Racing to the Sun
March 1, 2008:

I’ve once again chosen a random place to write stuff down. I’m now sitting on the Catalunya Express on my way to Barcelona for a bit of quality time with my girlfriend Nicole. I’ve been fairly Slipstream orientated for months now, so getting out of Girona for a night seemed like a good idea. There are worse places to empty ones head than Barcelona.

It’s only been five full days since California finished, and they’ve been mainly recovery orientated. To give you an idea: Monday–ZERO training, Tuesday–ZERO training, Wednesday–1hr and gym, Thursday– 2hrs, Friday 1.5hrs and gym, today– 3.5hrs with horrible intervals. My legs are shredded from the gym; you’d think the recovery time after California would be easy, but it hasn’t been. The last two days have been hard and today’s training was a case of mind over matter.

I’m starting to learn that many of the signals my body sends my brain are not to be believed. I’m at a point in my athletic career when my mind vetoes most of these signals and does what it wants. JV has spent some time educating me in this matter, and it’s starting to sink in. I’m beginning to accept that all those people who told me ‘it’s in your head’ maybe had a valid point. It doesn’t change the fact they were wankers for saying it though.

The next rendez-vous on the calendar for me is Paris-Nice and this is my principal objective for the first part of the season. Although they have halved the distance of the prologue (because of municipal elections they say, although I don’t know why that would effect a bike race), I think I have a good chance of being in the race for the GC. The team is strong and tactically astute, something that is imperative for success at Paris-Nice.

Paris-Nice, “the race to the sun,” is an unpredictable race and requires concentration and a strong desire to be in the heart of the action. There is no waiting and controlling the race to the foot of the summit finish and then just riding at the front to the finish of the last stage. There can be crosswinds on the first day, snow and road closures on another. There can be new talent going strong and predictable old talent going backwards. It’s that time of year. Sean “King” Kelly won it eight times.

The boys are racing in Het Volk as I type and last I heard Meatball was in the break six minutes up the road. Johnny Weltz was sending me race reports while I was out training in an attempt to inspire me and get me through it–which it did. I’m pleased for Meatball who has been skulling* it in Girona with Maggy for the past two weeks. In his own words, he has “never trained like that” before, so I’m glad he’s able to translate that into race form. It’s no gift getting into a break in a Northern Classic and I hope this is the beginning of a strong spring campaign for him and the rest of the boys. Rather them than me…

Well the train is approaching Barcelona now, and it’s time for me to attempt to disengage my brain from Slipstream for a few hours. Wish me luck in this crazy venture of mine…

*Skulling is a Northern England term for smashing oneself that I got off Nick Craig while living in the Peak District. One can also be a “skuller.”