Whirlwind

Since my last post, it's been go, go, go, full gas. Everything in the last two weeks has been so unique and amazing that each deserves a specific blog post. The problem however, lies in the fact that I haven't quite cracked the code on the creation of a 27 hour day (although I've proposed this several times to the powers that be), and haven't had time to update.

I had a good week in Georgia. I'm always taken aback by the culture of the people in Georgia. Somehow, as very small country sandwiched geographically between so much awfullness (I think I just made that word up), the people of Georgia have sustained a culture that dates back to biblical times, including a unique language and alphabet. They've sustained this culture while being occupied by six different countries. The thing that has always struck me the most is the warmth of the people there. This was my 4th trip to Georgia and there are two very important cultural phenomenons I've picked up on. First, they believe that every minute you spend with family and friends doesn't extend your lifespan, which leads to a lot of long dinners, etc, but it is a great philosophy. I've never heard a Georgian speak of any stupid reality TV show, or TV at all, when you spend time with Georgian, they want to know about YOU and everything you have going on in your life. Which is an incredible breath of fresh air compared to some of the BS we have going on culturally. Second, they trust people until they've given a reason not to. I've read "Three Cups of Tea", of which, the premises is that in Islamic culture, once you have 3 cups of tea with someone, you become part of the family. In Georgia, if you participate in one proper Georgian toast, you are immediately a friend and they will do anything for you. It's very difficult to describe to people how close I've become with several friends in Georgia over the last year. I feel very fortunate to have been exposed to the Georgian culture and I am luckier to have met some of the people I've met there. Here are a couple photos while I was there.

This is Irakli, he's an awesome guy and I consider him a very close friend. In the background, the presidents house is lit up.
This is a shot of an area of Tbilisi that they're currently renovating and making into a commercial section of town.
Here's a closer shot of the old church, which was first opened 1800 years ago (not a typo, OLD), when the capital was moved to Tbilisi.

When I left Tbilisi, I flew direct to Philadelphia. Nancy was going there for a bridal shower for her close friend Natalie. Since, my younger brother John and one of my closest friends Scott both live in the Philly area, I flew there, so I could see them both, Nancy and keep her company on the drive back to Rochester. Friday night, John picked me up at the airport and I went out in Media, PA with him, his new fiancée Theresa and a couple of his buddies. It was a very fun night. Saturday, we got up and headed over to Scott's house for a BBQ with his family and a few of his friends.

Here's a shot of Scott with his 3 month old daughter Adalyn. Didn't get many pictures of Philly, but it was a great weekend.

Following a overly long drive back to Rochester last Sunday, I finally got home. I had a semi-normal, although busy, week at work.

Yesterday was Chad and Libby's wedding. Chad's one of my regular training partners and over the last 3 years, he's quickly become one of my closest friends. Chad and Libby have been dating since high school (and people think Nancy and I took it slow). That included Chad going to Clarkson and Libby going to BC, and yet they made it work and both ended up back in Rochester. Anyways, I couldn't be happier for them. I will say that there were a lot of fast skiers at the wedding. More importantly there was a lot of love all around! Here are some pics from what was an awesome night.

There's the happy couple!!
Here is all of the RNR and SBR attendee's with Chad and Libby. Left to right - Rick, Jason, Frenchy, Libby, Chad, me, Shannon.

Frenchy and his wife Susanna.
Nancy and I.
Rick and Shannon (getting married next fall).
This pic is me and three of Chad's buddies from College. I met Erik (left) at Chad's bachelor party. He's from Norway originally, great guy. These guys all brought their A-Games for Chad's big day, great hanging out with all of them. There was a notable absentee from the Clarkson crowd at the wedding, named Sam. He's a biathlete that we know well and Chad used to live with in college. He's currently serving the Vermont National Guard in Afghanistan. The best man (Chad's brother Derrick) did a great toast which included mentioning Sammy. We're all praying he get's home safe and is kicking our arses again on snow soon!

Overall, it's been an amazing whirlwind!

