All the symptoms of bike love!

It is easy to diagnose... I was riding along today, just getting back in the saddle after my post-Altoona day off, and I could not stop smiling! I would find myself spontaneously grinning, exposing my teeth to the dangers of flying insects and occasionally closing my eyes for a minute or too and absorbing all the sounds and the pure essence of the moment... This was a bike-love day!

I am thrilled! When I was so tired after Europe, I kept telling myself that I would come back into form and to be patient with my tired body. I knew it to be true, but it is still somehow hard to believe when you know what you SHOULD be able to do and just can’t do it with your worn out body. At Nature Valley, I was just starting to feel good again... but there were a lot of times when I knew that I was not where I had been earlier on in the season nor where I wanted to be at that point in the season. But I had a great training block between NV and Toona and I am finally starting to get that high from feeling strong on the bike again.

Skipping Nationals was a bit hard for me to do- I knew that it was not a good course for me and I wanted to get in some good training... but still. It is hard to miss a big race like that: missing my teammates, the friends in the peloton... But I am so glad that I did. I have come to really start to appreciate Cleveland. The training here is really good and I had a productive good hard block of training leading into Altoona. And Toona itself was, as I said yesterday, fantastic! The best part for me is that I feel so good now. I just got back from 7 days of very hard racing, and I am not tired. I felt like a million bucks on the bike today. Last year, I was worked after Toona. This is really giving me great perspective into how much I have developed over the last year and is really giving me a boost of confidence for where I can go from here. A confidence boost is always a good thing. We all need it from time to time!

On a different note... one thing that I read today made me sad and really pissed me off a bit- or, rather, a lot. I want to believe that the riders in the Tour are all clean, but sadly, I would be lying if I said I were surprised by the latest results of yet another doper caught... sigh. It is so sad. But, that is one thing. What irritated me today is someone (not a friend) sent me a link to a picture of Laura Van Guilder that was on some VeloNews blog with the caption “tickets to the gun show” & “what is she on?”. Laura is incredibly built with serious guns- triceps like my quads: big. Not a typical cyclist. Although we have our differences, being very very different people, I have the utmost respect for her as a cyclist and as a person. There is absolutely no shadow of a question in my mind as to her being a clean, honest cyclist with incredible talent that has been honed from tremendous hard work. Yes, she is built like a bulldog. There is a little thing called genetics... some people ARE built like that and can climb hills with some of the best and sprint faster than just about anyone. Laura is that person. Even in jest, I hate to see that thrown around. Laura is clean. She is talented. She is hard working. End of story. If you saw her race at Altoona- you would take your hat off to her too. I want to beat her and I will. She is one of my biggest competitors. But I know that she is clean and that it will be an honor when I do best her.