New Team, New Stuff, No teeth, Old life

Well as usual I not good at keeping up to date with my blog. Here are so things that are new in my life. I newly join a team in the Vancouver area called Trek RedTruck Racing. I very happy to be on a team for the whole year, it will be a new experience and a good stepping stone for my future. I know all the girls that will be on the team so it’s not like I’m going to be thrown into a new group again. As happy as I am to be on a team I wasn’t that trilled to be going back to raining Abbotsford. I was hoping for a team down in eastern Canada but that will come soon enough. I did have a chance in joining a team in France but I figured at the time that it was just a little too far to travel for my first team. I really don’t speak French either so that would make life kind of hard in the beginning. At lease I will be in Canada when they speak English and it might give me some time to learn how to speak French better.


Since the team that I am on is sponsored by Trek I will be getting a Trek bike for the first time. I just ordered the new Trek bike, at a time saying that I have a Trek or rode one at a time would have left a bad taste in my mouth but I have come to face the fact that I will be riding one and there really isn’t a choice in that. Along with my new bike, I have ordered a new pair of pedal, Time Speed and they are white… classily right? Well I along with getting a new pair of pedals and bike, I am getting a new pair of shoes, which also are white and black to match my white and black bike. Matchy match aren’t I fancy.



Today though I have real news which doesn’t involve cycling of any kind, drum roll please…. I got my bottom wisdom teeth out today with a bit of surgery. I went in at nine this morning a little freaked out with the whole, needle, pulling, blood, teeth thing. I was frozen my well, it took about ten hours before I could feel my bottom jaw again. Being a bit nervous, that’s an understatement, I got an IV drip put in and I don’t remember anything which makes a good story not very good because I don’t remember the cracking of the teeth or the drill, the blood or the mess. But it is a good thing for me because I am now not scarred for life!

I only remember them putting the IV in and the doctor talking to me a bit, then I closed my eyes and could hear them talking a bit about nothing to do with pulling my teeth out. I think they might have been talking about how their weekend was, or more likely it was my imaginational making things up because of the drugs that I was one. The next things I knew, the nurse was telling me to open my eyes up and helping me up and out of the room. It felt like it only took 5 minutes which is not possible because I was in the office for at least an hour and a half. I am really hurting now though…. The drugs are all gone (sad face) and the freezing is gone (happy face) I can feel my lips and eat and drink without it going all over the place and making me a mess. I am just going to be on pills for the pain for the next few days. I will not be training either because of the meds and the stitches in my mouth because it could lead to more bleeding.

This is the first time that I ever got stitches, I think I have four to six of them in my mouth, I really haven’t wanted to look at them because its nasty. I was too jacked on meds at the office to ask how many I got, or how long the surgery took or to see my teeth that they pulled because that would have been kind of cool to see. Imagine the money that I could have gotten from those teeth from the tooth fairy!



Now totally off topic, here is a joke from my brother – What do you call a dog with no legs? Don’t matter he ain’t going to come anyways.



Well that’s it for now, cheers my wonderful people.

JG

present life

Back to present life, cross season has just finished and I have finished pretty much unscathed. Besides a couple minor crashes I’m good. The last crashed that I had was in the pre-ride of cross provincials; I hit a hole that was covered by leaves and bit it hard. I messed up my neck and shoulder a bit, but the race still went pretty well.



I’m hoping to get to Tucson this winter for some training. It so hard to plan everything for a big trip, and get people organized to come also. But that’s life it’s not always going to be easy. Wow look at me getting all deep haha.

cheers
JG

Italy

Oh wow that’s all I can say, I’m so bad with keeping up with writing and updating my blog. Though in my defense I did break my computer screen and have to order a new one, but at the same time we did have three other computers in the house. I guess I can continuo off where I let off.

ITALY

The Race - We went to Italy for world juniors; it was thousand times better than going to Moscow the year before. The races didn’t go as well as I had hoped, looking back on the races I think that I didn’t get the right training this year that I need to do well. I was injured lots and sick about every two months like clockwork. In the month before worlds I was mostly was racing and resting and traveling there are not much training for Worlds.

The Food – The food we ate at our hotel was amazing, tasty and delicious, though we did have pasta lease once a day. When I got home I never ate pasta for three weeks. There are a couple nasty story about food from Italy. I ordered fried fish, thinking that I would be a fillet of fish. What came to the table was a school of baby fish with eyes looking at me, fins and everything. Let’s just say that I had a panic attack and couldn’t eat anything that night.



The Landscape – Italy is beautiful, whether you are in Roma or the seaside of Gradamara. I have the pleasure of being on both coast and I must say I love the “east coast” and there beaches. I only got to the beach once in the day time. That one time on the beach I burned so bad.



Well that’s it for now, Italy in a nut shell

JG

France

FRANCE




We were in France only 5 days for the race Tour feminine de limousine. This race didn’t go so well for me thus no race report on my blog. Here the deal, the food there wasn’t great; the French really aren’t naturally that great of cooks. So I got sick from either the water that I was drinking or the food. I did the first stage thinking at the start that I not feeling good was just nerves. Boy was I wrong. I was in some major pain and it was from my stomach. I’m on this big loop that’s only about 80km long. I can’t quit simple because the fact where the hell would I go? I’m in the wild countryside of France and the finish is 80km away and that’s where the Canadian team is. I had to choice but to finished.



