John's back

Who? John Carter, on ER(the TV show)...man I love that show. And as life imitates art, I made my short return to Sandy Hill CHC to work. Ok, maybe I'm not as cool as John Carter, but I do also work in the ER. Although it's gonna take a couple shifts at the CHC before I go jump in the ER mix of things. It was nice to go to work, I generally enjoy it, the people are great and it's good for the brain and the spirit to produce something useful every now and then. Funny how challenging it was yesterday to do rather easy work, I guess I am a little rusty. I only worked half a day but I slept so deep last night, not use to training and working, forgot how hard that was.

Thing is because I am a registered professional, I have an obligation to myself and the public to keep up my skills and knowledge in health care so even if I was making money cycling, I would still work to keep up to date. So enough about that.

Training is obviously pretty hard right now as Tash and I working are butts off to get strong again, but everything seems to be falling into place rather quickly, thanks to some slight training modifications. Ok,well some pretty significant changes, but that's all I can say.

Tasha attributes it to her sweet new bike and position as she had half the factory at Specialized involved in making sure her bike fit was totally perfect. It's really amazing to see how Specialized do everything to tailor the fit of the bike to the athlete. They put some shims in one of her shoes, to fix her wonky leg, special women's saddle, compact gearing, shallow bars, it fits her perfect!

Word on the street is that my new bike is in, this year I'll be riding an Opus again. Glen, the great guy he is made sure I am going to be rolling a nice rig, word on the street is it's just arrived.
It's always nice to get new stuff, it's not all about having cool stuff, but it just makes you wanna ride your bike, it's the part of the sport that makes you feel like a kid again.

Speaking of kids, looks like Natasha will be doing some math tutoring and I'll be doing some reading with our 6 year old Nephew Ethan, he is changing schools and the curricula in Quebec was not as aggressive as the programs here in Ontario. That being said, it's great to have the kids around, but I don't think I've ever said "don't do that" so many times.

I told Ethan he needed to eat his vegetables to get all his energy. He looked at me with his big blue eyes and he said "but I never run out of energy". I laughed so hard I nearly spit my drink on him. Kids.


Best of all....they think I'm huge in Europe...

update from the Wall

So...long time no post. I tried to stay away from things cycling in my off time, but that was pretty hard. I had started to write some blog posts, but they were either negative or fluff and I just saved them in the archives. Maybe one day I'll publish the unpublished posts, I'd probably get in trouble if I said everything about everything that I was feeling after out Euro trip.

We've taken the last couple weeks to assess last year and plan out things for this year. This time of the year always makes me laugh, everyone always looking for the magic bullet approach, a new style of training, a supplement to take, a new air to breath or whatever. We are no different, we've made a few little changes and also had a slight change in paradigm as well.

It was actually really funny when I went to write down my goals for this year how different they were from years previous. If you know me, you know that I love power, training with it, putting it out and getting more of it. Well this year the objective isn't so much to "get more", but simply put it to better use. Last year I was hyper concerned about following the program and all that, that at times I should have not followed so much what was written on paper, but what I knew I had to do to achieve my goals and objectives.

I think it becomes really easy to get all caught up in everything and you kind of loose focus of why you do this and what your place is in the big scheme of things. Obviously when we were in Europe I was all into Cross and everything, I mean I had to, I had an opportunity to go to Worlds and put a descent ride in so I went with it. But my raison d'etre in Cycling isn't all about the Cross, yah it's great, but it's just a part of the equation, and as far as racing it in Europe, that's a whole ball of wax. I think if I would have reminded myself about that a little more, I would have smiled a little bit more.

So, as the road season approaches, our prep time is a little more limited this year, but good news for us, with the help of the Computrainer family, we acquired a new one through a sponsorship and we now have a new pain cave in the C Wall. Ahhhh....sweating it out in erg mode....in Cornwall it's great, living in the country, there is no temptation to go anywhere, it's a great place to stay focused, we don't even have to leave the house. Wake up train, eat, train, think about eating and then eat celery, train some more....what more could you ask for. Ok, maybe it's not a luxurious lifestyle, but it's just kind of like going to work. I know we are a little sick in the head, but we like it.

Also in our time off we adopted a six yer boy! Ok, well that's not entirely true, but my nephew is coming to live with us as my sister is moving down the road and they want him to start as his new school asap. So he's here for two months as well as my sister and her new born who are here a lot, so it's always a party lots of diapers and puking. Last night we had a dance competition, I got more points on the techno songs, Ethan did a pretty good job on the hip hop. Natasha ran away as she doesn't know how to dance and has no interest in learning how.

D

Tasha's interview

http://www.canadiancyclist.com/dailynews/February/2.3.096.53PM20.shtml

Nice to see that Natasha's interview looks pretty good...except I'm not sure what she meant by her "mental head"....still pondering about that.

Anyways. Just FYI...we are back safe and pretty much sound, the bikes took a few extra days at the airport it appears they were a little tiered as well.

It's kind of funny to be back, well it's nice really. It was great to be out there livin' it, but no offence, I love Canada. Yah it's cold, but I put the TV on, I know what they are saying, I can watch a little Sheamus and Marcy on Canada AM, no BBC. I go to the grocery store, I can get whole wheat Eggo's and 1kg of frozen fruit. I don't drink Tim's but it's nice to know that lots of people still do. Also I havn't booked a reservation at Shawarma Palace yet, but be aware that it won't be long until I find an excuse to drive up to Ottawa.

