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SO much to write about

zach — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:02:40 +0000

Well I know I said I was going to do a blog a day after I finished racing but to be honest there just has not been the time…I have been to the Great Wall on a day that was covered in mist and rain…I have had noodles in the basement of a random building (which was one of the best meals ever) I have had a full body massage by a blind man, ihave witnessed first hand in the birds nest 2 record breaking track and field events. I have seen the summer palace and walked probably close to 50 km in flip flops. I have taken pictures and video which I promise to post eventually…but right now there is just now time.

I have had the first BIG MAC I have eaten in probably close to 15 years. I have sampled some of the most interesting and terrible foods and sweets (if they can be called that) that you can imagine. I have mingled with chinese people, joked with taxi drivers who speak no english. I have fitted shoes on a statue and had sushi at mid night. I have done a lot in the last couple of days and it has been outstanding. China is a spectacular place even off the beaten path. and it is spectacular for one reason….the PEOPLE. this is a country truly defined by the attitude and manners of its people. Other countries need technology, or monuments, or any number of dehumanizing things to define what they are. China is people. There are 15 million people in Beijing. People think that this is a problem. And there are problems associated with that many people. But without all these people this city would not be the city it is. It does not feel crowded or over run it feels like a health community full of pockets of life that so rich and dynamic that existence can not be anything but interesting. People by nature are social. and unlike much of western culture that is rushing into the digital age…people in china are real and are using technology to enhance the allready rich social interactions that define the chinese culture. While other people around the world are using technology to remain “connected” at a distance, it seems the people here are using it to create opportunities to come together. Take one look at the buildings in and around the Olympic green. They are 1st intended to celebrate the coming together of everyone in appreciation of the true spectacle of the Olympics. The just happen to be suitable for hosting events as well. This is a whole different kind of shock and aw…one that I think will hold the attention of thr global community…and one I think many of us around the world can learn from. In a country with a reputation of being de humanizing I have found culture that seems to be striving forward in a celebration of what it means to be human in the modern era.

One Day Out

zach — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:47:22 +0000

So I am almost exactly 24 hours until I depart for the track for my first race of the olympics. Not sure what to think…I am happy for th huge outpour of support and I have had the best prep I could have hoped for with the resources available. I feel ready to compete and be competitive…I am confident in my program…goals and strategies. Since qualifying I don’t think anything has not goen to plan really..o hopefully we can keep it up for the next 25 hours or so. It is nervous times, but only a little…I actually feel better about this race than many I have started…maybe I don’t feel the pressure of being a favorite. I think it is just confidence in the skills and abilities I have going in through the proper preparation.

So I guess that is all I have to say…I thought I would have more intriguing insight on this day…but I don’t I just feel ready. What that will mean I am not sure. But it is an odd feeling. I am sure looing back it will seem much more huge than it feels now. I think that is a good thing kind of at peace with racing.

Arrival

zach — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:08:55 +0000

The flight went smooth and I finally have arrived here at the games and other than me not having ANY team kit waiting for me when I arrived (some how I was not on the list…any list) everything is going smoothly. This will be a bit of a report on the state of things here…I will start taking pictures soon and posting them up. But for now an old fashion account of people and place will have to do. The village is Huge. first of all and almost all the venues are within less than 5 km of the village and they are all…also…huge. All the Canadian are in two large tower complexes that are similar to dorm accommodations but are fairly nice. The air has not been bad and the weather has also been nice. The dining hall is long and has a great selection of international (which is food from home) asian and Mediterranean cuisine. So now I have all my shorts and hats and neat stuff…I trained on teh track and things are coming together…I will try to put up some pics in teh next few days but the days are pretty full here like the village. I will try to do a post a day in the second week after I am done racing…this is a beautiful thing and I really hope I can share as much of it with you as I can.

Off into the wild…grey??

zach — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 07:17:08 +0000

I leave for Beijing in about 45min and the last 48 hours has been a little restless and a little full of emotion. I am VERY glad I watched the opening ceremonies from the comfort of my hotel room…there was a lot of stuff I just would not have seen as an athlete there…although I am sure the roar when the chinese entered the stadium must have been amazing.

So now it is really into the taper and really all the work is done. IT is done…wow…now I just have to race. That seems like the easy part after all this work.
I have put together my warm up play list and the songs are as follows. I think it is pretty bitchen…and I should be able to ride good after these tunes…but that is just me.

