It doesn't feel like that long ago that I was putting a post up about relaxing in the grass watching cyclo-cross races while my body recovered from the beating I put it through, but that time is here again! I drove up to Madison to watch Elicia do her first UCI race where she rocked out a 16th and 15th place against the big guns, quite a difference from a few months ago when i was feeding her through a straw! I thought I was a pretty tough dude, but my girlfriend took me to school on that front.
It was really exciting watching the elite men, Page and Wells were in a battle royale, and Elicia's twin sisters husband (try screaming that as a cheer on the sideline!) Brian, gave it everything and came in 8th. The first few cross races I watched I just cheered for Eli and then watched with sort of disinterest as the men went at it, but now it seems that I am cheering for every other rider that comes through as loads of my racing friends have taken to the sport, and its becoming a lot of fun being on the other side of the fence now.
I am about to start getting on the bike and cruising around in the beautiful weather and I am getting really edgy to get to it... I am being careful to take it easy, as I won't race for some time now, but I am SUPER stoked to get to training!
Tomorow the Marian cycling team is being honored by the school for our accomplishments at nationals, there will be a dinner and a live radio broadcast where word on the street is... I'm getting an interview! Sweet! I will try to get a copy of the broadcast and post that sucker up.
www.infernoracing.org has the details of some exciting things to come!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Coming to a couch near you
My time since returning from nationals has been spent laying pretty low. I picked up a pretty nasty cold and pushed through it at collegiate nationals, leaving me really busted up. I used the time in bed catching up on homework and watching some sweet movies, like TRON. If you haven’t seen this flick, do it, although very outdated and corny it is an excellent film… or maybe I was running a fever and didn’t know it? You decide.I’m staying off the bike for a little while, just letting all the little aches and pains of a long season take care of themselves, but only 10 days or so off and already I am starting to make plans for the 2009 campaign. A lot is changing for me in the coming weeks and months, I am graduating on December 15th and moving up to Madison Wisconsin. I am getting a lot of questions about what I am doing with myself next year, articulated best by my chiropractor, “don’t you think its time to get a real job, Mr. van der Genugten?”
Those pressures everyone feels when they graduate college are definitely starting to find their way to my doorstep, my family and friends are very cool about not hassling me about it, so maybe its just a self-inflicted stress, either way; it has led me to think very deeply about what I want to do with myself. In the bad parts of the season, the illnesses, injuries, poor luck etc… that all racers face, it makes you wonder why you do it, and if its it all worth it. Well, I am putting all those questions to rest.
I can say now very definitively, that I am going to continue racing my bike 100%. I am redoubling my efforts --no matter what team I ride with—to be the absolute best that I can be.
I love racing, not just the victories, but the solitude of the many hours of training, the friends I have made in spending many years in the peleton and the satisfaction I get from improving. I have always worked very hard, but now that I am nearly finished with school my lifestyle will be totally committed to being a professional athlete, something that is never fully possible when worrying about exams and papers.
I realized that if I didn’t give it a real crack for a few years after school, I would always wonder “what if,” and that aint cool.
That’s enough serious talk. Here is some fun stuff coming up! I will be doing some fun riding through the fall and coaching a PowerBooster class in the cycling center under Marian College coach Dean Peterson, as well as a spin class that will play exclusively heavy metal music, if interested in the latter look for campus bulletins come late October. :)
Monday, September 15, 2008
home!
Check out my photo section on www.bvdgracing.com for updates from nationals. I just got back from the airport and its bedtime...
Sunday, September 14, 2008
3rd Times a Charm
Yes my friends, thats 3 in a row… 3 national track championship titles! From my last update it goes like this –
Friday: morning session rained out. Evening session Italian pursuit final where we blazed the competition with a 2:15 to take the gold medal! Sinead Miller goes on to annihilate the field in the points race and get Marian ANOTHER gold medal.
Saturday- AM session: Women’s 500, Sierra from Marian wins! Men’s Kilo – I take 4th with a 1:07.8, a personal best time and very satisfying ride, I wanted very badly to defend my national individual title in this event but just didn’t have the speed to go 1:05 (the winning time.)
