A Little R & R

I usually am great about getting my blogs in sometimes writing more than I have to, but I have come to this point in my season where I cease to have a strict schedule. I guess I blame it on that. April is my month of rest. A time to do things that I don't often get to do the other 11 months of the year when I am training, working, or hanging out with my 4th graders. This April I have been biking and spending as much time I can with my fiance, Sarah. Sarah is in school in Denver so I often trek down to the front range to "distract" her.

The weather has been fantastic and the riding has been great. I had the chance to get down to Fruita, Colorado for some great bike riding a couple of weeks ago with Sarah as well. It was surprisingly cold getting down to 26 degrees at night. Brrrrrrrr...

Currently, I am training my ankle and shoulder that I hurt at the end of the season back into shape. I am meeting with a PT friend of mine to get things rolling so that I am all ready to go in a week when the 2012/2013 season starts up!

I also just found out that I will be helping out with the same program in July as I did last summer. It was such a great experience for me so I can't wait to get back and help out again!

Below are some pictures from the spring and life!

Speaking of life, I'm getting married in August. Holy moly! Can't wait!

Lastly, seeing if I can get to Olympic Trials in Oregon in June so I can watch fellow ITA teammate Ben True crush it! Good luck buddy!

End of the Season Wrap Up

We just finished up our last races in Craftsbury, Vermont this past week and it was a great way to end the season. After my fall in Sweden I did muster up the strength I needed to secure a fall spot on the World Cup tour in Europe. In Craftsbury I had to keep my lead over a few others including my ITA teammate Brain Gregg who ended up 3rd in the overall SuperTour standings. Brian also was 2nd in the SuperTour Finals Uphill race. I had some of my most successful national results of the year, including me winning the classic sprint qualifier. My biggest goal at the beginning of this season was to win the Overall SuperTour so that I could get some World Cup start rights in the fall of 2012. I am so happy that I was able to attain this goal along with many more along the way. It was a huge step for me this year and I couldn't be more pleased with it. And honestly it could not have been without the help of ITA. Being able to focus more of my time on training and racing and worrying less about how I am going to be able to afford travel and food each week makes all of the difference. Below are some pictures from the week of racing in Craftsbury. You can see the trails were pretty bare but Craftsbury did an amazing job at preserving the snow. Even for our 33-lap, 50k National Championship race. WOW! If you're not familiar with our SSCV uniforms, they are blue and white and I am wearing the yellow jersey.

Team HomeGrown (bibs 1-4 in the prologue)

2nd in the prologue behind studmuffin Simi Hamilton

Getting my alpine tuck on

My finish with Tim Reynolds in the 50k. It was for 3rd and I just missed out.