managed to talk AEG into giving me a spot to race the Time Trial at the Tour of California on May 20 in Solvang Ca. I am really excited about this and am hoping to get some good press out of it and more exposure for Para Athletes in general.

I know I've said it before and am still slacking, but am going to make an effort to update my blog more often. And have a revamp on my regular site as well in the next week or two.

Been slacking, but I have some big NEWS!

Okay, sorry that I basically completely fell off the face of the earth on my blog. I was doing so good. Then nationals came and went, I had a good road race (Third) and the week went down hill from there. Didn't make the worlds team and had a bit of a rough time swallowing that pill. I headed back to superweek for my summer road trip and had a blast there as usual racing and getting worked on a daily basis. Enough of that. Time for something BIG!

As some of that follow my twitter/facebook have noticed, I've been talking about Germany a bit. Well, I've been following a company called Xcell in germany for about 5 years now. I've been hoping that at some point someone would do enough research in the stem cell area to make me feel okay with allowing them to do some work on me.

Now, I am gonna go ahead and pause for a moment. If you have some "ethically" issue with stem cells, please hold your comments for yourself, email me, or do some research before making any comment about you think its right or wrong, or goes against your "religious" views and get properly educated on the issue.

Anyhow back to what I am doing. I got approval today from the clinic in Cologne that the docs are willing to work on me. Basically its a pretty simple procedure. The docs will take some bone marrow out of my hip, extract the stem cells, do a lumbar puncture, remove some spinal fluid, and mix the spinal fluid and stem cells and replace the fluid back into my spine.

What will this do? Well, thats the million dollar question. No one knows for 100%. I've read lots of patient surveys, research, etc from them. The key thing that makes me feel safe about all this is that no one has gotten worse. I forget the exact numbers, but some where in the 90% range of patients regained some noticeable improvements, which is more then enough of a chance for me.

Why? Well, most of you know some of my issues and some of my story. The short version is that I was paralyzed several years ago, told I'd never walk again. And still have many lingering issues as a result. I still have what I would consider a large amount of nerve pain in both legs/feet. Which, if you've never dealt with nerve pain, you CAN NOT understand it. I assure you, I've broken most of the bones in my body at one point or another, and its something that you simply can not, nor do you want to, understand what it does your mind after years and years of it wearing at you. Another big key thing I am hoping for is that many of the patients have shown improvement in their bowel/bladder control, which is another awesome part of a spinal cord injury. Anyone thats been on a road trip with me knows all about my 10 minute bladder. Hopefully that would be some what better, doubt it can be much worse. There are other areas that I am hoping for improvement. But to be honest, if those 3 things were better, my life would be vastly better.

When? Well, soon. Maybe as soon as the week of September 20 I would be there.

How? Its all pretty simple. I would need to be in the clinic on a monday for some testing. Tuesday would be bone marrow extraction. Wednesday I have the day off. Thursday is lumbar puncture day, the cells would also be implanted same day. I would go back on Friday for follow up. All goes well I can leave saturday to head back to the states. There's a good chance I'll hang around for a few extra days since I am there anyhow.

What do I think of all this? Well, I try and not be a negative person, but not really too much of an upbeat either. I like to try and keep things into a realistic approach. I am trying to not set my hopes up too high on this. If you don't set the bar too high, there's not far to fall if you never hit it. But at the same time, if you never really risk anything, you never get much of a reward. So, in my mind this is my risk. Odds are good from a money stand point this might come close to breaking me, might be time to head back find a job of some degree. But after 7 LONG years, I've come a long way. Both in physical aspects and mental area. And I feel I've done great at putting my head back together and growing as a person. But at the same time I am not really sure how much longer I can hold myself together dealing with the constant pain in my legs.