Every time I leave the country to live somewhere else for an extend period of time, I want to kiss the frigin ground when I get back. I think this time too, sporting the Maple Leaf, racing for the National Team, it just kinda sinks in, I love where I'm from. Maybe in Cross the Canuk guys get our butts kicked a little, but whatever. We live in the greatest country in the World.

We even gotta run in -16 deg weather yesterday...hey you can't beat that for excitement.
Nice to be home.

Funny enough I received an email from the Tour of Battenkill RR yesterday confirming RWR's official invitation. Man I'm going to have start training soon, I haven't ridden a road bike in months.

DSJ

Canadian Cyclist Interview

Here's an interview by Rob Jones after Worlds...
February 3.09 10:30am EST - Interview (Video) with Derek St. John

I always thought I was kind of well spoken, I never knew my voice was that twangy, now I know why people say I have an accent...not sure where I picked it up, but it sounds funny.

Maybe I'll just stick to bloggin, it's much easier to edit.

A caveat, it was frigin cold and I was just moving to stay warm....I usually don't shrug my shoulders that much.

DSJ

Worlds report

Well the big show is donzos! For now, what a ride.

So this may be a little brief then I'm sure some thoughts and comments will be added later or maybe not since we're on holidays as of about 4 plates of chineese food ago.

So, I had the luxury of watching Natasha's race on TV. I prayed aloud to God asking to give her one more final wicked ride. The race starts, all is well then bam! Saskia Elmans crashes in a corner and whiped out 5 girls behind her...urggg. Well I was actually scared at first cause I saw Tasha endo right over her bars! Shit.
Anyways I didn't see the rest of her race, but by the sounds of everyone there, well at least the 40000 people I talked to, haha, she was ripping it up especially when she got her groove back.
You have to know that that crash set her back to the tail end of the pack for the first bit and she started rocking it, but she just missed a top 20 and finished 21st. Wendy had a great start and faded back a little as her mid season illness no doubt affected the later half of her season. Fellow Canuk Pepper Herlton finished up 30th I believe so I think she was pretty happy about that.

At first we were hoping that Tasha was going to be top 15, top 10 on a great day, but the level of the Women's racing is definitely up a notch I think as the times are blistering fast, so it's good for Women's racing in general as hopefully they get the respect they deserve as they bust it out pretty darn fast as well.

Mens race, as I have always been involved in some sort of crash I was hoping not to today...well I could hope all I want, but sure enough, a Spaniard hit the deck in the first km and I was pulling my barsout of someones wheel. No panic, get going I was battling with an Italian, Swedes and we were closing the group of 8 ahead. I jumped on my bike after the stairs and my chain snapped! Man, it was a new chain too, so....man, I just ran like Forest Gump and I just kept running and running and then I jumped on my bike before a down hill to coast and thought I was going to kill myself, but it worked and I got back off and ran and ran and switched bikes...gassed!

Did I mention that it was 0 degs, so the ground was pretty much like ice and concrete. So just basically rode my brains out until the end. Didn't get lapped but was puled as I was only a minute ahead of the leaders on their last lap, kind shity, as I really did myself in on the last laps to make it, but what can I say, I did all I could.

There is a sweet write up on Canadian Cyclist.com and Rob Jones paints a great picture of my experience today. I look a little fat in the pictures, but I think its just cause my lungs have been pushed into my bowels lately.

Once again, I just pushed through, the bad luck, a little misfortune and grinded it out. I left some blood on the ground, but I wouldn't be the first Canadian that has left blood on the ground in these parts.

We got a little beat today, but wearing the Maple Leaf today was something that I've been waiting for a long time and you know what, it's all worth it. Don't let anyone ever tell you you can't do something or your too old, or too young or your dreams will never come true.
Seriously. I hate to get all philosophical and all, but when you have an opportunity, the desire, the skill and the sheer hunger to really achieve something, you can make it happen. But you need to really want it. So ask yourself the question, if this is my dream, am I really prepared to give up the comfort of home, my job, my family, am I really ready to suffer, to bleed, to risk it, am I really committed to this? Cause I'm not going to lie, it's hard, but we made it happen.
We got to live out one of our dreams today, sure it wasn't exactly like we wanted, but it just leaves us wanting more, to come back and fight again.

So I have to say you have no idea how happy I am I don't have to fix bikes for at least a few weeks. I ran out of juice about a week ago. It's been a long journey. But we did this because, well we love it, but to prepare for the next endeavours and get it right. There will be a lot of things that will change for next years preparation. If you knew how stressful it was to make sure that 4 bikes are all running 100% after continuous pressure washings on a very limited budget,trying to stretch the life of the equipment, it's just really hard work. But we've learned so much, that next year we will be able to use similar resources but use them slightly different to allow us to focus a little more on racing to our potential.

It's hard to really understand that we've just done the Worlds and the season is over, I don't think it's really sunk in. It's hard to soak it up while you're here, I tried, but it's a little surreal.

So maybe we'll do a few more posts, or maybe we won't. We were on for so long that we are "off" for now. Just a little break. We have three more days left in Europe, I'd like to tell you that we will do something exciting, but our budget is limited to perhaps having a coffe and getting some waffles in Antwerp. It was so tight that we had to switch brake pads between the spare bikes between races as we couldn't shell out the 40 Euros for a new pair. Nit that it really bothered me, cause I'm kind of cheap. But that was a bran new chain I broke...I'll blame Shimano and not the installation of the chain as I know the mechanic very well...haha.

Toot Ziens.