Bobby Sweeting

As my coach has always told me, and as I have always told my clients, be patient when coming back from illness or injury.   That’s all well and good in theory, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating.  My regular training resumed about a week ago, and when I wake up tomorrow I won’t have to take any more antibiotics!

I’m sure you all know what it’s like to return to training after a setback, feeling like you’ll never be as good as you once were, that everything you’ve ever trained for is gone.  Motivation is a serious factor during these times, so just remember to stay positive and to keep it all in perspective.

My first week back has been painful to say the least.  I got in very little speed work before our local practice crit on Wednesday night.  I was able to fake my way through it and take the win, but not without puking as I crossed the line.  It’s been a good long while since I’ve thrown up off the bike, and probably my first time doing so in a local world championships practice crit.  I thought today might be better, but 4 hours in the hills and I had barely enough left to crawl home.  Pretty amazing how far you can fall after just 3 weeks of easy riding, but at least every day is a step in the right direction (as opposed to a step into another doctor’s office).

I’m still debating whether or not to go to Univest in a week.  I’ve never had the chance to do it and it’s a great course for me, but the current situation obviously isn’t ideal.  I hate going to races under prepared, especially UCI races where “faking it” means going off the back in 20 minutes.  I would gladly go to help my teammates, but in this case I would be on a composite team where the domestique roll doesn’t really exist.  We’ll see how the week goes, ride hard and keep the rubber side down.

Nine days ago Lindsay left for Florida on a work trip and gave me a golden opportunity to bond with our 10 month old puppy.  It’s been the longest 9 days of our lives!  It’s not so bad having to stop home during my rides to let her out, but I feel like a terrible person every time I leave.  Allie is used to having Lindsay around all day to let out her annoying tendencies on.  I was scared that leaving a Jack Russell puppy by herself, with full run of the house and nobody’s hands to chew, may end in disaster.  She passed the test and didn’t destroy the house, but having to look at her little face while leaving her twice a day has been tearing me up.

It’s certainly nice to come home to her after work, but it’s a far cry from coming home to Lindsay.  I definitely wouldn’t be cut out for the single life anymore, it’s been far to lonely.  It’s strange, because 5 years ago I would have never considered myself to be lonely.  It’s only after you’ve found someone that makes your life that much better that you realize how much worse it was without them.

Fortunately Lindsay will be flying back on Sunday and our traveling should be pretty minimal until December, when we head to Taiwan.  I knew that I would be going for a couple of weeks for work, mostly to check out vendors and different manufacturing processes.  I was shocked when my boss mentioned that I could go for months at a time with all expenses paid for me and my wife.  When I found out that the riding is mountainous and the weather will be in the 70′s all winter, I signed right up.  We’ll be heading out during the first week of December and returning during the last week of January (before the Chinese new year when all of the factories shut down for a few weeks).  I’ll learn a ton while I’m there and I’ll be able to ride long hours without losing a foot!  I’ll also be able to eat sushi until I pass out, which will be fantastic.

Before you get offended, let me be clear in saying that, to me, being a “fred” has nothing to do with talent, ability, or racing.  For those who are unclear on this term, it gets tossed around in cycling quite frequently and refers to any cyclist that the individual probably just doesn’t like.  To me, the word fred comes across my mind when I see stupid people doing stupid things on training rides.  A pro rider could be called a fred, and it really just comes down to etiquette (and maybe a little bit of style).

You can spot a fred pretty easily.  They’re the ones who ride by in the opposite direction 30 feet in front of their training partner/friend/wife.  He isn’t doing an interval, that’s just how they ride.  Why ride next to the person and  have a nice conversation when you can punish them into the ground for 45 minutes?  If you do ever spot people riding side by side, the fred will always have at least a half wheel lead.  If you get two freds riding together it will always, always turn into the world championships.  You might be asking yourself, how will I spot a fred who is riding alone?  No worries, just be friendly and wave as they pass in the opposite direction.  He will be much to serious and focused on his epic ride to notice you at all.

I really don’t mind these habits, it doesn’t effect me and is usually kind of entertaining.  Unfortunately I had two encounters in two days that were just ridiculous.

Yesterday’s encounter: I’m out on my first long ride since my sore throat of death and find myself coming up behind a 30 something year old rider.  As I come up beside him I take my ear piece out and say hi.  No response.  I repeat myself, thinking he didn’t hear me, but when he caught my eyes and then looked back at his front wheel I figured he just didn’t want to talk.  I put me ear piece back in and continued on with this guy glued to my wheel.  He then decides to attack me on a fairly hard 7 or 8 minute climb, only to get caught about a minute later.  I just ignored him as he continued to come around me and push the pace at random times, blowing himself up repeatedly and never saying a word.  He eventually turned off after about 30 minutes, leaving me wondering how someone could be so rude.

