But on my 3 year anniversary at work I have already woke up late because I had a very lucid and very scary dream that had to do with the apocalypse, spilled a drink I was making (nearly on a woman) and had a shitty open because the closer the night before did a shitty job closing. Also the weather decided to be a bastard and have a storm roll through. Lastly, a woman came in and told me about all the troubles and messes our generation will have to clean up because of our government. WTF????

Can today just be done now?

So yeah school starts in 2 weeks….crazy! But I’m still super excited! I just applied for a graduate assistantship which would be really helpful in the long run, monetarily and for the resume. I’ve been applying to other jobs as well to make a little extra money while in grad school. However I’m almost thinking that being a bum with no job during school is better….we’ll see. Just would like a change from Steep & Brew.

Other than that I was finally able to get back on the bike after a long time off. The modeling in Milwaukee and in Chicago plus move in/out really took up a lot of time. Bit im happy how things have been going. Not taking cycling so seriously has really been a nice change. I still love the sport and won’t stop cycling, but it’s given me more time to experience and do other things. I miss my dream of possibly going pro some day, but I guess it just wasn’t in the cards. I’m enjoying getting into mountain biking again though. And I’ll be getting a new cross bike for the cx season!

I’m really starting to want to get things in order and try out things I’ve always wanted to do. Thinking more clearly now.

Can’t wait to see whats next….

Ciao ciao….
Waitey

Well lets start with Spring Break. It was my 8th time on the trip and my 6th time coordinating it. I believe it was the best one yet! Alot more new faces came on the trip which was great! I tried some new approaches to the trip and it sounds like they worked out great! I got a lot of great comments and suggestions that I’m definitely thinking about coordinating it next year as well! Maybe I may just put on the UW Cycling Spring Break every year! I have to at least go on 10 total trips…thats only 2 more. I think thats doable before I have to start a real life. I ended up with just over 30 hrs in the saddle and 500+ miles. I was pretty spent after that trip.

The rest of the year has been crazy with racing, training and just generally riding. I’ve been in 30+ races so far this year. Some big ones and a lot of the WCA series. I have some top 10′s and got 12th overall in the Cat 2 series at ToAD. I had some bad luck and some bad news on the 5th day of the tour that kind of crushed my world…I would stop eating and sleeping the next couple days because of this said news. I’m surprised that I even was able to finish the rest of the crits. All of that dropped me down in the results. But my buddy Dallas snatched up 2nd overall in the Cat 2 series! No race really sticks out in my head, but I can say I’ve been a lot more aggressive this year and have seen how much my ability has grown.

I had some forced time off the bike after ToAD. I took the week after ToAD easy and started back up with training the next weekend with a 5 hr ride out west of Madison. What I didn’t know was that my saddle was broken on one side and my right hip was then lower than my left. About 1.5 hrs into the ride my right knee started to hurt a little bit. By the time I got out to Blue Mounds my knee felt like it was about to explode. I had to still ride home to Madison from there. With a pace of 12 mph and pedaling with only my left leg I somehow made it home alive. For the next 3 weeks I would be off the bike with intense pain to my right knee whenever I rode. I had to ride to work though because it was my only transportation and that would irritate it. Standing on it for an 8 hr shift wasn’t quite helping either. I let the knee heal naturally by eating anti-inflammatory foods and taking glucosamine and ibuprofen. Its at 100% again thank goodness and I’m back into the swing of things and training hard. My power is definitely up from the forced time away. Maybe it was suppose to be.

In other news, I decided to go down to Part-time at the coffee shop at the middle of May. Don’t want to be there forever and wanted time to focus on racing and training. Its been good. At times I worried about money and I was searching for other jobs after the change. But it felt great after a bit. I was still able to write the schedule and I could ask off whenever I wanted to with no type of responsibility. My boss still treats me like I am Head Barista by telling me all the current events of the store. I’m still the one that knows way too much about the job and Steep&Brew. August 20th will be 3 years with the company. Definitely time for a change. I applied to be a bank teller. They usually have a good amount of job growth opportunities.

