Meet at the Haley home in the a.m. to pack the van and head for camp. The big excitement of the morning is Vince’s legs; he finally shaved them! I’m sure we’ll be talking about Vince’s newly shaved legs for the next several days. :-)

 

We’re partying in the car- blasting music, eating food and dad’s playing “mom” by making us drink lots of water. The trip goes by fast and after a 15 minute ride up the mountain, we are the first to arrive at St. Mary’s.

 

Camp is at this retreat center that sits on the ridge of a mountain. Pretty cool site. We find our rooms (mine is 204) and we get our bags unpacked. I have a great view of the valley from my window. It’s pretty hot and humid today so I’ll have to drink more water. No air conditioning in the room but a little breeze and a fan I can use.

 

My roommate arrives. His name is Andrew. We both are looking forward to this week.

I also meet two guys named Alex. We call one TPA because he’s from Tampa.

 

 It’s just about 3 p.m. and dinner is still 3 hours away. I’ll have to hold on ‘til then.

 

We get dressed to go on a one hour ride. There’s a lot of braking because we aren’t allowed to pass the ride leader. This is difficult.

 

We start an Ultimate Frisbee game which is super fun. Five on 5 and my team wins 8 to 5.

 

Dinner is pasta, veggies, chocolate milk and brownies. Yum!

 

We proceed to the welcome presentation where we find out about the week.

NO CELL PHONES ON RIDES. DRINK LOTS OF WATER!

 

 

I wake up at 5:30 a.m. I’m not used to the time change (central time here).

 

I have eggs, sausage, bacon and a biscuit for breakfast. It’s really good. :-)

 

We suit up for our ride. It’s about 2 hours and 45 minutes long. Once again, we all have to brake a lot and the going is slow. We stop twice to refill water bottles and go to the bathroom. After the last stop, we climb a hill that is 1 ½ to 2 miles long. It will be tomorrow’s TT course. It’s definitely the best part of the ride – NO BRAKING- we get to ride at our own pace!

 

A woman driving her car on the same hill wasn’t happy with our cycling, and she let us know with a letter she wrote and handed to the coach. Oops.

 

Lunch and a rest period before we go outside for skills work. Skills consist of bumping drills- leaning on each other- sometimes five people at a time. We also play foot down for a long time. Luke and Drew win for our team.

 

More rest time before dinner. Chicken, rice, veggies, rolls, salad, chocolate milk and cupcakes fill my stomach. The food here is good.

 

I’ve been able to talk to the mechanic, Eric, quite a bit. He’s very nice and has been able to help me out with my bike.

 

This evening’s presentation is on core workouts. We practice some things and get a lot of good info.

 

 

The day starts off with a great breakfast, then everyone gets ready to go out for our first TT.

We do an hour warm-up and get weighed before we ride. I feel alright on the climb but going a little slow because they continue to tell us to pace ourselves. This is a short TT so the finish seems to come way too fast. It feels like it’s taking longer going down the hill than it took going up. Tonight we will find out what our time for the short TT is.

 

The TT takes all morning so lunch really hits the spot today. I take a 20 minute nap and wake up just in time for skills at 2:00. We practice holding a straight line while looking over our shoulder.

We then work on the feed zone. My partner, Logan, made an awesome hand-off right in front of another rider. He pulled his hand back just in time so as not to “clothesline” the rider.

We play another game of foot down. It’s competitive and super fun.

 

Dinner and nightly presentation. This one is on race preparation. All the info is well presented and helpful.

 

 

A long ride to the TT hill today. It takes us about an hour and a half to get there. It isn’t overly steep but I’m still going to have to be smart about how I climb it.

 

Lunch and a power nap before we go on ride 2 of the day at 3p.m. The group splits and the 1/2/,3’s go down the mountain while the 4/5’s stay up top. We practice the pace line and the echelon. Afterward, we do a sprint to a sign and I win! We get to climb back up the mountain which is 3 miles long.

 

There’s a second group behind us. The group is going so slow that one of the cyclists jumps off his bike and starts running. He also picks some flowers. Near the top of the mountain, the group picks up its pace and the young man says, “Whoa, whoa, whoa guys, slow it down!”

Everyone starts laughing.

We get back from the ride and eat dinner. At 8p.m., we have our nightly presentation. This time it’s on nutrition. There are several things that I haven’t heard before so I write them down in my notes.

 

We have the long TT today. I’m looking forward to it. We are wearing our USA jerseys – they look awesome.

 

The TT is over and I feel good about it. I don’t think I could have done it any faster. All in all, we’ve been on our bikes for 4 ½ hours this morning. We come back for lunch.

It’s 2:15 and we leave again for skills work. We work on the different types of turns and keeping our bikes straight while sprinting. When we’re done with skills, we get taken to a local boarding school where we are given some ice cream. It’s amazing! This is another 2 to 2 ½ hour ride. Finally, we get dinner and relax until 8pm and our evening meeting. I find out my TT results – I believe my time is 13:49.

I come in 8^th overall and 4^th in the 15/16’s.

 

The evening presentation is on racing in Europe. I realize that I need a powertap and I need to get faster. I need more speed! They tell us that the juniors at L’Abitibi are faster than the Pro 1/2 ‘s.

The coaches proceed to answer a bunch of questions that we have written down for them.

 

Oh, today we have a surprise room check and Andrew’s and my room is, to quote, “golden.” Rooms that are messy have to do 25, eight count body builders or 100 pushups. Ha, ha! It pays to keep one’s room clean.

 

Going home today. We have three rides to choose from; a 1, 2, or 3 hour ride. I choose the easy one hour ride to open up my legs for tomorrow’s race in Cincinnati. When we get back from our ride, I shower and pack my bags and check out. Mom and Dad come to pick us up. They meet Coach Steve and walk around the place. We want to leave because we all want Wendy’s for lunch. :-) We say goodbye and thank you to the coaches and ride leaders. In the car, I am enjoying my frosty, chicken nuggets, French fries and junior bacon cheeseburger. Dan and Luke are “pigging out” also. We talk about camp and how Vince’s shaved legs are still looking good.

It’s been a good but tiring week. A big thanks to RedZone for this opportunity -Bri