Today’s encounter: I had some speed and power work today, 1 minute max efforts up the steepest climb I know of.  About 30 minutes from my interval hill a guy came up behind me and introduced himself.  It was much better than yesterday, and he even rode next to me!  When we got to the climb I told him that I was going to be doing some repeats and thanked him for keeping me company.  He decided that he wanted to do the intervals as well, which was certainly fine with me.  I expected him to want to race, as most people do, and wasn’t surprised when he called it quits after two halves (instead of riding his pace he figured it would be best to do 30 seconds worth of the first 2 intervals).  I said he rode well and wished him a safe ride home, only to receive: “whatever, all you f***ing guys are doped anyways.”  WHOA, what?  I needed to start my next effort, and didn’t really feel like responding anyways, but wow.  At first I thought it was a joke, but he was dead serious as he looked at me.  I’m sure every cyclist has had a passing motorist yell something like that as they drove by, but I’ve never had another rider accuse all pro cyclists of doping right to my face (and it’s different when it comes from a former pro tour rider who has been there and seen it, instead of some guy who just feels like judging everyone based on what he reads in Velonews).  Maybe the guy was bipolar, because he seemed perfectly fine until then.  Either way, his fred’dom became apparent.

I think the funniest part about the term “fred” is that everyone uses it about everyone else.  You could ask the sketchiest cat 5 who just bought clipless pedals how his race went, and the response is usually: ok, but some fred was going soooo slow in corner 2.  It just goes to show how relative the term really is.  I choose to reserve it for riders who truly earn the designation, like those mentioned above.

Well, 2010 has been a whirlwind year.  Between graduating, getting married, getting a new job, finding a team, and moving to CT, I figured my racing may end up taking a back seat.  I can’t believe how great CSG has been about letting me continue my normal training routine, giving me the option to work my job around it.  If I’m on the bike from noon to 5 that just means I have to stay at the office until 9:30 at night (or as late as necessary to get everything done!), which sure beats riding the trainer in the dark.

So my training didn’t suffer, but if I couldn’t get to the races then it wouldn’t matter anyways.  With 2010 being my first year racing with an amateur team, I figured this may happen.  I was overly impressed by my team, Globalbike p/b Catoma, as they went above and beyond all of my expectations.  This “amateur” team got me to more national caliber events than I’ve ever done with any pro squad, and gave me more than I needed to succeed.  I’m glad I could be a part of such an awesome organization and cause, and I’m sure we’ll see big things from this team in the future.   As much as I hate to leave, I’m excited to be re-joining the continental scene next season with a team that looks to be one of the best in the country.  I’ll elaborate more later, as all of the paper work is still in progress.

Even though both CSG and Globalbike were awesome, I think we all know that none of this would happen if my wife wasn’t totally awesome.  Between work, training, and traveling it’s tough to find time for much else, but she manages to bring relaxation, and a bit of normalcy, to my life.

It certainly wasn’t all roses though.  I woke up with a bit of a sore throat just a few days before one of my teams more important races, the Presbyterian Hospital Crit.  Having not been sick all year, I figured I was due.  I took the normal precautions: gargle salt water, use the sinus rinse, drink some airborne, take a Zicam, etc.  This routine is usually enough to knock out whatever has decided to make me its host.  Unfortunately, by the time I got to Charlotte I was running a fever and couldn’t drink water without cringing.  It was by far the worst sore throat of my life, with golf ball sized glands.  Well that was 3 weeks, 3 doctor visits, 1 blood test, and 1 round of antibiotics ago.  I didn’t have mono, which was great, but as of 4 days ago I still wasn’t feeling well.  I’m a few days into antibiotics round 2 and I’m feeling much, much better.  My health, that is.  Not my fitness.  I was able to do my first long ride today after a 3 week stint of 1 hour spins and off days.  Needless to say I felt like total crap.  At least I was able to ride hard and feel that fatigue again, that sunken, dehydrated feeling after a hard day.  It didn’t take much to get me there, but it’s a start.

Now if I can only get my dog to stop eating my fingers so I can get some sleep.  Did I mention that earlier?  Well yeah, I got a crazy little Jack Russell Terrier named Allie (Alligator? UF? Get it?)  Goodnight guys, keep the rubber side down.

Please bear with me as this website is currently under construction.