In April I was accepted to UW-Stevens Point for their graduate program in Nutritional Sciences. At that time I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back to Stevens Point, my home town. Who wants to go back to their little hometown for grad school? Well at that time I had a different future in mind and then things changed which made me see that I NEED to head back to grad school and do this for myself. If I ever want to do something with my life, like get a real job I’ll need a Masters and possibly even higher education. I wish I would have been accepted to UW Madison, but it didn’t happen and I’ve accepted that. I realized how hard it actually is to get into grad school though…and grad school is grad school! So a couple weeks ago I confirmed my acceptance to UWSP. My graduate class will only be 17 students. Not many! So I’m very lucky I got in somewhere. I’ve wanted to go back to school for quite some time and, well, I finally get to live the student life again! Exciting! I start school on Sept 6th. I have 1 class a day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Pretty easy. However I still don’t want to live in Stevens Point….so I’ll be living in Madison still. How can I do this without a car? Well…..

I finally bought a nicer car! I searched on craigslist for quite awhile for the right deal. Thought I found a couple, but they weren’t right. With such a tight budget and a need for something nicer and made in the 2000′s I thought it was going to be impossible. Until just 2 weeks ago. I saw an ad for a 2003 dodge stratus in Cottage Grove, WI (right next door to Madison). I called the guy up and made an appointment to go see the car the next day. I test rode it and it felt amazing. It felt like a brand new car and with low miles. Somehow I was the first person to see it. Another person was coming to see the car tonight, but I knew this was the car. I made a deal, but didn’t have cash because the banks were closed (it was Sunday). We set up a time on Monday and the car was mine! I’ve been very happy with the car and have had no problems with it. I think it was the right purchase and now I can say “I DRIVE A DODGE STRATUS” (thanks Will Ferrel). So with this car I will be commuting up to Stevens Point on Mondays and then coming back to Madison Wednesday nights. I would lose my sanity if I would live in Stevens Point. So this is a good decision for me and I don’t mind the decision.

Crazy thing about the car is this was all luck. I just recently bought a new mountain bike (well a used one, but new to me) 2 weeks before that. I got a 2007/2008 Specialized S-Works Stumpjumper for a killer deal! Nothing wrong with it, upgraded drivetrain to Sram X.0/X.9 components and not even a nick in the frame. Perfect! Another excellent purchase and find! Its been nice getting back to my roots. I suck at MTB’ng right now, but I am improving each time I go out. Well, the weekend I got the car I was actually suppose to head to Franklin, WI for a WORS race. I had a ride set up and just had to work Saturday morning with preriding on Sat and the race on Sun. I saw the ad for the car on Friday night and I knew that car was going to go fast for the price it was sitting at. What do I do? Well, right as I’m done with work my ride to the WORS race cancels. I was disappointed, but then again it gave me time to go check out the car. Crazy how things work! So new car and new bike!

I also just got a new iPhone. Our old provider sucks and so we went to AT&T. I was just going to go with a Samsung Flight phone, but they were out. They had an iPhone 3Gs for super cheap so we went with that. I feel like a grown up with that phone. Its definitely fun to use!

On to current events. I was contacted by Specialized bikes to be in another photo shoot with them out at Camrock yesterday. Then they asked if I could also be in a shoot the day before in Milwaukee. The MKE shoot had me in a business suit playing the corporate commuter…in 90+ deg humid weather. 3 hrs of that will destroy anyone, but it was a blast! Camrock was a bit cooler and fun on a recreational MTB. Well, I may be in another shoot for them either next week or the next down in Chicago to shoot video for one of their bikes. (Modeling + Cycling) x Getting paid to do it = AWESOMENESS!

The last thing: I’m doing an intern consultant gig with the American Lung Association in Wisconsin (ALA) and its been keeping me busy. I’m helping promote and recruit for their “Fight For Air Ride” on Aug 27th. I’m also helping with logistics for the ride, since they have never put on a bike event. I’m honored that I was chosen to help out to put this on. I was also on The Morning Blend talk show this morning to promote the ride! First TV talk show appearance for me! That was nerve wracking, but once I got on camera I was fine.

