Bit under the weather here. Woke up with that little scratchy tickle in the back of my throat. Decided not to ride today. I did move the old bones around though – one hour of yoga -just to keep things limber. Pretty chilled out morning – quality time spent with my book.

Jumped in the car with the guys for a little road trip to Bergen-Op-Zoom. Visited Hoppman’s – a great bike store. Picked up an cycling undershirt, shoe covers, and a cap. Nothing too exciting – but good deals. I left the guys in the store and had a good wander around the town center. Lots of great shops. Only did some window shopping. Did pick up some very nice black licorice oh and the best Dutch treat every – vla. Vla is the best dessert/snack going – similar to yogurt and pudding – creamy, thick, but low in calories and high in protein.

That was the highlight of the day. Tomorrow the plan is to pre-ride the Zolder World Cup course…. Send me some fast healing vibes – I need this sore throat to go away. Starting Friday I’m racing every other day for a week – so there is no time for a cold. Any good remedies? I’m drinking lots of tea and gargling warm salty water…

Merry Christmas. Have a good one tomorrow. Sleep in. Dream of shiny new bikes and super fast wheels. Remember to indulge – it is Christmas after all. I’ve got a bowl of All-Bran Choco with my name on it!

Funny last season at this time I had a big goal – the Masters World Cyclo-Cross Championships in Mol, Belgium. Last year’s season and its goal, sparked this season and my new goal – the Elite World Cyclo-Cross Championships in Hoogerheide, NL.

I set that goal in January when I returned from Belgium in 2008. I discussed it with my coach. I discussed it with Marc. Everyone was on board. This goal kept me going. Through long trainer rides in the winter. Through four weeks of intensity and intervals. Kept me going through the hard parts of the Tour of PEI and Canadian Road Nationals. It kept me on track. The goal forced me to go to yoga regularly. To loose weight. To think more on the bike.

Essentially, this goal changed me. In a good way. I’m stronger. I’m smarter. I’m more focused. I’m even more driven than I was before.

So, as you know, I didn’t qualify for the Worlds. First thing I did was reset and pushed the goal out one year to 2010 in Tabor, Cze. Perfect a new goal. It worked last time, so it should work this time as well. Haha – not so easy. I didn’t realize the fall-out of not achieving something that I’d been thinking about for ten months. I struggled. I lost a bit of motivation. I couldn’t really see the point (even though I had a new goal…).

I suppose this is normal. But it was still difficult. Even more so because I needed to recognize what was happening – it wouldn’t work when someone else would point out why I was feeling a bit frustrated or down with riding and racing. So I set some interim goals. This sort of worked. I started racing like I know I can and found a deeper devotion to my sport.

And now I’m here. In Belgium. The land of cyclo-cross. I have my interim goals. But they’ve really taken a back seat. I’m renewed and thinking ahead again. Thinking about Tabor. What do I need to do to get better? Improved technical skills. More snap and explosion. A smarter head. More watts. Maybe loose more weight.

So now every race I do here – even the little local races with the junior boys – have a purpose. What can I learn from this race experience? What did I do correctly? What did I struggle with? Even the training rides are taking on greater meaning. Squeeze in a few sprints. Play around with bike position. Pay attention to the other riders to learn from them.

All little pieces in the puzzle. Slowly but surely coming together. No one is an over night success. And really if I had made the team this year for 2008, it would have been pretty much an over night success. I have to remember where I came from. Keep the perspective.

So what am I saying in this long rambling post? Well, this year is coming to a close. Soon enough you’ll be tipping back a glass of champagne and hanging up a new wall calendar. So think about your goals. Now is the time. I’m not talking resolutions. (I don’t bother with those.) Set a goal – a big one. Work out a plan. Figure out how you’re going to achieve the goal. Remember life is short. So now is the time. Don’t be afraid to set a big goal. Perhaps setting the goal is the hardest part. But it is difficult to go through life without goals. I don’t care if it is a goal related to cycling or not – just set one. Write it down. Tell a few people. And then go for it. You never know where you’ll end up.

Some days it is so hard to come up with a title for my posts. Hence, the lame title for today’s post. But in a way it is applicable. Today has been pretty smooth. Actually a fairly standard Monday for Belgium.

Work. Ride. Errands. Work. And very soon bed.

Got in an excellent ride with Ed today. We had no fixed plan – just 90 minutes at a good pace. Set off, noodled around Aarschott and Rillaar. Made our way back to the house – a bit gritty but definitely satisfied. Decent riding weather today – light rain and 10 celsius. (No snow for us!)

Not much else to report really. Went into Antwerp to hit up the Decathlon and Saturn. Didn’t buy much of anything of interest. Now just chilling out and doing some more work. About to shut down for the night. Yoga on the agenda and then some quality time with my book.

Watched the women’s race at Nommay while eating supper – thanks to Cycling TV. A pretty exciting race. Impressive riding by Compton and Gould especially. Zolder this Friday. This will be my first World Cup. I have no idea what to expect. I’m approaching it like any other race. Pre-ride. Warm-up. Eat the same as usual. Stay relaxed. Focus on the start. Have fun. Should be good. Pretty decent way to spend Boxing Day.

Okay, I’m out. Have a good one. Don’t know if you’re on Facebook or not but Jos has posted a bunch of photos from Scheldecross. (I’ve yet to look at them all – I will do it later – I promise!) But if you are on FB – go take a look – and leave a comment! Have a good one. Oh, and if you’re close to a Sbucks – have a grande, non-fat, no foam, no water, tazo chai for me…

Actually not so bad to have Sunday all over again. Nice way to perhaps avoid the onslaught that is the craziness before Christmas… Nonetheless, here is the post that should have been written on Sunday – but wasn’t…

So quiet day here at the house. Everyone was out at the races, except me. I’d already raced two days in a row – a third was not appealing or permitted based on UCI rules (I pre-registered for the Nommay World Cup – then decided not to do it – and this prevented me from racing…). No problems for me. I had a relaxing early morning. The usual, breakfast, tea, WWW, and seeing the others off.

