The First Race, Milano, Torino and the Olympics...

Ahhh...the Olympics, only a 5 hr train ride away from me!!!

Ok so its been a couple days...ok more like a week since I last blogged. I've been pretty busy over here in Italy...training, studying, traveling and all that good stuff. For the next few days it'll be a lot of studying, I have 3 exams on Wednesday next week...but then after that its SPRING BREAK!!! So to start off I bet you're all dying to know how the race went...

Tuesday 14/2/06:
Went over to Lucca for my first Italian race about noon on Tuesday....thank god I don't have class until 5pm on Tues and Thurs. Me and my teammate, Matteau, registered and got ready. As we got ready we were seeing some familiar faces. I saw that I would be racing against the Italian National Road Champion and Guidi from the Phonak Pro Cycling Team! Sweet jesus, this is going to be a hard race. I was racing against other Pros/ex-pros as well. I was mostly racing against Cat 1/Ex-Pro/Pro/Super Pros. It was a 75km long race...it was definitely going to be fast. Seeing that I'm only a cat 3 on the road this was going to be very different, but I was definitely up for the challenge. So we lined up, a field of 200 and we're off. WOW...we started out going 50-55 km/hr (30-35mph) for the first 15-20km! Thank god I've been training alot and have gotten stronger. I was able to stick with the pack...after about 20km we slowed down just a little bit. Then at about 30km in there was a crash on a narrow bridge...guess where I was......right behind it. GOD DAMN IT!!! About 50 of us came to a complete stop...buhbye main field. But we weren't going to give up, well, at least 5 of us weren't going to give up. Me and 4 other guys were willing to do work to get back up to the pack. So we kept a rotation going for awhile, keeping around 28mph constant...except when someone else came up that didn't want to do any work, then the pace went down to about 24-25mph. And there goes the pack. So we made our own race out of it. We averaged around 25mph for the race. The last 3km was a 5% constant climb. I just kept my pace...I passed some guys and some guys passed me. At the end I placed 100th overall out of 200 and 3rd in my category (U23). Not too shabby for my first race against all Italians and Pros, eh?

There was a little problem though, after the race my right knee started tensing up...it actually did that after the ride on Sunday too. I know its not poor cleat position. But I do have an idea. I'm in a soccer league here at the villa (I don't even know why I signed up for it), and at the first game I was jacked in the knee right where the pain/stiffness is. So I wonder if its coming to haunt me. GOD DAMN SOCCER. It's on and off. When I keep a higher cadence it starts bugging me, but lower cadences with hard pushing of the pedals doesn't hurt at all. So I really don't know whats going on. I hope I don't have a hairline fracture or something. That would kinda suck.

Friday 17/2/06:
Me and a couple of friends went up to Milan for Fashion Week. We walked around all day going from store to store. I think I shopped from 2pm until 10pm straight. Within that time I bought a very nice pair of Armani pants, a white button down shirt and a new tie. It was all well worth the huge cost.

I did actually do a little bit more than just shop. I also visited the Duomo in Milan and spun on the bulls testicles...yes its in the Galleria and you spin on the bulls balls for good luck. If you go to Milan someday you'll definitely have to do it.


The Duomo...kinda creepy looking, don't you think?


So yeah, you put your heel in that hole and then spin around once...suppose to give you good luck...ok

After all of that I was suppose to go over to Genoa to meet up with my other peeps I would be going to go see bobsledding with. But I changed my mind and stayed in Milan for the night. I stayed at someones house in Milan. One of my friends on the trip knew the girl so we stayed for free, SWEET! But...the friend came home at 4am with one of her friends. They were both smashed. And came into the room we were sleeping in. One of the girls started screaming and freaking out that she couldn't find her mom's phone (with the two charms that hang off the top) and she lost 50 Euro. Then they turned on our light. SWEET JESUS...go do that in another room. Long story made short, they argued for about an hour. 50 F***ING EURO! Thank god she found the phone. Well, the one is freaking out about the 50 euro and the other one isn't believing that she lost it. *SLAP* Ok now there's slapping happening. MY GOD. More arguing and then an HOUR later they finally go to bed. God I know its 50 Euro, "which is more than 50 dollars but calm the F*** down. Very Interesting night.

