This 'fat kid' is flying in Qatar!

I’ve heard rumors that my teammates thought I was WAY overweight at our November team camp. So I’m here to explain a few things.

First, I was super mentally cracked from the Olympics and from switching from track to road and not getting results. Second, when you take time off the bike, you get bigger unless you’re starving yourself, which is stupid because the body has to have a break from the beating we give it year round. And third, my shoulders and biceps were jacked from holding on to 450 cc’s of power while ripping the single track in Moab on a dirt bike.

Before our team camp, I was running, mountain biking and in the gym. The airlines lost my bike over Christmas and I was stranded with nothing but a jump rope and the trails to run for two weeks.

All that said, this fat kid - who isn’t fat anymore - has been on his road bike a total of 18 days. And yesterday was the 18th day. I have been progressively getting better since I arrived here on the 29th. Yesterday, I made the final split with Boonen, Pozzato, and 6 Cervelo guys.

The wind was atrocious and loads of crashes were happening everywhere. Coming into the finish, I should have jumped early with Fletcha. But I made the mistake of waiting for the sprint and the guys swarmed us from behind, nearly crashing myself and Hammond. But it was an awesome day for me, and I feel good.

I can’t help it that I’m part Caveman, Neanderthal, if you will. I happen to think I’m beautiful just the way I am, even if the guys say I resemble Shrek. But even Shrek smiles, gets a girl, and ends up running a Kingdom. Ha, ha! So when all the oil is gone and we are reduced to farming and clubbing what ever it is we can for food, you can join my clan and a clubbing we will go!

This year is going to be the best year for me yet!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 5:48 am and is filed under Features, Garmin Web Site, Home Page and tagged with Martijn Maaskant, Mike Friedman, Qatar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.