It's been so long!

Wow...I really have been out of touch for a long time. But I have been busy enough to warrant the blog hiatus!

Let's start with the final weeks of my first senior year. I finished out the college racing season by taking the overall win in Men's B. I must admit that 1st overall felt pretty damn good after debating a jump into the 'A' field all season- a bit of justification and reward for my work.

What's even better was that I pulled off nearly 20 hours of training during the week, raced every weekend of the season, held down a job as a mechanic as the Bicycle Shop and pulled out a 3.6 GPA for the semester.

Today I was fortunate to attend the party that is the USPro Championship race in Philly. Particularly awesome was getting to watch my coach, Bill Elliston, of TargeTraining tear up the Manyunk wall. Risking coming across as a bit pretentious, I can't wait to be that fast. Even more awe-inspiring was watching Mike Friedman position himself into the winning break of the day and sprint to 8th place. It's crazy to think that kid used to race for my Penn State team and he is major league fast. He has had a fantastic year racing with TIAA-Cref.

We started out in the morning in Manyunk and watched the field hit the wall 4 times. The best way I can describe the atmosphere is to transplant the frat environment of State College into a small, crowded European town. I think the best was watching two guys who resembled Belushi in Animal House struggle to carry a keg up the wall. They'll be sore in the morning and not entirely from the hangover.

We then traveled to art museum area to witness the finish and partake in the marketing blitz. I was able to play with the new SRAM groupo and must say I am thoroughly impressed. Plus, they had the parts hung on Colnagos. Yea baby.

Also noteworthy was the appearance of the Toyota-United Pro girls. There were at least 6 young women in team skinsuits hocking team merchandise and attracting attention to the sponsors' logos which were boldly displayed on their well endowed chests.

Okay, now for a little bit of bitching (you knew it was going to happen at some point). My season as a Cat 3 hasn't gone as planned and I don't think I'll have the points to be a 2 in time to race in the National Championships in Seven Springs. But hey the upside is that'll save me $100 in registration fees.

Well, that is enough jibba jabba for now.