Well, my winter break here in Greenville has come to an end.  I’ve spent the past couple of days figuring out how to pack up my whole life into one suitcase.  I’ll spend the next six-months or so over in Europe, my longest block yet, and I’ll have to be prepared for everything.  Training camp in Mallorca, Spain, is my first stop.  Two weeks of hard training, on and off the bike, and hopefully a little better weather will help me get ready for the racing season.  Then, it’s time to get settled in Girona, my home for the year.

I am looking forward to getting the year going and figuring out where my fitness is in the first few races.  I feel the winter has treated me well, but it’s hard to say when you’re not racing and don’t have anything to compare with.  I am also really excited to get back to life in Girona.  The life and culture there is about as good as it can get.  Morning coffees overlooking the river at our place, and an evening glass of wine in one of the town squares with Courtney are some of the best parts of life.  It will also be nice to escape the bitter cold that has settled in Greenville, and have some fresh roads to train on.

Courtney and I rang in the New Year at the annual Hincapie party that George and Melanie put on.  This year’s was bigger than ever, with a DJ, a band, plenty of flashing lights and even a fog machine!  We had a great time catching up with some friends and even saying farewell at the same time since I will be heading to Europe in the next week.

The night begun with a small, yet great dinner over at George’s house.  A few bottles of very nice wine later and I was ready to curl up in bed, but it was only eight so I had to rally to make it down to our neighborhood’s clubhouse for the actual party.  Several coffee drinks later and I was on the dance floor, one place you’ll rarely find me.   I was trying to learn a few moves from Brent Bookwalter who made the trip up with John Murphy for the party.  There was no denying Brent knew his way around the floor, but he was paying for his effort, as he was full on sweating the whole time he was out there.  With only a few short hours of sleep, I was paying for it the next morning.  It’s a good thing I only go through that once a year!

The rest of the long weekend was spent down in Atlanta, GA.  Courtney planed a trip there to celebrate my upcoming birthday since I will not be at home for it again this year.  We found a new favorite restaurant, Eugene, and spent way too much time in the malls, but we had a great time.  It was such a nice way to begin the year!

Hope you all have a great 2010.  I am very excited for the possibilities and looking forward to making the best of each of them.  Happy New Year!

Everything has been going really well here before Christmas. Jet-leg is still clear and present, as I am passing out each night before ten and getting up before the sun.  Can’t really complain though, it’s amazing how much more you can fit into the day when you wake up early.  I am just finishing up a solid block of training before I take a small break over the weekend.  The other day I made the mistake of riding my TT bike for four hours and now I can barely move my neck!  But other than that, it’s been great.  Most days have been spent training with George doing plenty of tempo efforts on the flats and getting in a few climbs here and there, weather permitting.  The snow from last week is still lingering in the shady corners and up in the mountains.  It’s not really worth the risks of riding on ice, so we have been forced to turn around several times.

This Christmas weekend should be as special as always.  It’s hard to believe it’s actually that time of the year.  I have been so busy lately that it’s been hard to keep up with when and where I actually am.  Surely when I sit down with my whole family for dinner on Christmas Eve it will set in.  Enjoy the Holidays!

Another nightmare of a trip finally brought me home to Greenville this past weekend.  Delayed, and even canceled flights were again the cause.  The “storm of the decade” was making its way up the east coast as I was trying to get from Philadelphia to Greenville.  My wife, Courtney, had to drive late in the night, with snow and ice on the roads, to pick me up in Charlotte, NC.  In total, I spent almost six days of traveling just to be in Lanzarote for six days!  I am glad we were able to get so many meetings out of the way as it probably wouldn’t have been worth it otherwise.

Now it is time to once again re-adjust to a new time zone and finish up all of my holiday shopping.  It’s hard to believe Christmas is this week, but it sure does feel like it.  Returning to the cold weather was a shock and it is strange to see snow by the roadsides and ice in the trees.  Training is full on for the 2010 season now.  It was a very quick switch from easing into things to being in the thick of it.  In fact, the week spent in Lanzarote, I had around forty hours of exercise!

The goal for the next few weeks is to just enjoy as much time with my family and friends as possible.  Before I know it, I will be back in Mallorca, Spain, for our next training camp and then the racing season will have officially begun.

Are we halfway through November already?  When I think of the off-season, I think of a time where I am basically doing nothing.  Just recharging the body, the mind and catching up on a lot of missed time on the couch.  Yet, each year I seem to pack more and more into the winter months and this year I seem to have over stretched myself.  There has not been one dull moment and I feel about as tired as if I was coming home from a race.

When I am home, I am cooking, cleaning, shopping, running, riding and playing some tennis here and there.  On my trips so far it has felt like a stage race, with hotel transfers and with activities planned from sun up to sun down.  Unfortunately, during the winter months I can’t use my “I need to rest and recover for my next race” card and my wife knows it!  Guess it’s payback for the rest of the year when she is taking care of me.

