Still Alive

Ok, I know it has been quite some time since I last updated, so here goes nothing. I am on my way to Tour of Belgium now for 3 days of flat, fast racing with one TT on day 4 and the final day in the Ardennes. I am hoping to find some decent race form after not racing for a while and being sick/down for nearly two weeks after Romandie. It was really unfortunate that I got sick after Romandie because my form was really coming good at that time, but I guess it was my body telling me I needed a rest. After getting back to training here, I have actually found my diesel power is still pretty good (or so I think). Of course though, with no racing or intervals for some time, the top end is a bit rusty. That will probably be fixed in a day or two of Belgian racing though.

I haven’t a clue what the last update really was. I think Lisa had just arrived and we had our first night on the town. Since then, I have gotten back to training, we have moved into our apartment and basically we are trying to get all sorted in Spain.

First I will tell you about training. As I said, I have found through my training that despite my prolonged sick/down time, my overall fitness, might not have dipped as much as I thought. I have trained all by myself though, so who knows, maybe it is way down! Oh well. Even if it did dip, it is necessary to have that in order to get peaks and valleys in my training. I guess it just wasn’t when I was planning! That’s all good though, now I can use this race to jump start the body and start training afterward for Tour of Austria in July hoping to find a good result there. Most of my training has been steady and longer with some climbing just to get that endurance base back in order after the extended hiatus. I had a couple days of motor pacing with the wife on the scooter. It was interesting because I was trying to get back some race legs and Lisa was trying to learn how to drive the moped while driving in Europe for the first time. It turned out just fine and we are both learning and getting better.

The only other important thing to update is Lisa and I reuniting in Spain. We have moved into our apartment and are getting all sorted. Everything has gone pretty smooth considering the circumstances of being busy and in a foreign country. We tried to buy everything we needed in Girona, but failed miserably, so we decided to take a trip to the infamous IKEA in Barcelona. It was my first time to IKEA and I was nothing short of awestruck at the immensity and the thievery. Not only did IKEA rob us of all our money by supplying us with so many of the things we needed for our apartment, but then some nice person from within the store got away with Lisa’s purse. Major bummer for sure as it contained my digital camera, the FlipVideo camera I received for Christmas to help document my experiences, my new Blackberry, 100 Euros, a nice long sleeve shirt, Lisa’s wallet with credit cards: all enclosed within her favorite purse. By some stroke of luck however, her driver’s license and passport were not in there, so all in all, we came out ok: nothing irreplaceable lost and no health damages, only emotional loss and the feeling of violation.

Since then though, we have recovered, learned our lesson and the apartment is coming into form. A few things are still left to be done, but slowly everything is working and falling into place. I believe Lisa is cleaning the blinds today or attempting to. They had a thick layer of dust on them and for appearance and health sake, a washing was absolutely necessary.

Had a decent ride through the Belgian countryside today with Ben Hermans. Thank goodness for his Garmin head unit because I certainly would have never found my way! It is mighty flat here. The weather was partly sunny and windy today. I believe tomorrow is forecasted for windy and rain. Hopefully that is the only day. The field will likely explode with those conditions tomorrow, so hopefully I am either in the break or the front group.

Ok, that is about all I can think of for now. Hope you enjoyed. Take care.