Back from France, bombs will make you scared but bats will make you dance

Greetings...
So Tasha is back from France...I'l let her tell you about her exploits, but it sounds like it was a pretty interesting trip. In Orly, on the way home home, apparently a bomb went off at the airport, then in the plane they hit some major turbulence and the planes nose went straight up, and caused people to scream and be sick and panic.

I picked Tasha up at the Dorval airport and I was so happy to see her that I left a few hours early, so I parked in economy and walked through half the parking lot to get there...then waited and waited. But a funny thing occured, I never really understood that airports were such a good place to make sociological observations. I could not get over how much joy and happiness was around the arrivals area as people were so excited to see their loved ones. I don't ever remember seeing so many happy faces in an airport. So, I walked upstairs to the departures area ans sure enough it was almost the complete opposite, people nasty, crabby, sulking, anxious, it was almost contagious. You would think it would be the opposite, people are all excited to leave and sad they are coming home, but this is not the case. All this to say, that it's good leave and go away and experience the world but it really allows you to just appreciate what you have when you come back.

Ok, nough SOC101. So the other night we are watching TV, well, Tash is sleeping on the couch and I'm doing Yoga poses, I sit to watch the finale of So you think you can dance and I see a bird in our living room...well no it's not a bird...it's a bat! I jump from my chair, yell, "bat, bat bat" trip over the lazy boy, and fall down trying to stay low to the ground so the bat does not get in my hair. Tash jumps, screams and comes upstairs. George had to go wrestle it outside. I have been having recurring thoughts about batman movies and every time I hear a noise I think there is a bat hiding upside down. Tash thinks I'm a big whimp. I told her I would have gone it to get the bat if I had a hockey helmet, catchers mit and tennis racket...I did this once before while I was in college dressed like this. Scary stuff those things have rabbies and stuff.

Other than that, Sears had the poor man's Espresso machine on sale so after about 20 hours of research and contemplation, I did it, I bought an espresso machine. Needless to say a couple days in and I did 2 five hour rides back to back, the first one I avg'd 39 km an hour for the first 100 km, and that was a loop...then I went super hard for the next bit and then insanely hard bits for the last hour...wow, that hurt. So my concerns this week have about how not to make a mess when transfering the coffee from the burr grinder to the espresso basket...lots of coffee on the floor. I think it's a a learning process. Also went through a bag of Kicking horse 454 in 7 days, by myself. In Cornwall there's not really much to do, so the cheap bugger that I am , I can justify spending a couple extra dollars on some good coffee since it is pretty high up there in there in the hierarchy of training...good coffee=good riding, so there it is. I'm not on the Robbie O Rancillio Espresso level yet...but everyone has to start somewhere. I even read an article about home roasting coffee, apparently you can do it pretty cheap. So look out for Dynamic Duo Brew, coffee darker than the tan on my legs...
That was funny.
Derrick

Natasha mixing it up

I just got off the phone with Natasha and she sounds like she is having fun. She says she's getting all crazy and putting the hurt on...today finished in a bunch sprint and apparently it was chaotic.
It's really fun to read the french updates, it's so dramatic.

I've decide to take this weekend off of racing and just do, well, a little training and mostly just not travel. I wanted to make the trip to Prov's but it's just not in the cards. I feel ok, but I know that my punch was not 100% last weekend. It's actually funny as I was watching the Tour, Paul and Phil were talking about current World Champ, Alessandro Ballan. They said he's only won 9 races in his professional career.
Moral of the story...
it's not just about winning lots of races, it's about just winning the right ones.
DSJ

Weekend wrap up

Yeesh...I wish I would have some big introspective thoughts into what went through the engine room this weekend, but I think it is simple, it just wasn't there. Wether or not it was self imposed by a ridiculous amount of training during the week or some misFORTUNE, I really don't know. Funny that I went all year without getting a flat and then one in the uphill during the OBC race, then another on the way to the crit. Call me superstitious...but that was a strange coincidence, just like it just wasn't meant to be.
Yesterday was just painful, I didn't really enjoy the style of racing and I probably made matters worse by letting my ego get the best of me.
Good news was that my parents came from Cornwall and I hopped a ride back with them to C wall as something was just not right being back in O town.
It's a actually really funny to think that as a bike racer, I have so many idiosyncrasies, I'm surprised I don't carry a horseshoe and walk around throwing salt over my shoulder.
I'm not sure I've talked about this before, but when your going good, it's kind of like a drug...you win it feels great, you are the Boss. But when anything but winning happens you have lost and you are searching for that victory and you just wanna ride yourself into annihilation to get it again.
I guess that's why so few people ever understand the mind of an elite cyclist. Winning is the penultimate goal. In a lot of ways its good, that's why you eat salad intead of french fries and why you ride 6 hours instead of 2, to keep having success on bigger level. I think that the guys who are really successful though learn how to care enough enough about their performance to be mad and frustrated, but then get over it in order to rise up to the next challenge.
So today's training will consist of the follwing...mini put golf...swimming...Wii...and not talking to anyone older than 10 years old.
DSJ

Elliott closing in...

