I need to decompress
If I'm not mistaken, today is Tuesday May 19. I'm basking in the cool, morning southern California sun as I type this a few minutes before 7:30am. It feels like something of an eternity since I've been able to sit down and uninterruptedly collect my thoughts, although I suppose it's been just a few weeks. For a quick chronological shake down, it's gone something like this:
- In mid-April I packed up my apartment in Girona because I won't be back there for a good long while. Point to point to point to point is the foreseeable travel schedule, so I packed Girona in order to travel to Giro Trentino, which ran April 21-24, but...
- I had an early exit from Giro Trentino when I exited my bike at a very high rate of speed, so I then traveled directly to northern California on April 22 to seek professional medical insight and, assuming everything checked out okay, prepare for the Amgen Tour of California.
- Somewhere in this window -- although with a whole lot of consideration beforehand -- I made it public that 2015 would be my final year of racing.
- With the slight mental anguish of a really painful knee after smacking it frighteningly hard in that Trentino TTT, I thankfully received the a-okay from a great orthopedic team to resume training with gusto. That was a relief.
- That allowed me to ride the Bottega Grand Fondo which was delicious and hard earned.
- The retirement announcement and my trip up to altitude training in Truckee with our Cannondale-Garmin team both took place April 28. It was actually really peaceful to be out of cell service for a few minutes during the drive as messages piled in.
- Truckee altitude camp ran April 28-May 5.
- Next we moved to the oxygen-rich low-lands for high-intensity training May 5-7.
- Moseyed over to the race hotel in Sacramento May 7.
- I rode the World Bicycle Relief ride around Mill Valley on May 9.
- May 10-17 raced Amgen Tour of California.
- May 17 PM: Garmin event.
- May 18 AM: Cannondale event.
- May 18 PM: I took a nap.
It's been go-go-go for these few weeks, plus it's felt that way for the entire spring. Actually, all the way back to January when I was held up by the blizzard(s) that crushed Boston so I was late to return home from San Luis and subsequently late to team camp in Mallorca. Don't get me wrong, I love it. I thrive off of having things to do and being in perpetual motrion. I get anxious and stir crazy if I ever don't have something to do, although sitting here this morning is nothing if not peaceful.I bid farewell to a lot of my teammates after the Cannondale event spent zipping around the Rose Bowl yesterday -- very young teammates, I'll add. It was three fantastic weeks spent with Ruben, Lasse, Kristofer, and Joe. Ruben is 22, Lasse is 23, Kristofer turned 22 during this block of time, while "old man Joe" just hit his 24th birthday on the Tuesday of Tour of California. Quick math, that gives them a collective average age of less than 23. I could be completely incorrect, but it's more and more a young person's sport. I'm surrounded by incredible talent on this really fun team; our biggest objective this week was putting Joe as high as possible on GC and after a tremendous race up Baldy, he finished 4th overall. Those other three were our sprint team, which admittedly didn't end with the results we wanted, but I promise you that these three will be find their names atop the results sheet in very little time. You can't fake the talent these kids have and it's a pleasure to be part of it and to help shape it.So with the sun now a bit higher in the sky, I should probably go drink more coffee and put on some sunscreen. You, meanwhile, should be sure to check this out really quickly.