Well, my 4-5 hour training ride today turned into 2 hours on the trainer with some speed work. I guess that’s the way it is when it’s blizzarding outside, as it will be for the next 3 days

This is a picture of my car outside of the hotel only a few hours after it started snowing. By the time we needed to go to the laundromat it was pretty much burried and very difficult to reach!

Other than the snow we have also found out the Bethel/Danbury/Newtown, CT is the most expensive place ever. Well, maybe not ever, but much worse than Florida. We tried going out to dinner last night and it basically went like this: Arrive at the Japanese place and notice that 1 sushi roll is 13 dollars. Leave. Arrive at the Italian place and see everyone in suits. Leave. Arrive at the pizza place and notice the 18 dollar ravioli dish and 25 dollar brick oven pizzas. Leave. Arrive at the Mexican place and see suits and ties again. Leave. Arrive at the old 50′s diner (burger and fries kinda place) and see the 16 dollar bleach white spaghetti with plain red sauce. Leave. We ended up just shopping at the grocery store and eating turkey sandwhiches back at the hotel. It was pretty sweet. We’ll look for more places tonight but I have a feeling it might end the same way!

We might have many more turkey sandwhich nights because it turns out that the current occupants of our townhouse can’t be out until March 1st. So for now I’m stuck in the Microtel riding my trainer and thinking about the sun. I suppose it could be worse!

It’s been a whirlwind of life since I last posted. Since the end of last season I have: signed with a new team (www.teamctm.com), gotten married, taken a cruise through the Caribbean, gotten a job with the Cycling Sports Group (Cannondale, GT, Schwinn, Mongoose), and moved to Bethel, CT.

Nothing has gone as smoothly as I had planned but it’s all worked itself out in some way or another. At the moment I am 1 day into my stay at the Bethel Microtel and Lindsay and I are looking for places to live. We are renting for the first year or two in order to figure out the area before buying, and we actually put in an offer for a place today! It’s a really nice condo in Danbury and if they accept the offer we should be moving in by Wednesday!

As far as the riding goes, it’s been a while since I’ve found myself physically smiling while I train. I went out for a few hours yesterday and it’s definitely some of the nicest roads I’ve ever been on (even rivaling Bend, OR, which I never thought could happen). The roads don’t make a grid like they do in Florida, choosing instead to twist and turn in every direction. Needless to say I found myself very turned around yesterday as it began to get dark. And cold. Fortunately a nice police officer pointed me in the direction of my hotel. Other than that and the occasional sketchy ice patch it’s been pretty great!

Surprisingly the racing begins pretty soon with an industrial park crit right here in Bethel on March 7th. I can’t wait to meet some of the local racers and see what this northeastern racing scene is all about. I’ll try to keep the blog updated!

What a long summer it has been. I’ve returned from the desert and am back in Vancouver for a night before heading home for a bit! I was in Bend, OR for a couple of weeks, watching my teammates race the Cascade Classic while I prepared for U23 Nationals. It was definitely tough to watch such a great race without being able to participate, but I just couldn’t risk being too tired to win a jersey.

The short version of the road race: 192 km, brutal course, 100+ degree heat, melting pavement. Needless to say, the field of 140 riders was quickly diminishing, and by 60 km there were about 60 guys left. Unfortunately that is when one of them decided to dive inside of my handlebars through a round-a-bout, putting me into the bushes and ending my race. Coincidentally, my teammate Carson crashed on the same corner just 1 lap later. He went down when his front wheel dug into the melting, 130 degree road. His crash eventually ended his racing for the rest of the week, a pretty devastating blow.

The only good thing about the time trial 2 days later is that Pierre from Nike got some good shots for his documentary on the team. He does all of the promotional video work with Nike athletes(i.e. commercials). Other than that, it was a pretty terrible day. It started when I put my disc wheel on and realized that I could only shift into the 13 because my cable/housing was frayed. With only 20 minutes left before my start, I was pretty much freaking out. Fortunately the Shimano mechanic was amazing and was able to replace everything and get it working perfectly in about 10 minutes. Within of first 5 minutes of the race I knew something was wrong when I couldn’t control my breathing. I backed off the pace a little bit, but was still completely anaerobic. I eventually came out of the aero bars for extended periods, as my heart rate was so high that I was having pretty bad chest pains. This continued for the rest of the 48 minute time trial, and it was obviously not the ride that I had planned on having as I crossed the line in 17th.

