It's On!

Hunting season is officially over for me and it's time to start generating some power.  The first race of the season is merely two months away on February 25th and luckily enough, in Little Rock.  Woohoo!  Two weeks after the Little Rock event, Rouge Roubaix will be next on my hit list.  For those of you not familiar, it's our Southern version of Paris Roubaix, the famous road race across northern France that occurs over some of the worst cobbled roads Europe has to offer.  It's an epic event that tests legs, machine and spirit.  Since we don't have cobbled roads here in the south, our friends in Baton Rouge substitute with gravel roads combined with steep sandy hills.  This will  be my first Rouge Roubaix but I have a lot of friends who have raced it many times and the stories are all the same... "Best race I've ever done!  It Sucked!!!!"  How those two statements can make it out of the same mouth at the same time confound me, so I have to see it for myself.  106 miles with at least 20 miles of hilly gravel roads and a top Masters field.  Bring it!

George Hincapie - Paris Roubaix

Hoping I don't pull one of these

Rouge Roubaix

So the training begins in earnest and I'm feeling good compared to what I normally feel like this time of year. I haven't been riding much but my thrice weekly strength and conditioning workouts with Alan, the meanest man in Little Rock, Thompson, have given me some fitness I haven't seen since my early 20s.  It's also that time of the year when the lights are placed on my road bike and the trainer rides begin, which completely suck btw.  I love riding outside but some nights, it's just too nasty to ride and the thought of riding indoors is more appealing that enduring the elements.... I know, hard to believe but I'm getting soft in my middle age.

The view from my recent ride at the Hampton Inn.  So Glamorous