Saturday 18/2/06:
So we caught a train to Torino at 9:18am. I needed to meet up with my other friends for our event while my other friends went to their event. The train was packed...5 of us had to stand inbetween cars right next to the bathroom for a 2 hr train ride. OK so that sucked. We got there and there were people from all around the world...it was sooo cool. We toured the city for a little bit before I had to catch the train to my Event in Oulx, 5500 ft up in the ALPS. The view was gorgeous:



When we got there it was atleast 60 degrees out...by night fall it was 10 degrees out. Being in 50 degree weather for awhile, my body did not like the cold too much...frozen toes. But it was a cool event...not one of my favorites, but it was still really cool to atleast be at an Olympic Event in Italy!!! Team USA kinda sucked it up...so we cheered for Morocco. lol.


Part of the course at night


Right up next to the course

So our seats were right at the finish, so that was pretty cool, but you couldn't see much of the course so we definitely walked around for a little bit to get a closer look...even though they wizz by at about 130km/hr.

We then had to leave at 8:15pm when the event was done. We didn't get back to our hostel until about 2am. God I was tired and Sunday was going to be a long day of Trains.

Sunday 19/2/06:
Nothing too much to report today. I was on trains from 11am until 3pm. I was going to go for a ride, but I was just dead...so I just stayed in, took a nap and worked on some homework.

Monday 20/2/06:
So class all day. I got my Italian quiz back...95%. 3 Quizes and my average score is a 95.5%. HottNESS! I got out for a 2 hour ride today. It was raining all day except for the 2 hours I was out. Since I haven't been on my bike since Tuesday I decided to kick it up a notch. I was able to do every climb in 1-2 gears higher! I'm definitely getting stronger. I was actually able to do a 1.5km 13% climb in my 39-21 sitting down. Thats actually kinda hard, not gonna lie. So it was a good ride.

Later in the night I went out for a friends b-day. Enid turned 21 today. So we went to Tijauna's in Florence. Yes it is a mexican restaurant and one of the best I have ever been too! After that we had cake and then headed out on the town for alittle bit. Not too long though. It was a fun night though.

Tuesday 21/2/06:
NO Class until 5pm. Riding Time!!! Ok so today I headed out at 11:30am. It was sprinkling just a little bit, but I wanted to go on a ride. The first half of the ride was cool, but then second half was just miserable...I kept going at a hard pace, but sweet jesus, it just started pouring. My brakes were being eaten up. The ride mostly turned into a 4.5 hr death march. 5 good climbs. I got in a good 110km, but wow. By the time I got back to the villa I was soaked, had purple lips and no brakes left on my bike (good thing I brought replacements). My knee also acted up again...not as bad as last time though.

I had Commedia dell'Arte then at 8pm. For our performance at the end of the year I will be playing the male lover. An important part...one of the main characters. SWEET! Hope I don't choke. But it should be fun. We have a script but no text. We just know what were suppose to do, and then improvise the text. My prof. likes my ideas, I made him laugh pretty good.

Wednesday 22/2/06:
I hate class. Its soooo hard to stay up for 3 straight hrs learning about the exact same thing. I didn't do too much today other than study and go to class. I wish I could have taken a nap...thats all I wanted all day. A couple of my friends and I were suppose to watch an episode or two of the OC but there were others using the TV, so that fell thru.


Well, tomorrow night I'll be going out I think. I hope to get in at least a 3 hr bike ride tomorrow with some hard paced efforts up a couple of the climbs. Its suppose to rain until Wednesday next week...BLAH. I wish I had a set of rollers here for those rainy days...maybe I could borrow some from the shop. We'll see. Well, I hope to get up early tomorrow to do some laundry, eat breakfast, study and go for a ride. This weekend will be a lot of studying, so I won't be going anywhere. But Spring Break starts in exactly one week :) SWEET.

Ciao