Freebird -Lynrd Skynrd
Natural Blues - Moby
Extreme Ways -Moby
Sinnerman (Felix Da Housecat’s Heavenly House Mix) - Nina Simone & Felix Da Housecat
I Need A Hero - Bonnie Tyler
Right Now - Van Halen
Paradise City - Guns N’ Roses
Sweet Child Of Mine - Guns N’ Roses

Coolest thing in the opening cerimonies - Giant Firework footsteps across Beijing.
Ok well the next info you get from me should be coming from China.

Ride up the hill

zach — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:48:15 +0000

A great day of training at the end of a hard block today…We have a few days on the track well on the track every day actually. Speeding around behind the moto and bleeding through our lungs and eyes. Sport is fun. We have been testing out the equipment and making sure everything is line.

Anyway todays training was a particularly interesting set of bike rides. We headed over to the track at around 9:oo am. It is a national holiday here is swiss today so everything was closed up and we more or less had the place to ourselves. We jumped off the bike on the whistle and got back on on the second…Richard our coach has some good form on that bike droping us most times he hit it…then again it is a moto;)

This is where it gets good. After the workout I headed out for a road ride up this mountain about 5 mins from the track. It is a beautiful 45min climb with 20+ switchies. Aplen and epic…I started off up it plugging away…and about 5 min in I hear this strange noise. Like a loud horn blaring …going through the notes. I couldn’t spot it but I am sure it was an Alpen horn…like in the Ricola commercials. Pretty unique swiss experience. Then the rain came…pummled down and made a river of the road. It was even more epic…I reached the top just as this deluge stoped and was able to enjoy my brief break as just before I eased my way down the slipper mountain…But a good day over all…I am looking forward to the rest day tomorrow…maybe some exploration…

Oh and one last thing….there has been about 4 solid hours of fireworks here…private fire works…In fact as I sit here writing this.there are probly 10 towns all along the lake and up in the mountains all shooting of a big show all at the same time…I love experiencing national celebrations…they have to be some of the most interesting things you can culturally experience.

Something is Arriving

zach — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:32:31 +0000

So we are here in switzerland and all the stories about this place are pretty much true. The center is amazing everything you could ever need for any cycling dicipline and it is all laid out with the legendary swiss precision. The track is like a Mini world Cup track…everything is just scaled down…except the speed it is ripping and we have not even hit it hard yet. The weather is great and things are really starting to get settled. I am in the process of working on several films that I hope o get done over teh nex few weeks so check back. Also I just found out that during the Games I may need to divert log traffic to a page that has no sponsors on it…kinda lame so watch for instructions if you wanna know what is going on. As for now I will just keep hitting the boards on the Cervelo Stallion and resting between the hard times…try to get some pictures of the wonderland out to you too.

Basic Training

zach — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:49:26 +0000

Things are finally starting to come together, I can view all my prep left for the games on one or 2 pages. The interesting thing is it is much different than a lot of the the things I have done in the past. I have a track bike built up with a front break and I am spending days down on the US Canada Border motor pacing. The funny thing is I get going legs start really spinning and I hit the shifter. Of course it is not hooked to anything so no matter how hard I am going it always makes me laugh. It is funny the things that get engrained in your head.

I got a couple new sponsors helping out. And actually all the sponsors are really kicking in a lot of help here Late in the game Planet Organic, Canada’s best grocery store (in my view). Has started to help me out with some clean fuels for the training. I feel better with all the organics I am consuming. I used to be a little skeptical about organics but when they make up most of what you are eating you sure feel the difference. Best buy so far has been the organic round beef. Made the worlds best lean burgers the other day. You think you have a better recipe send it to me and and if I like it more…I will send you a t shirt.

Giro has also sent me some great glasses and helmets. Awsome….can’t say more…the helmet sits on my head better than hair and the lens optics are great.

I also received my new bike for the Olympics. Cervelo P3 Track…Stiff light and silent…That is the crazy thing…it is Silent. I go fast and there is no noise. You don’t realize how loud wind turbulence is off your bike until you get on a bike like this. The guys at La Bicicletta set it up for me in no time. (They are having a CERVELO Test ride Day on August 6th, so I would go and have a listen to these bikes where you ride. Ask them where you can go to hear these bikes) They are letting people take the bikes for 30 min so you have time to really take a listen.

So there is a lot going on…and that is always how it goes…you try and try to get everything done early and no matter what the last week before you leave is always the craziest time.

The Invisible Man

zach — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:08:30 +0000

So I have had a pretty good super week all and all…since my last post there have been 4 days for days of racing and the results have been 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 2nd….and I won the over all of the Tour de Delta for teh 2nd year in a row. Here is the ting…with so many front line finishes you would think I could get a friggin photo of the finish one time. I mean I have crossed the line and almost run over photographers waiting after the finish line. So I am in the frame of view. What is going on? for what ever reason no mater how close or far I am from the winner I have not been able to even squeeze a face in there. I am honestly not being camera shy. But have a look at this photo I think it is funny I always end up somewhere in the shadows.

