Life On Two Wheels

Along the river and toward the mountains a morning shadow shimmers across the road. The rays of the first light jet through the trees and across a figure gliding upon the road. His breath trails in short spurts, petrified as it hits the icy air. All is quiet except the slight sound of the athlete as he summons himself for yet another days work. Soon the rest of the world will bustle with life as well and the brief simplicity of cyclist and nature will disappear into the everyday struggle of life in full motion; the errands and intervals, the appointments and intersections, and the deadlines and finish lines OutPaceTheRace

Friday, January 13, 2006

Silver City: Jan 13th

Team TIAA-CREF Training Camp
Silver City, NM
Jan 8th – Jan 22nd
Jan 13th

Today was pretty crazy. We did ~100 miles with motor pacing in the beginning then intervals up each side of the climb. After coming down the climb we did an uphill team time trial up a crazy 1 hour climb. Jonathan separated us into two different groups- unfair groups. My responsibility was to make sure no one in our group fell off the back, I’d come up beside and give them little pushes to help them keep up. It’s amazing how difficult it is to keep giving little pushes, each time you push its like your brakes come on… its super hard, but each ride like this just gives me more confidence when I get to the races.
We ended up losing, but only by 20 seconds. According to Jonathan we were smoother, & because we had fewer climbers, the 20 second margin meant next to nothing. We road back to the hotel, ate and slept. Dinner’s at 8:00, tomorrow is 6 hours easy. The season is getting closer & closer and I am gaining more and more confidence in my team mates, they’re strong and smart so the racing should be good.

posted by Tom Peterson @ 5:20 PM