So, as I've said many times before. There comes a time when you have to put all your cards on the table, be willing to risk it all and lose it all, or you'll never really get any better. I've been told this by a good friend before. "I've never seen anyone thats not afraid to put himself out there like that. You risk it all. I think its your curse though. You see higher highs then anyone will, but see darkness like no one else will." Hopefully this turns into a higher high......

http://www.xcell-center.com/

I'll try and keep everyone updated as to when I am heading over, and once I get there I'll keep everyone in the loop as much as I can as to how things are going! Any questions, comments, concerns, etc, please feel free to either comment or email me!

As always, THANKS EVERYONE!

Where'd the time go?

WOW! I've been home for 5 weeks now from Defi and not really sure where the time went? It seems like I was just on a plane flying home thinking about how I had so much time till nationals.

Well, the weeks fly by sometimes. After getting home I took a much needed break for a few days. Christina, good long time friend from Florida, came out to see me for a few days. Kinda nice to be away from the bike, all of 3 days, and see how the rest of the world lives again. Sometimes I laugh about how far removed I've become from doing anything besides training, racing, and traveling. I had a great time with her playing tour guide around San Diego, even hit a few places I hadn't been to yet.

As much fun as I had with her being here, it was soon over and time to start putting in some serious time on the bike. Road nationals are fast approaching, June 22-24, and I've done nothing short of put a serious beating down on my TT bike. Coach Rick has held to his word in saying that I would be in the box leading up to the race. Still being a few weeks out I am still pouring on the time and intensity, I have right at one more week and then it'll be rest time and hope I put in enough hard work to get me onto the worlds team.

One other little thing that has come up in the last few weeks. I finally got a mountain bike! I've wanted to get something for almost a year now and after getting a little riding in during the winter, I was hooked. And thanks to the guys at B&L and Specialized, I am now riding carbon 29er hard tail and am nothing short of stoked to be on it! I haven't been able to get much more then two, two hour rides on it. And wont be able to get much more time in it till after worlds, but it sure is nice to at least get a short ride out in the dirt to change things up and look forward to a fun fall season in the dirt!

And one more last thing. www.mattbigos.com is about to undergo a full revamp! Its looking pretty cool and will be sure to have links up when its up and rolling!

2010 Defi

Well, I am not sure where to start. I am sitting on a flight headed back home. I think I haven't updated my blog since before the chula vista/defi prep camp a few weeks back.

Guess I'll start with a quick bit about camp. I had a 8 day camp down at the olympic training center again in the beginning of april. Basically it was race prep. The paralympic team had two groups heading out the end of april to do some international racing. One team was headed to europe to race in Spain and then over to France. Another team, which I was a part of, was headed to montreal the same time to race an event called the Defi Sportiff. I am not even really sure how to explain camp. Basically, it was 8 days of a hammer fest! Everyday was race simulation type stuff. Normally camp is lots and lots of miles, or at least a medium amount of mileage with a far amount of intervals. Not this time. Basically we did a road race everyday. And to say that I wasn't in the box by the end is an understatement. I came into camp not feeling as good as I'd hoped too. My form was "okay" as I said all week, not bad but not really where I'd like to be. The week before camp I finally hit a breaking point. Not really with my training, but rather with my nutrition. I feel that I finally took the eating thing a touch too far. I am not really gonna go into too much detail, as I am sure everyone will want to jump on me and tell me they told me so. But to be honest, I timed it rather well. I went a bit too far and got too lean and lost some muscle and my recovery suffered a bit. But the bottom line is that like most athletes, I have to learn things on my own, and most times, that means the hard way. With that in mind, I seem to have things dialed in and am riding/feeling much better.

After camp I had about 10 days back home in san diego to rest up and get ready for my first international race. The first few days after camp I was excited to be taking it easy as I was trashed from the training like I had never felt before. After about 3-4 days, I was itching and ready to hammer. The problem was that I was still 6 days or so out from racing. Lots of TV and couch time to keep me from going nuts and burning my legs out before race time.

