This past week has brought nothing but rain here In Greenville. It has made for a rough week of training.  About the last thing I like to do is leave the house with my rain jacket already on.  I took a few days easy once I got back from Missouri, I actually felt much better coming out of the race than going into it,  and I have started doing some big days to get ready for the upcoming World Championships.  How do you train for a race with 265 kilometers and 4700 meters of climbing?  I am not sure, I have never done that, maybe the closest thing would be LBL this year.

I have had a couple of long days on the bike this week, and I have been doing some circuit training on some hills to simulate it the best I can.  I am hoping that all of the training and racing that I have done the past eleven months will help carry me through the race.

Aside from the rain, I have been hearing a lot of my friends talk about how awesome it is to be in the off season, and hearing about all of the great times they are having.  I am in no way ready to shut it down for the year, but I do hate missing out on some of the fun.  It always seems a little strange when I head out for a six hour ride and George is heading down to the tennis court.  I love the upcoming races, so I am as motivated as ever.  Worlds will be a new experience for me at the elite level, and the fall races in Italy leading into Lombardia are the best one days of the year in my opinion.  If you put these races in the spring, then they would be everyone’s highlight of the year.

I am especially looking forward to my block of racing in Italy.  The races are held in  a few of my favorite regions, Tuscany, Emilia Romagna and Piedmonte, and we only race five days during our ten day stay, so we have plenty of free time to enjoy the area.  To me it is almost like a vacation, and a great way to end a season of racing.  Last year Michael Barry, Scott Davis and I spent the time off the bikes in the local towns and checking out as many wine bars as we could.  Then there is the Italian food, I could go on forever…