Life has been treating me very well lately and I’m happy where its going. It’s feeling like a new life and I’m loving it! I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Ciao….
Waitey

My training has been going well, or as well as it can having to ride inside and getting the occasional commute into work (11 miles round trip).  I put in 14 hrs last week and I’ll be putting in a solid 16 hrs by this sunday.  I’ve been getting a consistent 10+ since the week before christmas and I’m feeling pretty good.

I just got the email about team bikes for 2011 and I’m customizing mine as we speak.  I wish I could have it right now!!!  Also my clothing order has been placed.  I’ll be receiving 2 full kits, a GeoTherm  long sleeve jersey, a thermal jacket and a thermal longsleeve skin suit for cyclocross (that’ll be nice for CX Nationals in January…IN MADISON, WI!)

Its been warming up a little bit around here.  Amazing how 20′s can feel balmy after -10 and below degree temps for a couple days. I’m able to ride outside, by commuting to work, but I’m still confined to the rollers.  Which by the way my girlfriend, Lindsey, just got some new cycleops rollers with the resistance unit.  My goodness it is SO much easier, mentally, to do intervals on.  The trainer just sucks that motivation out of you, but the rollers just make you feel so much better and you know you’re able to finish those excruciatingly painful intervals.

But other than that I’ll still be waiting to hear from graduate school to see if I’m accepted.  AH the suspense!

Ciao ciao….

Waitey

I do apologize for my hiatus though.  I don’t know I guess I just didn’t have it in me to blog about anything.  Where do I start I guess. I guess the rest of my cycling season….ok GO!

I raced the rest of ToAD.  All 11 days of the series.  I was toast after we finished.  I finished up 10th overall in the Cat 2 series.  I’m a little bummed about that seeing I was sitting 4th for a bit, but then a couple bad days happened.  At the Road race up at Greenbush I was caught up behind a crash that split me and many others from the main peloton.  My friend Nick was the one that went down.  He had to get some stitches to his chin.  I tried chasing back on, but my legs were just fried that day.  I sat in the sun and just watched the rest of the race at the start/finish line.  My best race was the 70 mile road race at Road America.  It was awesome getting to race bicycles on a track that is usually used for motorcycles and race cars.  It was a hard and hot day.  Attacks, attacks and more attacks.  The little hills each lap was zapping a lot out of the legs, but I held strong.  On the last lap I was able to roll off the front and head to the finish line solo (almost catching the break ahead of me).  Two others joined after about 3km.  I didn’t have very much left but I tried to keep pushing.  Got to the final hill to the finish and I barely had energy left.  I saw the sprinters start up behind me.  Crap.  I only had 4 of them pass me at the finish line.  I ended up 28th I think.  I was still happy that I at least tried!  Then there was Fond du Lac.  I crashed pretty hard at that one.  I got pinched off into the barriers.  I guess I scared the officials.  I was able to get back into the race, but I was hurting.  I thought I broke my arm and leg when I was laying on the ground, because I wasn’t able to move either limb very well.  But they were just stiff I guess.  The last 2 races got really hard, because a couple United Healthcare Pro Cycling guys decided to show up all fresh and beat up on the field.  I held on and finished in the field at the first one.  The last race of the series: Carl Zach Crit I just wanted to be done racing.  I held it together though.  I was split from the group I was in….there were probably 4 or 5 different groups on the course that day.  The race just blew apart.  I ended up 30th I believe.

