Sol Cycles splash, racing/training, and a friendly USADA visit!

First of all, check out the new Sol Cycles splash page--Mr. Thomas Cocuzza with Wells Ideas, Inc. is hard at work getting a sweet website up and running, but in the mean time you can salivate over a few pictures on my blog :-)

So this weekend went very well, with the Princeton A team time trial masters taking first in a joint Atlantic and Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference weekend at Upenn (that means twice as much competition, folks!).  Not to make anyone feel bad, but Austin was wearing a *WINDBREAKER*, none of us had discs or aero wheels, and I was breathing through my nose and shouting "Let's ramp it up!" most of the time.  Great things are soon to come . . .

As for the rest of the races, our team had a short leash, to make the understatement of the century.  I felt great and got in plenty of good training (Saturday race was changed to a crit after a monsoon flooded what would have been a sweet road course with serious climbing, so I rode the rollers for 3 hours watching the other races) and racing (TTT Sunday morning, then a cool circuit race [unfortunately only 31 miles] in the afternoon with a couple good hills each lap).  I set some new record power numbers that I am very pleased with, and I can feel that my legs are reacting very well to the intensity of some race efforts.  I am planning on really coming into form over the next couple of months, in time for mid-May to late June, my first big peak.

My mom came in for a long weekend because it was my 21st birthday on Sunday (no craziness, just great champagne and filet mignon with one of my favorite people in the world!) and also Amanda Scott (Vanerbilt varsity XC runner and chemical engineer who interned this summer in Boulder where we met through Nicole) came up to visit us and she and Nicole came to the race weekend!  Great times, including a not-very-fancy-but-huge-portions Italian dinner near Tom Yersak's house outside Philly.  Speaking of Tom, he is reputedly a "monster" on the bike and was shelling the Princeton B TTT team as well as the whole field in the criterium where he *initiated* and then *attacked* the break to come in a stellar 4th, as well as staying away from a charging field for over a whole lap of the circuit race only to be caught with less than a kilometer to the finish.

Now I have been training a ton Monday and today, and now am studying for midterms tomorrow before heading out to team camp Thursday morning.  I got in just over 10 hours, 200 miles, and 9700kj in the span of 26 hours on Monday and Tuesday!  Pretty good after a full weekend of racing.  Then I was greeted by the USADA OOC (Out Of Competition) testers at 5:00PM today and thankfully had some left in me to give a sample.  It is very encouraging that they actually go after ALL the OOC people, not just the big fish like Levi or George.

Well, that is all for now . . . I will have a ton of great posts during and after team camp when I have more free time!!!

P.S. here are some pro-quality pics from the Rutgers Criterium and Circuit Race, thanks to our great alumnus and former prez Chris Wynnyk!