Cucumber Season in Warsaw

I've been to Warsaw, Poland somewhere around a dozen times and truly love this city. However, this past week has been a new experience. This is my first time here during the summer months as typically most of my customers go on holiday for the better part of July and August. This long summer vacation is very common throughout the better part of Europe, but one of my Polish friends, Andy, informed me that these summer months are referred to as "Cucumber Season", and even used it in a sentence, by responding to this question from me, "Andy, when will we know the status of that order?" with (in a deep voice and thick Polish accent), "Most probably three or four weeks after cucumber season ends." In any event, I've gained a new appreciation for Warsaw in the summer, this city truly comes alive in full force during the summer months. People are everywhere enjoying the great weather and the historic beauty of the city. I got some time today to walk around a little and snap a few photos:

There's a statue on almost every street corner in downtown Warsaw, here's one of them.

Here's a church close to the hotel. There was a wedding going on there today.

This is the entrance to the University of Warsaw.
Another church.
Statue in front of Church.
This is a snapshot of the Warsaw Hotel, which was the only building in this section of town that wasn't completely destroyed during WWII. They are currently refurbishing and are planning to re-open it to guests in the next few months.
This is the presidents palace. There's a controversy currently going on right now centering around the wooden cross in the foreground. I'm not sure on all the details, but it's a tribute to the recently deceased former president and some Polish citizens want it moved to the church where his funeral took place and some want it to remain where it is. In any event, there were a lot of protesters and news cameras in front of the palace.

This is a shot of "Old Town" Warsaw, which is a big city square. Very vibrant atmosphere.
This is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Poland. It's also currently being refurbished, hence the fence around it.
Random fountain in a local park.
Cultural center donated in the 1940's by Stalin. I could question the irony behind the person donating it, but in any event, it's an immense building in the center of town.

All in all, it's been a very busy week (until today), but very productive. I'm looking forward to heading to Tbilisi tomorrow and also can't wait to get to Philly to see John and Scott next weekend. I also heard that Nancy and I may have a new couch, which I'm looking forward to seeing!

Poland

Very quick update - I made it to Warsaw, Poland safe and sound yesterday and have already had two very productive days of negotiations. I'm here until Sunday, when I fly to Tbilisi, Georgia for a week.

What happened, did you go vegan?

That's right everyone, it's a 2-post Saturday...

Funny thing happened on Thursday of this week...

I randomly ran into our trainer from RIT. I hadn't seen her since I graduated and as such, the Marty Maynard she knew was this guy. Nowadays, I where glasses, spend too much time in cubicle land, and when I'm not there, I am usually training for some type of endurance sport, so the version of me that she knew looked like a college baseball player and now I'm a little lighter to say the least.

In any event, she remembered me once she discovered who I was. Her first question upon realizing who I was - "Did you go Vegan?"...really? you think I went vegan? I'm the same person that you once told "don't drink too much whiskey tonight, I gave you a lot of painkillers today."...and now I went vegan? This question irritated me 10 times more than when I get the proverbial "Do you do triathlon?" (different story, but please, just because I do a sport called biathlon, does not make me a triathalete, the two don't even have any disciplines in common)...It did occur to me however, that people might wonder how I went from looking like this:

To this:
The truth is, it was a relatively slow process, and a long story. I always knew, even during college, that I wanted to get into competitive skiing and biathlon again. I never thought that cycling would play a role in that, but it did. Basically, about a year after college I started working out again consistently, and when I finished grad school I started training seriously and here I am going wherever this takes me, but I'm loving it, and am happy training and racing, much happier than I would if I had resigned myself to dominating the beer leagues. Maybe I need challenges...in any event, I didn't go vegan, in fact, I love eating meat.

Tomorrow, I'm heading to Poland, then Georgia. So, it'll be hectic the next couple weeks, but I'm looking forward to it!

Weekend recap - big hills, horses, dropped chains, yellow jersey and a wedding

The title pretty much says it all, but I will elaborate further...before I get into my take on the tour of the catskills, Rick did a great write-up on the team site with some pics as well. Obviously the headline was that Jason dominated the race winning both major competition jerseys and the final stage!

