Team Pizza

Because I'm going to be forced off the bike for several weeks due to a minor medical procedure in January, I feel compelled to keep on training as usual for the rest of the month. This week's been lazy -- I haven't ridden in to work once this week and I didn't even touch the bike Monday or yesterday. I'm kinda cool with that, but I love the balance that putting in good riding hours affords. You can eat half a pizza and your body needs the calories (albeit without all the grease). The pizza these days is still forthcoming, but I'm hesitant to knock down half a pie with the same gusto as I did in September when I was putting in 12 hour weeks and racing MTB or CX every weekend.

Next week I'm in Ohio for about 9 days and each day I'll be out in the hills and exurbs of Cincinnati, just cruising, drinking gas station coffee, and enjoying myself in the company of empty roads and ex-teammates.

The hope is that I go into my forced leave from riding with some decent fitness. Back in March when I hurt myself something awful on a turnstile, I was off the bike for about three weeks. The first couple of rides back, I had no high-end. However, after a few good days of Tabatas, things were back to a reasonable state of normalcy. So yeah, February will suck when I'm trying to get the high short-term power back together, but these days, I don't really care.

Besides 'cross, I'm not fussing with any non-endurance type events. I'd like to get down to Ohio and Indiana and up to Wisconsin for long road races, but these days, I'd rather go mountain bike racing. Less pressure, more fun. There I said it. I'm also into time-trials, too. But I'm not enough of a nerd to have a TT bike and aero helmet.

You won't see me at the line in a crit, except maybe the Half Acre Calumet races. Value to dollar to risk don't add up, especially since I never liked racing them anyways.

Team Pizza.