After all that I took too long of a rest and didn’t race until a month later at Superweek: Whitefish Bay.  I got my ass handed to me due to the non-existent speed work I was doing the last month.  This year will be different though.  After that it was Glencoe Gran Prix where a crash took me out of competition again.  My last race (which should have not been my last race) of the season was at Fond du Lac again.  I was really testing the legs and going on flyers and then sitting in the field.  Well it came down to the final lap.  I was sitting 10th wheel going around the first corner.  I went on the outside of the turn, my teammate on the inside.  My teammates tubular rolls off and he’s sliding right at me!  I hit his rear wheel and superman over him right into a nice muddy puddle. I land on his bike.  I get orientated and notice my sock is sticking to his front chainring.  Damn destroyed sock.  Oh well.  I get up and my ankle is hurting a bit.  Whatever I was just in a crash.  I ride back over to my friends at the start line, sit down and begin to take off my sock.  A flap of skin comes right with it!  The chainring gouged my ankle pretty bad.  Down to the fat layer (if I have any fat down there).  I had to skip my race the next day (Race The Lake) and had to drive back to Madison to the hospital.  Ended up getting 3 stitches and taking a bit more time off the bike :-/

Ok so I had some bad luck this year, however, I believe this was one of my better, stronger years. I was overall very pleased with my performance.  Now just to leave the bad luck behind.  Recently, I believe I have been training smarter and with a purpose.  I want 2011 to be my breakout year and I believe that it can be if I just do things right.

I have been riding more consistently, with a little break in the middle of Dec due to the GRE, I have also been weight lifting every Mon, Wed, and Sat.  Next week I’ll actually start working on a little bit more of my explosiveness in the gym.  I’ve tried to watch my diet during the winter and I’m doing pretty well.  With the season coming up faster and faster I’ve been really watching what is going into my body.  I’m at a good weight right now and I would like to keep it that way.

For 2011 I will continue to ride for the Wheel & Sprocket Elite Team.  We have some new recruits this year and I think we’ll have a pretty strong team this year.  I plan on heading to bigger races this year to hopefully get my foot in the door.  I will also focus heavily on cyclocross this fall, because CX Nationals is right in my backyard!  CX Natz will be held in Madison, WI at Badger Prairie Park!!!!  Sweet stuff right there!  I’m going to purchase a CX bike later in the summer and will race at Natz!  I’ll hopefully have a 2011 Schedule tab up at the top of my blog soon.

What else?  Well, I still work at Steep & Brew :-/ Not the happiest about that, but at least I still have a job.  I did hold another job during the months of Nov/Dec.  Just seasonal work at Vom Fass.  Look them up, awesome place!  Different types of olive and nut oils, balsamic and fruit vinegars, and spirits and liquors.  I was really hoping to land a full time job there after the holiday season, but it didn’t work out because they didn’t need the help.

I’ll be coordinating the annual UW Cycling Spring Break trip AGAIN!  This will be my 6th year coordinating it and my 8th time on the trip.  This will be the biggest year to date.  I actually had to get us a 4th cabin.  There will be close to 70 participants on the trip!  Damn thats going to be a lot of food!  EPIC…thats all that can be said.

Finally, I’ve finished applying to graduate school. I really hope I get accepted somewhere.  I’m really keeping my fingers crossed for UW Madison.  Its just time to go back to school and get a higher education.  I want to receive a masters in nutritional science, then go on to become a Registered Dietitian (RD).

Ok well thats good enough for now.  I don’t want to go thru everything I’ve done in the past 6 months as you’ll probably become bored (if you’re not already).  I’ll try harder to keep this blog updated.  At least once a week or something like that.  I think that’s more than possible, especially since I only have 1 job now, don’t have to study for the GRE anymore and have now gotten all my grad school applications submitted.  Gosh sounds like I’ll have a bunch of time!  What will I do with myself???

Ciao ciao

Waitey

Shorewood started with 133 riders.  It was fast, but not horrible.  I never felt like I was in any type of paincave or anything.  The 2nd corner after the “crappy” road was retarded.  Everytime we would go thru the corner at about 12 mph.  Then we would go hard for a little bit and then slow up on the straight.  Everyone would go to the front and then we would go 15 wide thru the next turn.  I ended up 53rd out of 133 starters.