Feeling no better the next day I raced the time trial. I hadn’t eaten well the day before and was pretty much cracked from the long road race so my legs had nothing in them on this day. I was climbing hills in my easiest gear still barely making up them… they were not hard hills either, people could big ring them but I was just so done.



We didn’t get to look around at all while we were there so I think I kind of missed the true beauty of france.

Cheers
JG

Belgium

BELGIUM




Belgium is a neat place to see, the culture that they have gives a small town feel. While I was there I stay in a town call Tielt-Winge and it was a super small town. But here is the interesting place Eddie Mechrx was born not too far from the house we were in only about a 1km or so away.

Everyone rides cruiser bikes in Belgium, the older and more rust on the bike and the flatter the tires the cool the bike is. If doesn’t matter if you are 10 or 80 years old, everyone has one. At the house they had a couple of old cruiser bikes that we would ride to go to the eurospar, with is the local grocery shop. I loved ring those bikes, it make me feel pretty European and I couldn’t wipe the stupid grin of my face.



We didn’t do much in Belgium and we were bored lots are live was kind of a ride, eat, internet, sleep routine. One of the days we went to Leuven to the square. It was a beautiful place to go and see with huge big castle churches and coffee shops on every corner. That day we were in search of vegan food for one of the girls. Being vegan in Belgium quite tricky, being vegan in France while “camping” worst. I could never be vegan just because there are too many good kinds of food that I enjoy eating way too much.

Cheers
JG

Europe

My Europe trip is coming to an end, I have seen many places and met lots of new and interesting people.  I have been to Holland, Belgium, France and Italy in the 5 weeks that I had been away. As much as a love seeing new and exciting places I am glad to be coming home soon.  Living in hotel and eatting meals out everyday is not all its cracked up to be.  I am dying for some Canadian food.  Food in Europe has been okay to say the lease, only a million times better then Russia but you can't beat our Canadian cooks! Today was the first day that I had a good salad, a salad that I could eat and say wow I ate something green.  Itlay is not big on salads or veggies for that matter. Pasta, bread, pizza, I think I had enough carbs for the rest of the year.

I don't had wireless at thsi hotel that I am staying at, but writing this from the hotel computer. European keyboards or a bit different from the one that we have in Canada, it took me a bit to figure out how to work it, so please bear with me on the grammer. 

Italy is a wonderful place, one of the nicest that I have been. I have traveled from one coast to the other.  I must say the I prefer the Italy country side to the city.  Rome was nice to see but i would never want to live there in a million year. Its too busy and the people aren't as nice.

This is about it for now, cause I really don't have time to write anymore because it is time for bed.  I have a early flight in the morning to Brussels, Belgium.  Going to be one step closer to going home.  I will try to get more writen up soon as there is a lot to tell.

ciao
JG

Dwars Doors De Westhoek

       Dwars Doors de Westhoek was the race Team Canada did on Sunday. This race was combine of 5 pro teams, 2 National Team (yeah Canada) and about 14 club teams for a total for 141 racers. This is the largest group that I have ridden in to date. I didn’t find that there are much of a problem riding in this group besides the fact that if you aren’t continuously moving up you will get shot out the back. This was one of the technical road races that I have done; it had about a million corners in the first lap with was about 50-60km long. When the girls were taking the corners everyone would be slamming on their breaks creating one big yo-yo motion. At more the one point in the race I was sliding kind of sideways with the breaks almost locked up to avoid the girls in first. Remarkably there wasn’t that many crashes in the race and most happened towards the end of it. I was never in a crash nor did I see any, I was told about the crashes in the end from some of the Canadian girls that went down.

     The roads were very narrow I found, they were like paved dirt roads, there are only about enough room for four girls to ride beside each other and then there would be no room to get by. In other words it was tight.

      There are five King of the Mountains in the race all which were in the first 35km of the race. They weren’t very long but some did have a max grade of 13%, I got dropped on the first hill which they all powered up. Me and a group of girls chased to get back on and caught on by the time we hit the fourth hill.

     Once we finished the one big loop we started on a small 10km loop which we had to do 7 times. Part of that loop consisted of, not cobbles but these bricks that are damn close to cobbles. I forget what the words in is French. There are about 2.km of these ‘bricks’ along the start and finish line and feed zone. I have no idea guys can do a whole race on them; I would just get shake to bits and fall off my bike – two km of them was enough for me.

      This race was one of the hardest things I have done. I don’t think I have ever hurt that much in a race before. My heart rate at one point in the race hit 199bpm – Now I know a lot of people would say that that’s not that high for my age, but I have never, ever seen numbers that high for my heart rate. I highest HR that I have seen in the past was 193 and that was in a VO2 max and a time trail. My first reaction when I saw those numbers was ‘oh my god I’m gonna die’.

     It was quite hot out and along with the distance and speed I was really starting to suffer after about 80km’. I ended up finishing with the main pack and placed 76th. Only 91 people got classified at the end of the race, that means that the 50 people either didn’t finish, got pulled or where 5% behind the winners time.

 
       I was so glad when the race was finished and couldn't wait to get off the 'Bricks'. The Bricks that the bikes are on in the picture above is like the stuff we had to ride on but worst. This race was really an eye opener to the racing in Europe and it shows me that I can handle it. I may not be the fast or the strongest but I can suffer it out and mentally not crack till after the race.
          We are off tomorrow morning at 6 am to France for a stage race, Tour Feminin en Limousin. There will be one time trial and 3 road races. The courses are very hilly and it is most likely going to be super hot down there. It’s going to be a hard couple of days




Cheers for now.



JG