Finally travel day and off I headed to Montreal. I had never been to canada before and to be honest wasn't totally sure what to expect. After a rather easy flight and meeting up in chicago with the rest of the team we all hoped on a flight over to Montreal. The promoter from Defi took amazing care of us while there. They were awaiting us at the airport to take us to the host hotel. We arrived around midnight on thursday and headed to bed right away. Friday morning we awoke to the always fun bike building chore. Now if there's one thing I hate about what I do, it's building/boxing bikes. Anyone that's done it before, lugged a bike box through an airport, hoped it doesn't get crushed, paid a ridicules amount, knows exactly what I am talking about. Things went rather smooth for all of us and we got all the bikes built up rather quickly and without too many problems. By mid afternoon it was time to head out to spin the legs out and check out the race course. We had two days of racing, time trial and a road race, both would take place on the formula 1 race course in montreal. I liked the fact of how clean the course was and the pavement being in great shape. But to be honest, I really like some more elevation in my race courses, seems to suit my riding style/build a bit better. But, I was still stoked to be riding on a formula 1 race course. After a few laps of rolling around the course together as a team, me, wilbur, meg and the OG tandem (Greg and Kevin) we all headed back to the motel to rest up and grab dinner before saturdays time trial.

Saturday morning came and I was itching to race. I did like the fact that the host hotel we stayed in was about 10 k from the race site and we just rode over to get a little bit of the warm up out of the way. The weather on the way over was a tad chilly, but was warming up nicely, however as the time went by and the temps rose, so did the wind. Not terrible wind, nothing like lancaster a few weeks ago. But enough to make it hurt that much more. Now I know not everyone knows how all the paralympic timing and everything works. But the basics is that there are 5 upright bike division's based on disability. Each cat has its own time standard based on former world championship's finishing times. So all racing is compared to the standard and a percentage is figured out to determine the winner. I know thats kinda confusing, email me and I can explain it more if you want. Back to the race. I was one of the last riders to take off, I think only 2 riders started after me, which I actually really like. Took off and felt pretty good. I did freak out a little bit early on when I passed my minute guy about 2k in. Just told myself maybe he was having a bad day and not too worry about it. I passed a handful more riders and felt like I had a pretty good ride. About 2k from the end I was pretty far in the box and in a mix of wanting to cry, die, or puke. Not really sure which, so as usual I puked. Not really puke, but the air was pretty dry and my mouth was pretty much bone dry by this point and I started to dry heave on the bike, always fun in the middle of a tt. I lost a few seconds as I slowed my pedaling down a bit, but not too much time. I crossed the line and was seeing stars and not really sure of much of anything, just that I was done and happy about that. Swung around and grabbed a water bottle from Coach Rick and went to cool down around the course for another lap or two. I made it about 2k into cooling when I lost it and had to get off my bike. I made it to Pit Road on the course, where the F1 cars pit during their race, and leaned against a wall and puked all over the ground. Good thing there wasn't too much in my stomach, but some coke and a ton of acid. Not too much to come out, but it sure hurt like hell, at the time oddly I felt better. By the time I rolled back to the finish line area results were up. I really had no idea how I rode in comparison to the other riders. Turns out I was third on the first results list. Later the results were changed as they combined men and woman, at least Meg was the one to knock me down a spot as she put a clinic on to show all of us how to ride a TT. I was pretty happy with my race. Fourth overall for my first ever international race, top American Male, and more importantly I was first out of the C1's (C1 is my classification). I believe there were 3 or 4 C1's racing making it one of the larger groups. As far as standard went. I was just over what the canadians use for a standard, by about .5%, meaning I went a bit faster, so a good ride for me, as for the US standard, I was about .4 off, meaning a touch slower. I was hoping to break the American standard, but with the wind blowing, puking at the end and all things considered I am pretty happy with where I finished. Its much much more then I ever thought I would be able to do even just a few short years ago.