Next up was team pursuit final, about 20 minutes after the hardest event on the planet (the kilo). We had to change the starting order we had practiced so carefully to put Dave and I in the headwind section that kicked up right before our race and our gamble paid off as we took the gold for the third year straight! The women also won their team pursuit, in it’s inaugural year, they really outclassed their competitors with technique and posted a time some 10 seconds ahead of the rest.
Lastly for the morning session we had points race qualifiers, where I moderated my effort very carefully and took just 1 point to get into the final event.
PM session – points race final: I nabbed one of the first sprints for 5 points, and then paid for my hubris for the next 35 minutes by gasping in the thin Colorado air in the middle of the bunch all day… I was so shattered from the weekends racing that I was only able to get in the points one more time, which was the final sprint where I took 4th place for 1 point… which was just enough to get me 7th place (I think.. maybe 8th) and onto the individual Omnium podium for 5th.
We took the team title handily, won all three team events and I had personal best times in everything I rode; I'll call that quite a year. On some levels I was disappointed to not defend my kilo and individual Omnium titles, but it meant more to me this time to be able to win the team events with my friends and team mates from Marian, and share the podium with them before I leave for good. Of all of my three years of winning collegiate track titles I am most proud of this one. The competition was fiercer and our team was more tight knit and cohesive. Thank you everyone who helped us get here, and thank you to all my team mates for sending me out on top!
Friday: morning session rained out. Evening session Italian pursuit final where we blazed the competition with a 2:15 to take the gold medal! Sinead Miller goes on to annihilate the field in the points race and get Marian ANOTHER gold medal.
Saturday- AM session: Women’s 500, Sierra from Marian wins! Men’s Kilo – I take 4th with a 1:07.8, a personal best time and very satisfying ride, I wanted very badly to defend my national individual title in this event but just didn’t have the speed to go 1:05 (the winning time.)
Next up was team pursuit final, about 20 minutes after the hardest event on the planet (the kilo). We had to change the starting order we had practiced so carefully to put Dave and I in the headwind section that kicked up right before our race and our gamble paid off as we took the gold for the third year straight! The women also won their team pursuit, in it’s inaugural year, they really outclassed their competitors with technique and posted a time some 10 seconds ahead of the rest.
Lastly for the morning session we had points race qualifiers, where I moderated my effort very carefully and took just 1 point to get into the final event.
PM session – points race final: I nabbed one of the first sprints for 5 points, and then paid for my hubris for the next 35 minutes by gasping in the thin Colorado air in the middle of the bunch all day… I was so shattered from the weekends racing that I was only able to get in the points one more time, which was the final sprint where I took 4th place for 1 point… which was just enough to get me 7th place (I think.. maybe 8th) and onto the individual Omnium podium for 5th.
We took the team title handily, won all three team events and I had personal best times in everything I rode; I'll call that quite a year. On some levels I was disappointed to not defend my kilo and individual Omnium titles, but it meant more to me this time to be able to win the team events with my friends and team mates from Marian, and share the podium with them before I leave for good. Of all of my three years of winning collegiate track titles I am most proud of this one. The competition was fiercer and our team was more tight knit and cohesive. Thank you everyone who helped us get here, and thank you to all my team mates for sending me out on top!
This means the season is officially over... whew! Thats a long one. When I get home am looking forward to crafting a post season sort of reflection, but for now, I'm taking a nap!
Friday, September 12, 2008
Nats update #1
Just a quick update between sessions here, the pursuit is the only race we have ridden so far as two sessions have been rained out! Its hammering down hurricane rain here in colorado springs so the hotel is full of cyclists sitting around on laptops drinking coffee. I rode a personal best time in the 3k of 3:37, which was good for 9th. I was really hoping to ride top 3, but it was a very competitive race this year, and I am satisfied that I rode as hard as I possibly could. My team mate Dave Williams was 2nd and Sinead was 3rd in the womens 2k! Good job guys!
We're not sure whats coming up, its just pouring and has been for over 24 hours, very unusual for this are of the country. Its the waiting game now, and the oficials will pair down the schedule as they see fit to squeeze the whole calendar of events in (for instance, they may not run qualifying rounds, just final gold medal rounds).