Last Friday morning, my teammates and I loaded up a couple cars and headed downstate for the Tour of the Catskills, which consisted of an uphill time trial and two hilly 50+ mile road races (and when they say hilly, they meant it). I only raced the first two days so that I could make it back to Rochester for Erica and Joe's wedding, but my races were more than eventful to say the least.

The course for the TT on Friday was flat for about 15 yards, then took a right turn and went straight up hill for the next 2.2 miles. I had a good warmup and was feeling pretty good beforehand, but didn't have my best race. I might have made a mistake in that I tried to race in a bigger gear than I should have, which led to me fading towards the end (or at least it felt like I faded), but who knows. I ended up around 30th in the TT, which wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, but I definitely got to the finish feeling like I went as hard as I could. Jason ended up in 3rd on the day, which wasn't surprising to any of us. Knowing that the overall was going to come down to climbing and knowing that Jason is more than capable of riding very strong on steep climbs, the team did have a little extra motivation to try to do whatever was possible to help him take the overall win.

Following a great team dinner on Friday night (pic above), we went out the the start of Stage 2, which was a 52 mile road race. The course pretty much consisted of about 20 miles of flats and downhills, followed by one long climb followed by some relatively steep rolling hills, and then a flat 10 mile run-in to the finish. As stated previously on this blog, I'm not a huge fan of going down hills, especially in groups of 80 riders going downhill for 4-5 miles at a time (something I have to get over I guess), but at the tail end of the last decent before the climb, was easily the weirdest (and one of the more dangerous) occurrences I've encountered during a bike race. We are bombing down a hill, going maybe 40 mph, when we turn a corner and there are three horses in the middle of the road. All three horses are completely tweaking out (Rick's post at the team site has a video embedded in it of this) as 80 cyclists attempt to stop before plowing in to them. I ended up going in to a section of grass to avoid a couple guys that were having some trouble stopping, but everyone managed to safely stop (I think). We were at a standstill for a couple minutes while everyone just stared at the horses (still freaking out). Eventually the horses got off the road without further incident.

Then, the aforementioned long climb started, which was a really steep wall for about 200 meters followed by about 4.5 miles of a steady grinding climb. To be honest, I was hoping to climb better than I did and hang with the front group, but I was totally red-lined and just simply couldn't accelerate up to that group. I managed to find a pace I could sustain. Following the climb I was in a group of about 6-7 guys, which multiplied to about 20 by the time we got through all the hills, due to riders catching back up on the descent. Then with about 10 miles to go, my chain dropped off. Tangent - I've probably rode a bike a total of 10,000 miles since starting cycling after college and I never once had my chain fall off until 3 weeks ago. During the Tour De France this year, Andy Schleck famously dropped his chain and lost time to Alberto Contador, and I remember thinking, "how does that even happen?". It's never happened to me and I certainly don't have the best mechanics in the world making sure my bike is good to go EVERYDAY. 3 days after that stage in the Tour, by chain fell off while on a training ride, then it happened again during this race, so maybe I jynxed myself and was just lucky all those years, but anyways...tangent over....Not only did my chain fall off, but it got stuck behind my "chain catcher". So, not only did my chain catcher not catch my chain, but it also prevented me from putting the chain back on. Anyways, I eventually had to pull out an allen wrench and adjust it, which apparently also adjusted my front derailer because once I finally started riding again, I couldn't shift into the big ring. I eventually rode a frustrating 10 miles to the finish as hard as I could and ended up re-passing a few guys. Following the race, I scrambled to get back to my car and drive back to Rochester to make the wedding.

All in all, it was a fun time, although I wish things went differently during the races. It was great to hang out with the guys on the team and great to see Jason come up with the win. He really focussed on this race for the last month or so and made it clear that he was the strongest guy in the race. I am already looking forward to next year's Tour of the Catskills and have some ideas on how to train differently.