I never know what I’m going to get this time of year.  Depending on the race and travel schedule, how the races have been going, and when my old friend Fatty Fatigue decides to show up, August can be a blast or a bit of an extended boot camp. Just like every day in life is different, every season is different.  For example, last August I was feeling quite spry and chipper.  Training was going well, I was sleeping great and the travel schedule just didn’t feel particularly demanding.  Even the hard stuff felt easy - I loved doing intervals, prepping for the races and polishing of tough training days.   This August is pretty different.  I wouldn’t say it’s at the complete opposite end of the spectrum - I’ve definitely had years where...

I guess it’s official - I am not very good at blogging....just noticed it’s been over 2 months since I had something to write here.  I just get so distracted with, well, life!  At least I’m on Twitter and Facebook - check me out there if you’re wondering what I’m up to and actually want to know on a more regular basis.... Let me try this - I’ll use this one as a "hello" to the world/recap and THEN try this regular update thing through the rest of the season at least (we'll see about this).  The last 2 months have flown by and I am now back in Europe after a bunch of domestic racing.  Here’s a quick summary of all since the last World Cup in chronological order: Straight from the World Cup in Offenburg, Germany to...

I’m not about to claim to have this Euro travel all figured out, but man, was that trip a breeze! A lot of things really worked out for our recent World Cup trip and I’d like to take a moment to be thankful for things that went right – since, in the life of a bike racer, things don’t always go as smoothly as we planned. Here it is: 1)      Props to Jon Rourke, our team manager for having a talk with the Icelandic Volcano god and booking our flight out of the states for Wednesday – the first day in nearly a week that British airspace was open 2)      Thanks to the Gary Fisher program and staff for getting us team Superfly 29ers for Europe – no traveling with bikes, building and packing,...

I was just thinking - my coach is RAD.  Up until January 2009, I had been a self-coached athlete.  I have my degree in exercise physiology and have gathered quite a bit of knowledge from many great influences - some were colleagues in school, others were cycling greats like Travis Brown.  Of course, my biggest influence and acting "coach" for the past ten years was JHK. Overall though, I've mostly been my own lab rat.  Each year I'd keep a training log and, for the next season, would try to tweak the things that didn't work and re-create the things that did work.  I suppose I didn't do so horribly - I managed to achieve my dream of becoming a paid professional on one of the best teams in the world, after all.  But at the...

Well, now I’m tired. We've been on Maui since February 25th and training hard and today was a good one – now I have 2 rest days planned and I definitely need them! I’ve got to say that being tired from only riding feels really good. Although being a professional athlete can be mentally complex, the daily routine is pretty simple: eat, train, recover, eat, and sleep.  This routine and type of fatigue pales in comparison to my last month which had me filling far more roles than just being an athlete. February was a crazy month – I had a ton going on – I was an athlete, a model for an ad campaign, a backcountry hut tripper, a VP of finance and sales woman for our business start up, Studio Shed and, of course, a bike racer. One of...