After going over everything in my head a million times and discussing it with my coach, I realized that I had had an anxiety attack. When I race time trials, even local ones, my heart rate averages 196 bpm for the entire race(abnormally high). After placing 2nd in last years TT nationals, I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to better my performance this year. Between that pressure, lots of caffiene, adrenaline, cable problems, and me purposely trying to psyche myself up, my heart was racing. Even when I was out of the aero bars my heart rate was well over 203 bpm, and I started to hyperventilate. I definitely learned something from this race, and now know that being too pumped up can actually be a bad thing for me!

Two days of depression followed my TT performance, but I tried to stay focused on the criterium. I went into the race totally calm, with no expectations for myself and nothing on my mind other than riding in circles. The course was shortened to just 1 km, so I knew that teams like Garmin and Trek-Livestrong would try for a breakaway to lap the field. I attacked with Alex Howes(Garmin), Danny Summerhill(Garmin) and Bjorn Selander(Trek-Livestrong) just 1 lap into the 60 lap race. We quickly gained 10 seconds, at which point Garmin decided to send Summerhill back to the peloton. The three of us worked well together and the gap grew to 25 seconds. At this rate I figured we would lap the field within 30 minutes and then go from there, but that wasn’t the case. Our gap ranged from 15-25 seconds throughout the entire race, and we were full gas the whole time. With 3 laps to go it was down to 12 seconds. I took my turn at the front and rotated off just as Selander attacked up the opposite side of the road. Howes jumped on his wheel and I was able to come back as well. We continued to rotate with 2 to go, the gap still at 12 seconds. I pulled off the front and was attacked once again, but this time by Howes. I waited for Selander to come off my wheel and go after him but it didn’t happen. Howes had a 10m advantage, and Selander jumped. I got on his wheel, waited 10 seconds, and then made a last effort bid to get across to Howes. With a half lap remaining it was Howes off the front, me 10m behind him, Selander 10m behind me, and the field closing fast. We all rode to the finish completely maxed out, and I just didn’t have what it took to bring him back, crossing the line for 2nd.

Don’t get me wrong, I was happy with 2nd, but it wasn’t what I was there for. I wanted that jersey more than anything, and to come so close for the second year in a row was pretty heart breaking. Following the podium was a 2 hour wait with USADA while I tried to go to the bathroom. When I was finally able to, the guy was pretty shocked at the specific gravity of my urine(they check to make sure it is within an acceptable range for testing). It was the highest he had seen all week, meaning I was the most dehydrated rider out there. I’m not sure how that happened, as I consciously carried a bottle with me at all times and tried to drink as much as possible.

Pierre was at the crit as well, and got some cool video from the race as well as some interviews with us. He will be with us at the Tour of Utah and I’m excited to see the final product.

I’m heading home tomorrow morning before going out to Salt Lake City on the 16th. The best part is that the last stage of Utah is on the 23rd, and I have school beginning on the morning of the 24th. That should be fun!

After a solid 5 or 6 weeks of traveling and racing, it was finally time for a rest. I came back to Vancouver after that long week in Bend and got some quality couch time in preparation for U23 nationals. After a week of easy riding, however, it seems inevitable that I start to fight off a cold. Like clockwork on my recovery weeks, I woke up halfway through it with a scratchy throat. Seems as though the body knows when its shutting down and allows all sorts of things to go wrong. Either way, I was able to hold it off last time and I’m going at it with the same intensity this time around. Between Zicam, Airborne, gargling salt water, Chloroseptic spray, doubled immune support vitamins, gargling Listerine, and sinus rinsing, I am hopefully doing enough to keep everything suppressed. So far it has gone to plan, training has resumed and symptoms seem to be going away after only 2 days, keep your fingers crossed.

With a ton of extra time on my hands, the Tour couldn’t have come at a better time. Unfortunately the stage results don’t change after the fourth showing… I am looking forward to Friday though, when we see if Astana can actually work together or if they implode drastically. Just for fun, my top 5 in Paris are: Contador, Kloden, A.Schleck, Evans, Kreuziger. You heard it here first!

In other news, I recently decided to start up a coaching business. After a few inquiries about where my training comes from, I decided it would be worth a shot. My coach, Kyle Mendenhall(formerly Kyle Smith), learned this training format through pros such as Tim Quigley, Jonathan Vaughters, Marty Nothstein, and Trent Klasna. It’s evolved slightly over the years, but the basic principles are the same and proven to work. After seeing how well my current clients have responded, I decided to make it available to everyone. I’m hoping I get to work with a variety of athletes, from young racers looking to progress to local riders hoping to crush the next group ride.

That’s it for now, up next is the Tour de Delta in Vancouver, Canada from July 10th-12th. Driving up there(8 hrs) on Thursday and racing the 3k prologue Friday evening, should be a blast.