If I looked back to the summer months I was already looking towards the off-season and making plans to do this and that.  Trying to pack in as many fun things that I could.  The possibilities seem endless at that point.  Once the off-season finally arrives you realize that the more you have planned, the faster it goes, and that is the case for me this year.   But I can’t say that I would do anything different.

I really have had a great time so far.  I was able to be part of so many cool experiences in Texas, our annual tennis tournament is coming up this weekend, which will be a great chance to catch up with some friends and then on Sunday I am off to Peru for a week with Right To Play (www.righttoplay.com).  I can only assume the Peru trip will be a huge eye opener.  We will be touring different villages and schools, giving talks and playing games and other activities with the children. I have no idea of what to expect, but I am sure it will be something I will always remember.  After Peru, it will already be Thanksgiving and then off to the first Team Columbia-HTC training camp.  It really does go so fast, but you only live once…

Our annual cyclist only tennis tournament is only a few weeks away now.  Known as the “George Hincapie Invitational” in honor of his win last year, it has grown greatly in popularity and more and more non-cyclist are wanting in.  We thought it would be best to keep with the cyclist theme, so in order to qualify you have to be able to climb Paris Mt. in under twenty minutes. When you see the pros stopping the clock at around nine minutes you might think it’s easy, but for someone who never rides it’s a tall order.

Jeremiah, who worked for Columbia HTC this year, and Jared, a local artist, were up for the challenge.  Jeremiah has had some experience on a bike and he has all of the gear.  But Jared was borrowing a lady’s bike and wearing normal tennis shoes, not the best setup, especially with the wet weather we had today.

Obviously Jeremiah had been holding out on us as he made it to the top in under fourteen minutes, a very respectable time.  He did manage to get his heart rate up to 200bpm, so at least we know he was going for it. 

After seeing him finish we headed back down the mountain to see Jared’s progress.  He was going fairly well, but fighting the bike the whole way.  Sprinting for a few seconds and then almost coming to a stop. It was actually pretty inspiring to see someone push their limits so much.  He made it to the top in twenty one minutes, just over the time limit, but we figured he deserved a little leeway since he was in tennis shoes and in the rain.  Jared immediately collapsed in the middle of the road, but he had secured his spot in the Tournament along with Jeremiah.

The first week of my off season has already passed, and as I look at the calendar, the first training camps and even the 2010 season are just around the corner.  Sometimes I feel it might be easier if we just continued racing, and that might be the case in the near future.  It wasn’t so long ago that the real racing didn’t begin until almost April.  Now teams and riders are putting more importance in doing well in races in February and even January.

I have really enjoyed my break so far.  I am still putting in a few hours here and there on the road and mountain bike.  My goal is to stay relatively fit this winter to have a great start to next year.  Off the bike, I traveled down to Charleston with Courtney for a few days.  There we caught up with some good friends and even snuck in a nice and increasingly rare night alone.

I had not been in Charleston in many years so I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed my time there.  It has a very European feel, and I love the fact that we were able to walk everywhere and never had to use the car.  We did a little shopping and even a run one morning along the Battery, but we spent most of our time trying a few of the amazing restaurants Charleston has to offer.  A big group of us went to Lucca one night and dined family style, with endless plates of anitpasti, fresh pastas, meats, cheeses, wine and desserts being brought to the table.  By the end of the night, with very full stomachs, we all agreed that it was some of the best Italian we have ever had.

It was nice to get  away with Courtney for a few nights, but I was happy to get back into my own house and put away my suitcase, even if its not for long.  We are off again next week to Texas for a clay shoot that benefits a local charity and the big NASCAR race the following weekend.  It should be a great time, and we are looking forward to catching up with our family there.

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.

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I am still not sure how we pulled the win off, but we did.  George seemed very happy to have his 3rd jersey, and I was very happy to be part of this one.  After the race we headed to the Hincapie office for the annual after race party.  My wife, Courtney, had been planning the party, and a fashion show to coincide, for the past month.  It was a very stressful month to say the least, so I was excited to see her hard work pay off.  The party was a huge success, of course.  You could not have fit one more body in the building.

The fashion show was awesome as well.  George’s and Rich’s kids were to first to walk out and put a smile on everyone’s face, and the show was closed by Pat McCarty doing a karate kick at the end of the runway, something you had to experience to realize how funny it was.

Sometime during the party George said he wanted Courtney and I to go to New York with him the next day, an opportunity we just couldn’t pass up.  After heading downtown for one more drink, and to see Floyd Landis sing a few Kid Rock songs, we called it a night and headed home to pack up for the last minute trip.

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