After three weeks pretty much off and out with the crud… or sinus infection – bronchitis – sinus infection triple whammy, I started training again the second half of this week.  My last day of doing any hard riding or working out was on Sunday, February 7th, and after 24 days without intensity due to resting or just putzing around on easy rides for one to just under two hours I did a workout on Thursday.  Lets just say that a 3-minute zone 5 (pretty much all out) effort is a pretty brutal welcome back.  Thanks coach.  I ended up only lasting 2 of those minutes but I think the shock treatment worked.

On Saturday (today) I went out on The South ride and enjoyed trying to keep up with everyone who has been racing while I’ve been trying to get healthy.  It was tough but fun and nice to be back.  The spring weather was also nice after our hard winter.   We had 12 inches of snow a few weeks back…and this is Texas!  I didn’t stay with the group the whole ride but I did better than I thought I would and got in a nice 5 hour ride.  Again, a nice welcome back. It was nice to see and ride with Bikemart teammate Chris Kutach, Austin Stewart, Steve Steward, Joe G., Jenny King,  and other folks like Mario Arroyove who drove up from Waxahachie for the ride.

Tomorrow (Sunday) I think I’ll try racing the two crits up in Denton. They are low key and I am supposed to ride for 2.5 hours with an emphasis on sprints.  Hanging onto the packs during the two crits should be perfect; besides, I have some of the Jesuit kids who will be doing their first ever race out there that afternoon in preparation for the big DFW weekend of high school and collegiate racing next weekend.  Which by the way I’m promoting two of the four races for…yeah, I’m pretty busy these days.

Oh and while sick last year and just now I’ve had two doctors say a total of three times that they think I have minor asthma that’s just never been diagnosed.  hmm…that would be interesting.

Thanks for reading, -andrew-