Sunday rolled around and I was starting to get excited. It was time for the road race!!! Much more my type of racing. While I race a good amount of TT's, I really do enjoy the RR's. Just so much more exciting and more going on. The race was the same course as saturdays TT. Just a longer race, and a mass start, 10 laps for 45k and around 25 riders on the starting line. The RR is combined division's. Men and women C1-5 started all together, with the Men C4-5 racing for a few more laps after we finished up. With me, Meg, and Wilbur all in the race we knew things would be interesting. The odds of any two of us getting away was doubtful. We decided to just watch things early on and see how the race would unfold, at the same time the job of making sure the pace never went to low was up to me. We were all a little worried that with so many canadians in the race if the pace slowed too much someone would make an attack and the rest wouldn't chase. So, I sat on the front pretty early on and just set tempo. I've never sat on the front that long or done that much work in a race. I probably ended up doing around 60-70% of the work in the race, between setting tempo and chasing down a handful of breaks that looked promising that went away. A few solo moves went throughout and we let them go only to watch them come back to the field and go right out the back. Things were looking for all three of us to have a good finish coming into the last lap. I was pretty spent by the bell lap and knew Will had a better sprint then me, so the plan was to lead him out as well as keep meg up near the front and out of trouble. Around 2k to go on the last lap things started to really get rolling and was a few wheels back with Will next to me and meg on the other side. I am not really sure what happened, but next thing I knew someone's bars were slamming into my hip and I heard a ton of carnage behind me. The front group of us kept rolling and hammer really went down at the end. I took a short turn towards the front to make sure will was in good position and did my best in the sprint. As we crossed the line, Will got one of the canadians crossing the to take the win, I held on for 5, Meg however didn't fair so well. She got caught up in the crash, which was really sad, she was riding so well and I am pretty much certain she would have been top woman on the day had it not been for the crash. While it wasn't a win for me, it was a win for the team and a GREAT ride for me. By far my best race ever from a riding, tactics and finish stand point. I rode around for probably 20 minutes before I was even able to get off my bike. I am not really sure I've ever gone that far in the box before and I hurt when I got off the bike. But it was more then worth it. I was amazed after the race at how many people came up to me to tell me what I great race I rode. A handful of the other riders that got dropped during the race came up to me to tell me how impressed they were at how much work I did and at the pace I set. I think the quote of the day that made me feel amazing came from a canadian rider, "I've never seen anyone do that before, I've never watched someone ride on the front that long, that hard and drop me that hard! Good on you! I am more then impressed. I hope I don't have to race you at worlds later this year." Between my good ride in the TT, a good ride in the RR, helping Will get a win and that comment, I was pretty lost after the race. I hadn't felt that good in a long time.

As I write this, I am starting to look forward to what's in the coming weeks for me. First off, its to get off this plane. I think I still have 2 more hours till I land in San Diego, ugh! Up next though is a few local races, Fiesta Island this weekend, and then probably some local crits around socal. And lots of TT work to get ready for Bend. Nationals are in Bend again this year and are fast approaching. I think 6 weeks? Thats kinda scary to think about. Hopefully I ride myself onto the worlds team at nationals this year and get a chance to take what I learned at defi and move myself up a bit farther.

I say it a lot, but I never would have though I'd make it this far. Going from "riding so slow I almost fell over and I still had to wait for him at the top of the hill" to racing at international races and being the guy on the front making everyone else hurt. I really can't say it enough times, but I always have to say thanks to everyone thats helped me get this far, and that continue to help me get even further! Thanks to the entire crew at B&L/Specialized for setting me up on the best bikes out there, Coach Rick for keeping me on the right training plan to get to the top, Brett Clare for always just simply keeping me in line and motivating, Engine Ice Dave for all the help, Sock Guy, PowerBar and everyone else!!!!!!!

Like Jens would say (in heavy German Accent) '"I get paid to make other people suffer on my wheel! How great is that?!" And he's right, its pretty great!!!!!!!!!!!

And I do like to add pics, so here's a link to my facebook with a couple of them