Working on the work

zach — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:56:31 +0000

so I have been inching closer to the top of the results sheet and honestly it is a good thing but I would be lying if I said I was not finding things a little frustrating. I got 3rd in the National Time trial Championships again this year. This is great considering I came of a really tough camp in T town. then we had the prologue of the Tour de Delta Last night and I finished 5th just under a second out of 2nd place. So a fair result. So why is this frustrating well last year I was more or less peaked for these races…I was on the best form of the road year around this time. With the Olympics I have put a lot of energy into NOT being 100% for these races…so at the moment it feels a bit like a step backwards. Races I have felt on fire for in the past I am suddenly putting secondary. So my performances from the previous year are not “better”. It is making me feel a little stale. But in reality it is just what I need if I am going to fly at the big show. But it is frustrating when I see some of my other competitors moving forward even though they ARE also doing the games. I just keep reminding myself that there is energy they will not have for the games. You only have a few amazing performances a year in this sport I think. Every time I think I am about to have one it is like I reach out and stuff it back in the bottle with some hard training. The hope I guess is that if I can open up that bottle at the games all these flickers of amazing efforts will burst out as an eruption of Olympic caliber performance. However as an first time olympian, it makes me nervous. I have a hard time rectifying in my own mind that in an olympic year I am almost intentionally having a series of slightly fatigue induced sub standard performances. Pretty good rides but not steps forward like I had been taking every year in the past. I guess when you are where I am at, an olympian with a shot, but not a favorite, you really do have to sacrifice everything in order to get that one big result. If you don’t have that bottle completely full you are not going to have it in the biggest race in the sport. That is the theory I am working with. But it takes a lot of faith in the program you are doing to trust that a year lacking in sparks will lead to the explosion. But I guess all it takes sometimes is the one little spark if the tank has just been pumped full of fuel. It is a good thing I have faith. I guess that is why going to the olympics is kind of like a religious experience. You really have to trust the people you are working with…if you don’t you really are floundering around for nothing.

Tough Days

zach — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:28:06 +0000

Training camp #1 started this week in T Town at the Valley Preferred Velodrome in PA. (www.thevelodrome.com) And it has been a hard go. We started the week right off the plane wih 500m efforts…(30 sec all out) And that just about generated a barf factory. Normally I don’t have any trouble with these…in fact they are usually my bread an butter. But it has been a while since I have done them and the recent block of racing has lead to my body being capable of really hurting itself…but I have not yet developed the ability to clear that pain.

Then we did some motor pacing the next day and I was again in the hurt locker…driving it hard. It all came to head on thursday. In the morning there was rain so the track was closed. We al jumped on rollers and did an hour or so of leg work, then it cleared up and we got on the track for a vicious moto session in the afternoon. then one hour later a Crit with sprints on every 3rd lap. TRIPLE DAY. That is pretty rad…and it was right before another hard day of racing and training.

The next day was a good practice in dealing with mental situations. I consider myself a relatively smart guy but I tend to try to win bike races with more muscle than mind. So when I was struggling a little in the Track Racing last night I tried to think my way through it a little…The results were ok, I was finishing behind guys I can normally finish just ahead of. I have been training hard but I did not feel like it was fatigue. So I kept trying to think my way through. How do you get the most out of your performance. How do you adjust when things are not going along they way you would like. Well I break it down.

Towards the end I focused on one thing. How am I going to win this next bike race with the tools I have. I think in biking that is what it has to come to every time. How can you win a race with the tools you have. I worked backwards. All night I was there at the end and I was getting hung out spinning like a mad man but not making the headway. This is usually not the problem for me. If I am spinning like a mad man there are usually only a couple people around who can hold me off. Granted I might blow after and skinny ankled guys can put me in a hurt locker…but while I am spinning like a mad man…GOOD LUCK. So by the end of the night I decided if I am spinning like a mad man and not making it around like usual maybe I needed to spin something bigger like a mad man. I put on a bigger gear than I have usually ridden on this type of track waited and then spun it like a mad man. AND IT WORKED. I was back to my usual speedy form. Took me all night to figure it out but I thought my way through it. The strange thing is I figured out I had to ride like me. With a lot of muscle and meat headed attitude. But looking back I have put a lot of effort into improving my strength and If last night is any indication it seems to be working…I was able to spin a bigger gear than ever on a hard track at the end of 48 hours of overload. It sure is encouraging when training does what you hoped it would. But it is always a little unsettling if it changes you in some way, even if that is what you where going for.