Team morale is great, we are having fun and really enjoying being in such a beautiful place, even if it is raining the whole time! More updates to come...
We're not sure whats coming up, its just pouring and has been for over 24 hours, very unusual for this are of the country. Its the waiting game now, and the oficials will pair down the schedule as they see fit to squeeze the whole calendar of events in (for instance, they may not run qualifying rounds, just final gold medal rounds).
Team morale is great, we are having fun and really enjoying being in such a beautiful place, even if it is raining the whole time! More updates to come...
Monday, September 8, 2008
Last Time Around
Things, as always, have been a little crazy…
I am preparing for my last go around at collegiate track nationals, though my preperation has been more mental than physical. Coming from a full road season onto a few track events is fairly simple, you just have to rest a lot and bring your leg speed back up and let the fitness you earned from all those miles on the road carry you through the event.
There are certainly other approaches, but this is the only one that is possible for me the way my season unfolds. It gives me a laugh when I start hearing all these rumors as nationals approach about who is going, what events they are riding, how they have been training etc… It’s so typical of this event, its not just a bike race where you show up and go hard, its this whole little universe that gets created around one weekend then torn down to start anew.
There have also been some rule changes that are pretty dubious, like shortening the men’s team pursuit from 4k to 3k, and changing the women’s team sprint to a team pursuit, with both of these changes coming the week before nationals… nice. Maybe its flattering when rules get changed in what appears, in my opinion, to be an attempt to allow other teams a crack at taking one of these events out of Marian’s death grip? All that being said - I feel confident that our team is more prepared than I have ever seen it coming into this event. The officials can change whatever rules they like and we will still ride as hard as we can, and forget the rest of it.
To serve as a preview of the week my schedule goes like this:
Thursday - AM – 3k individual pursuit
PM – the kilo
Friday - AM Italian Pursuit quals
PM – Italian Finals
Saturday - AM – points quals, team pursuit quals
PM - points final, team pursuit final
Wish me luck! And to those who already have, especially my professors and the other athletes on campus, thanks for supporting us!
I am preparing for my last go around at collegiate track nationals, though my preperation has been more mental than physical. Coming from a full road season onto a few track events is fairly simple, you just have to rest a lot and bring your leg speed back up and let the fitness you earned from all those miles on the road carry you through the event.
There are certainly other approaches, but this is the only one that is possible for me the way my season unfolds. It gives me a laugh when I start hearing all these rumors as nationals approach about who is going, what events they are riding, how they have been training etc… It’s so typical of this event, its not just a bike race where you show up and go hard, its this whole little universe that gets created around one weekend then torn down to start anew.
There have also been some rule changes that are pretty dubious, like shortening the men’s team pursuit from 4k to 3k, and changing the women’s team sprint to a team pursuit, with both of these changes coming the week before nationals… nice. Maybe its flattering when rules get changed in what appears, in my opinion, to be an attempt to allow other teams a crack at taking one of these events out of Marian’s death grip? All that being said - I feel confident that our team is more prepared than I have ever seen it coming into this event. The officials can change whatever rules they like and we will still ride as hard as we can, and forget the rest of it.
As for my own form, it’s starting to look pretty good! Now that I am going good again I’ll admit that I suffered a late season self-destruct, where my form and motivation went to complete crap. The last trip I took out east was a little too much to handle in conjunction with school starting … on top of a whole road season that started in February… but things are solid now, and just in time. This past weekend I did not race at all, just hung out with Elicia, (who has a sweet new set of teeth) and relaxed. My body is ready and now my mind is ready.
My super secret training plan... picnic in the ecolab with my girlfriend.
To serve as a preview of the week my schedule goes like this:
Thursday - AM – 3k individual pursuit
PM – the kilo
Friday - AM Italian Pursuit quals
PM – Italian Finals
Saturday - AM – points quals, team pursuit quals
PM - points final, team pursuit final
Wish me luck! And to those who already have, especially my professors and the other athletes on campus, thanks for supporting us!
If All goes according to plan we'll be seeing a lot more of this kind of action! Remember this one from 07'?
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