I think I'm turning just a bit Euro since I've been over here just look at that picture...geez...what the hell am I thinking. I went out one night like this. Fohawk, half tuck and white tie...WOW
Ok so I haven't done a post since Monday night. Alot has happened since then. Here it goes...
TUESDAY -
I went in to the doctor today to have my stress test. Mostly he measured my weight and height, then I had an EKG. After that I had to step up and down on 'a' step for two minutes to get up my heart rate and then rest for two minutes just to make sure the heart works well and everything. Everything is all fine in those departments. And then I had a lung capacity test. I guess my lung capacity is almost 6 liters. Not bad, that makes me a little bit higher than the average male lung capacity of ~5.5 liters. Tomorrow I'll have to bring in a cup of my urine for them to test. I hope they don't find all that EPO I've been taking. lol.
After all that I went on a 2 hour jaunt with a couple guys from the team. About 10 of us. We went 70km. Only 1 short climb, which I mostly crushed everyone on...that always makes me feel good. Only one guy was able to keep my pace and he was breathing very hard the whole time. I wasn't even breathing that hard. So I'm happy how my ability has been improving. That's all that really happened today.
WEDNESDAY -
Crappy day today. Cold and rainy. Blah. I took my urine in at about 8:30am to find out that the doctor's office isn't even open until 1pm. God damn it, they even told me to bring to them in the morning. So I went back to the villa, had class until 1, lunch and then went back to the doctor's office. It took them about 5 minutes to test my urine and I got the sheet I had to turn in for my license. Sweet. So I went over to the shop and applied for my Italian racing license. I should get it next week some time.
The sheet to apply for the license
I didn't go for a ride today cuz it was so crappy and I won't be riding for the next 3 days. That will suck, but at least I'll be walking all over Rome for the next 3 days instead. :) I was thinking later on in the night how I should be packing for Roma, but I passed out at 8pm after a huge dinner...we had amazing lasagna. I had a little too much. Oh well, I'll be burning it off later.
THURSDAY -
We had to get up at 6:30am for breakfast and make it out to the bus by 7:30. I had to get up at 5:45am to do my packing still. Thank god I went to bed so early. I got everything done and surprisingly enough got everything packed that I needed. The bus ride took a good 4 hrs. I slept some more with some music. We got to Roma at about noon and checked in to the hotel. We relaxed for a bit and watched some tv. We didn't have to be anywhere until 1:30pm...so relaxation it is. At 1:30 we were off to Piazza del Repubblica for a tour with our cool tour guide Marcello. He was awesome and funny and actually very interesting.
Piazza del Repubblica
OK so we started at the Piazza and started our way down to the Roman Forum which use to be a marsh way back in the day. We got a lot of interesting history on the place, got to see a lot of the buildings like the senate building and stuff like that.
The Roman Forum
We ended the tour at the Colusseum which was the one thing that I wanted to see for such a long time. It was a great view. I loved it. We took a picture with some of the Romans and goofed around pretending to be gladiators just like everyone does. It was a good time...
il Grande Colusseo
Me, a couple of friends and my 'willy' being sawed off...
Me and Dan battling it out in front of the Colusseum
After the tour we went over to the Pantheon and toured a little bit more of Roma. We got back to the hotel later on to relax for a little bit, take a shower and watched a little bit of the olympics. After all of that we a couple of us went out for caffe and dinner. After that it was time to go out on the town for some partying and meeting some people. We went to Campo di Fiori to a couple of the bars and started the party. We were at a bar called the "drunken ship". There we danced and met people from all over the world. I actually met an Australian chick. She thought I was Italian when she first saw me. My friends told her that I wasn't, and she didn't believe them until she heard my accent. She was very nice and wild. I'm not gonna lie, I think she just really wanted to get in my pants. She was telling all my friends how hott I was and how she wanted me. It was crazy. We got back to the hotel at about 2:30am and passed out.
FRIDAY -
I got up at 7am to shower and got downstairs for breakfast at 7:45am. Breakfast was amazing. And then we were off to go visit the Vatican. We met up with Marcello again and he showed us around the vatican museum and the sistine chapel. Everything was just so cool and glorious. We also went to St. Pieter's Church, wow big and wonderful. After the visit I went down Via del Corso (big shopping district) and bought myself a white tie for the opera later in the night. At about 6:30 eight of us went out to dinner and then went to the opera. We saw the famous opera Rigoletto. I really enjoyed it. We got back to the hotel and changed and went out again. A couple of us sat at a couple different bars just sitting back and talking. And then at about 1:15am we had a craving for some gelato. We actually found a place open at that time. So we went and it was glorious. We went back to the bars and they all said they were closing at 2am so we just went back to the hotel.
The Vatican
Teatro Opera
SATURDAY -
I woke up at 8:30am and got downstairs for breakfast. At 10 we went to the Modern Art Museum. There was some really cool contemporary art. But after looking at it for about 2.5 hrs I just wanted to ride my bike. Me and Danny Crump left and went to go eat on Via del Corso. After lunch we went over and saw the Spanish steps, sat there for awhile and then we went over to see the Trevi Fountain. I loved every moment of it. We had to leave at 5 for back home. When we got back to the villa I ate and then fell asleep. I had a long day of biking on Sunday coming.
The Spanish Steps in Piazza del Spagna
A view from the top of the Spanish Steps
Me at Trevi Fountain with Abby and Enid...and I will be coming back to Roma because I threw a coin into the Fountain.
SUNDAY -
I woke up at 7:45am and got ready for some bike riding at 8:30am. Thank god I actually had time to eat, because today turned out to be a death march. I ended up going out for 4.5 hrs, 120km and that included 3 mountain passes. I believe we had 25km of climbing and about 2500-3000m of vertical elevation change. Wow, after eating lots of crap for 3 days and not biking for 4 days my legs were blowing up. I was able to do the whole ride just fine...but it hurt like a bitch. There were 20 guys that came out again and I was top 5 up all 3 climbs. The first climb was the hardest because my legs weren't ready for the climbing and it was about 10km of climbing, a 6-7% grade. On the second climb I was going along and everyone just started dropping off my wheel one by one. All of a sudden I turned around and I was all alone and gaining ground on everyone. I didn't think the climb was that bad...4-5km at about 7%. The third climb was sort of optional. Only 7 out of the 20 of us decided we wanted to do it. I now see why 13 opted not to do it. It was a long and hard climb. It was 13-14km long with grades varying from 5% to 9% in little sections. WOW ripped my legs off...but I still felt good. It was a very hard day and to top the day off I rode with a sore throat...not cool. I got back to the villa at 1 and had a sandwich and passed out on my bed until 5pm when my mom called me on skype. And then I just hung out the rest of the night watching some of the olympics and the movie Elf. Thats about it.
The best thing about today is I found out that I can go pick up my Italian Racing License tomorrow and my first Italian race is this Tuesday! IN TWO DAYS!!! Wow, I was not expecting that. I'll probably just use this race to see how the Italians race and see what the legs have in them. I'm nervous and excited. I haven't raced since July 23, 2005. God damn brain trauma. If I have a chance to take the race, then I'll take it. It seems like I'm a pretty good climber and the adrenaline will definitely be raging thru me. I also heard that the course is pretty much flat with a climb in the last 5km of about 5%. So lets see what I gots...
Happy training....
No comments:
Post a Comment