Thiensville.  Bad weather.  Started raining just before the start and continued 15 min into the race.  It dried up for the last quarter of the race, but it still seemed like no one knew how to corner.  We again went thru every corner at about 10-12 mph and then would sprint all out.  I swear even the front guys were doing that.  I had a pretty good start position and was riding in the top 25 guys or so for the start.  Then Jordan was a douche….thats all I’ll say.  The final 15 laps were hell.  Kenda Pro lit it up on the front trying to drag back a break (which they ended up doing).  But it was strung out for about 10 laps.  We slowed up for a little bit and then we were right back at it.  The final laps saw guys even in the middle of the field popping and dropping.  I closed a lot of gaps just to stay with the field.  I ended up being able to stay with it and got 35th out of 110 starters (I believe only about 58 finished).  I was the 4th best Cat 2 rider to come in.  They have a daily Best Cat 2 finisher [green] jersey.  I want to win one.  I was 16th in that competition at Shorewood and 4th yesterday.  Getting close!

9 more races to go! Tonight is going to be brutal….

I would also like to say that the host family I’m staying with in Milwaukee is AWESOME!!!!!  They are making all this time here easy to recover, eat and rest properly.

Ciao ciao….

Waitey

* I sprained my ankle a week after Collegiate Natz making me miss Wheels On Willy and the Tour of Champaign-Urbana weekend.

* Memorial Day weekend races were hard and the sprained ankle didn’t help my fitness much.  Did better at the snake than the previous year even though my gears skipped like a mo-fo.  Melon Cities was brutally hot and I botched my positioning in the final laps. And someone crashed me at Quad Cities in Lap 6 out of 50.  I finished…but felt like shit and then my body completely stopped working for a day and a half.  Had to take off more time to heal….

* WI State RR Champs:  Got in the winning break on lap 1.  Dan Ajer and Kip Spaude are monsters.  They dropped me from the break and Kip went on to win it solo.  I completely cracked on the finishing climb the 8th time up it (with 2 more laps to go).  DNF

*Getting on my bike more, doing harder rides.  Saturday is the State Champs Crit…hopefully I can get some type of good placing there.  And then ToAD starts up next Thursday.  I’ll be doing the whole 11 day series.

Ciao ciao….

Waitey

Ended up 20th out of about 65 riders.  Not bad, not good.

Ciao ciao….

Waitey

The 2nd lap got a bit more strung out and a bit more aggressive. At one point I decided to eat one of my bars and dropped it when I hit a pothole. That sucked! The attacks from the field were a bit harder and faster this lap and the whole field was starting to feel it so I moved up a bit more in the field. The circuit through town this time around was brutal up the brick climb. Completely strung out and fast and it didn’t let up.

Lap 3 my legs were starting to get a bit tired but I hung on for a bit longer. Then the speed really turned up. The field broke at about the 25th wheel. I was just holding the wrong wheel so I was left in (I think) the 3rd group on the road. We never worked very well together and I think they were all pretty tired, because after I would do my (3 min) pull our pace would drop about 3 mph. With about 9 miles to go my group decided to slow down to 17 mph. That was not working for me. So I just got on the front and set a good tempo and no one got on my wheel. I looked back and they were about 100 yards off. Well, I guess it was time to go solo! So heading into town I set a pretty good tempo and with a nice little tailwind that made it a little easier. After about 5 miles 3 guys caught up to me, but sucked at pacelining. There were 3 more guys coming from behind and I definitely did not want them to latch on. I’m not a great sprinter at the moment so I wasn’t really looking for an all out sprint. When we got to the two climbs into town all of the guys that caught me dropped off my wheel and I was able to solo it in to the finish for 44th place out of a full, stacked field of 125 P/1/2 riders. Only 6 minutes down on the winner.

I’d say that was a pretty good early season result for me seeing that I have never done this race before, I’m more of a crit rider, this is my first race of the season and I did the whole race on 1 bottle of water and 1 bottle of gatorade (no one for me in the feed zone). Oh and after dropping one of my bars I only consumed a total of about 550 calories for the whole 140km(87 miles). Yeah I was pretty good and spent after I finished.

Ciao ciao….

Waitey