So I still haven't spoken to Tasha, but it looks like she is now 2nd in the QOM competition.
The girl that is leading has more points, obviously, but I don't know what the scoring on the hills is, so impossible to tell how close it really is.
I would say it would be smart to sandbag the tt, which is tomorrow am, then try and get in a break without the QOM jersey, but Tasha is only seconds out of a top 10 overall, so hard to say, if it's an uphill tt she'll throttle it...so who who knows...can you tell I am missing her? I am stuck to having conversations with myself and making fictitious situations in my mind "...of all the things I 've lost, I miss my mind the most" (Ozzy Ozborn).

OBC and Tour de Bretange

Ok, OBC GP, woke up late, good thing bag was packed had 9 minutes to gather my things. Raining, cold, race starts, not bad, then flat, frig, Nash gave me a front wheel, chase back.
Get into break, not good today, barely pull through, not good in the rain today...could not put the hurt on, held on for 5th in the break, not great but oh well, Aaron was 7th pulled away from the pack.
THe thing about winning and is, it's a little bit of an addiction and when you loose it's a pretty shity feeling, but alas.....
On a better note , i read that Natasha is slowly moving up the ranks, she was 29th yesterday and sits 3rd in the QOM competition. Hopefully she had energy today, cause bike racer lifestyle does not fit well with 745 start today...hopefully she took the DD energy and put it to use!

Still have not talked to her, I hope she is having fun and can put the hurt on the girls from DSB Bank.
Tomorrow is another day.

DSJ

Natasha in France

Apparently, she will be doing the Tour de France!
The other women thought her legs were too sexy and have told her to race the men's race.
No that's not true. Apparently she finished in the pack today as 2 riders got away with 10km to go and she was in the bunch, so no worries.
http://courses.femininesassociees.over-blog.com/categorie-1228597.htm
You can read about it. Haven't talked to her as she is without Internet...I hope she is ok, without Internet that is, hahah. But seriously I'm sure she is fine...last I heard she was working on her French!
I went to Shawarma Palace and the dude gave me double chicken and garlic sauce for her...
but holly shit, I tried to ride my bike after that as I am commuting from Pincrest and wow...it took almost one hour to get home and I almost threw up garlic and pickled turnups...but it was just a burp...it almost smelled as bad as the vomit smell I encountered as I tried to take a short cut through the Byward market...but that wasn't me.
Anyways, bike riding is not to be done post Shawarma. I rode with flip flops and got passed by 3 people on the bike path!
Other than that, I write her emails and she does not get them, I just want to ride my bike for hours ans I even did a couple shifts at the CHC as a man nurse.
They said I looked like I belong on a beach as I am super laid back...they should see my face when I'm throwing down with 20 km to go, they wouldn't think I was laid back Luke then eh? Either that or I'm so endorphinated from the k's before work I'm just happy to be there.

DSJ

the happenings

I haven't been posting that much lately as the gypsy life has it's way of making time fly away. You would think that I would have all this spare time to just talk about what's going but it's not the case. Well maybe now, but lately it's been busy.

It's really nice to hear the positivity from the people in Ottawa in relation to the success RWR is having this year. It really goes to show what can happen when you put a good group of guys together and everyone has a role to play. I think would have to describe my role as some sort of wild animal with rabbies. Funny though how it has somehow given me an extra bit of confidence this year and I think it is pretty apparent. People have been asking what is different this year, and I'm not really sure, but I know that something is different. Not to be too philosophical, but my desire is different. It has taken a little while, but slowly after making the decision to ride full time, it is coming together bit by bit and things are astronomically different inside my heart. I find myself almost ripping the bar tape off sometimes when I ride. Like I watched David Miller try to go solo the other day and it inspired me to do the same thing in the crit, ok it was the tour of QC and not France, but an effort is an effort.

Even since Preston things have changed, funny enough. When I was off the front I just concentrated on thinking a few things, but this week I almost didn't think, I just shut something off, it's hard to explain, but I just did what I knew I had to do. Shit and Sunday the sprint was pretty close, I've never been at that level before....or maybe I have but just never really believed it. I don't really know what I'm trying to say. Today I wanted to do a ride before the the crit and I ended up riding 220km's today and still drilling it in the crit...it's crazy.

Funny how we always talk about athletes developing over the course of years, but the last 6 months for me have been huge and I'm no spring chicken. I guess alot of my philosophies of training have changed this year, not as scientific, no testing with lactate or numbers, I mean I look at the data but not more than five minutes, it just doesn't mean what I thought it meant.
The just go by feel approach a little more. But that being said, it is important to actually know what you are trying to feel and understand the demands of the particular racing you want to excel at. Aaron and I have had some good chats about training and that guy knows alot, he has an approach to training that may seem a little medieval, but it obviously works. I guess as athletes and coaches always looking for this magical bullet, but really I think we just make things alot more complicated than they really need to be. Seriously.

With Natasha in France I'm staying at Chateau Norm and Jane and au contraire to home, they are the ones cooking so it's pretty amazing...ok I sleep on an air mattress, but hey it's actually pretty comfy. Apparently Tasha is staying with a family in France and she always has their
dog slobbering on her, and also some air line Stewart was hitting on her on the way to France.
So far so good, at least they appreciate beautiful women in France.
DSJ