Then I was off. Got on the trusty steed for a little “tip-tap” ride. No SRM. No feedback. Just me, the music, and the fine Belgian air. Plan was the canal. Perfect. Relaxing and no cars to deal with. Made it to the canal in a little less than 30 minutes of riding an excellent bike path and then simply pedaled and smiled. I hooked up with another guy – he came by me, I jumped on his wheel, started to feel guilty so rode next to him and chatted. I learned that the canal I was riding along would take me to Antwerp. We rode for a while and then I turned left – to follow another canal. Nice. Much better than riding along the canal in Ottawa. Nice and wide – and no strollers or roller bladers. I just pedaled and enjoyed the view. Came upon a bunch of rowers – their coach was riding a rickety old bike and bellowing at them through an enormous orange megaphone. This was at the town of Emblem. And where I turned around.

Ah, free speed. At the turn around I was gifted with the all-time bike rider’s favorite – the tail wind. I whipped along grooving to OMD, U2, Kaiser Chiefs, and k.d. The cycling traffic along the canal was steady but not overly busy. There were a lot of men set up along the canal with very long fishing poles – most had umbrellas to shield them for the wind and some had little stoves – to cook the day’s catch?

So made it home 2.5 hours later… This always happens, plan on 2 hours – ends up being 2.5. I was hungry and a bit dirty. It wasn’t raining but the paths were gritty and greasy. It was so warm I didn’t wear shoe covers or my Kingsgbridge winter jacket – was able to go with just my long-sleeve Kingsbridge jersey. Nice. So a solid ride. Quick and efficient cleaning of the bike and it was chill time.

Really didn’t do much. Walk to the bakery. More WWW. Lunch. Knitting (I’ll spare you the details…). Marc and Ed got in and told me all about their respective races in Wilrijk. Both were 9th. Both needed to pit – thank goodness Jos was there to help out. Much bike cleaning was done in the garage. Then it was off to Sultan’s for a meal out. Ah, Sultan’s – home of the Turkish kebabs. So good. Different from the Lebanese shwarma.

We closed off the night with the Nommay World Cup. Interesting race. Fast. Muddy. Slippery. Wonder what it was like to race it? Have to wait for the blog posts, I suppose. Massive shout out to Natasha for a fine 13th finish! Cool to see two Americans on the women’s podium.

Okay, I’m out. Got some real world typing to do. On deck for today – a ride. Not sure what – need to check my plan from coach Steve. Have a good one. Try to squeeze a bit of Sunday into Monday – you’ll appreciate the pace and vibe. And yes, indulge at the office Christmas potluck – have some of that marshmallow, mandarin orange, and pineapple, coconut salad thing for me – you know you like it….

We had a kind of long drive today – 1:45 to get to Lichtervelde today. This was all about mud and very unforgiving deep and soggy grass. The course was basically flat with a big bump in the middle. The course was set in a farmer’s field. I think they had just moved the cows out this morning because I saw some piles that did not look like mud…

So Marc and Ed were up first. They both rode super well. Marc finished 5th and Ed finished 7th. Impressive rides since this is the first time we’ve seen this kind of mud. Congrats guys on good rides. I worked the pits during their races. Marc pitted once and thanks to a friendly Belgian guy, Marc’s bike was clean and ready for him. I was flailing around trying to clean it and this guy came over – told me I was doing it wrong and cleaned Marc’s bike for him. I got some laughs from the other guys in Marc’s race when I cheered him super loud and pointed out that the pit line was the quickest line!

My race was a bit later. I had a good warm-up on the trainer. With the mud it didn’t make sense to go out on the course and suck the energy from my legs. I rode the trainer for an hour, watching the Masters A race. I’ve written a race report here. Not much to write home about. Suffice it to say – I had my not-so-good day on the bike.

Saw David Q. again before the race and got to see him race a bit. After a quick hose off with the power washer, we hit the road for home. I conked out in the back seat. Love that back seat – so easy to fall asleep and recover.

Got home and spent about 45 minutes in the garage cleaning up the gear and getting the washing going. Pretty quick considering. Jos cooked us supper today – chicken curry and quinoa. Nice! Thanks Jos for the fine meal. We chilled out and watched the women’s race at Scheldecross (yesterday’s race) – amazingly it was on television. Coolest part was we saw me twice! It was cool to watch as I could see how the leaders rode certain sections. Particularly the sand – where I had to run the entire sand – the top two basically rode the entire sand section. Most impressive.

Okay, I’m off to bed. I’m not racing tomorrow. I had registered for the World Cup in Nommay but the travel, etc. was getting a bit stressful. So after some discussion with coach Steve, we decided to pass on the race. But since I had registered for the race, I’m not able to race tomorrow. No worries – I’ve done two races. Tomorrow I’ll go out for a couple of hours. Thinking of hitting up the canal path. Should be good. Everyone else here is going to Wilrijk to race. So it will just be me and George (the cat).

Here are a couple of pictures that Jos took at Scheldecross. Thanks Jos!

Scheldecross speed

Scheldecross corner

Here is a picture of my name on the television – from the start list at Scheldecross. Coolio.

Scheldecross name on television

Best of luck at the World Cup in Nommay! I’ll be watching on the television…