When I finally woke up I trudged upstairs and turned on the T.V. just in time to find that the Olympic bid was being broadcasted on just about every news channel and eagerly waited the announcement.  I watched all the lobbying going on from Chicago as Mayor Daley and various other famous spokespeople attempted to sway the Olympic voters.  Barack Obama was even there for Christ’s sake, as well as Michelle Obama giving her sentimental account of growing up in the city.  So when the votes were casted, I was utterly shocked to hear Chicago was the first to be eliminated.  It seemed as though everyone had just assumed all along that we would host the Olympics, not even stopping to think since the beginning that there were actually other cities giving strong appeals.  Personally I’m a bit relieved the Games went to Rio De Janeiro–it doesn’t sound very epic to say you travelled a whole 30 miles to compete in the Olympics, which I hope to be in contention for by that time.  I like to shoot high.  Who knows, I was one of only three to make the Jr. World Championships, maybe I’ll be at the pinnacle of the sport by 2016.

The actual event was unlike anything I had ever experienced.  Each country had its own respective tent to camp out in, and team U.S.A. was well-kept by a suanier (I think I spelled that wrong) named Simona who took fantastic care of us.  Her job was pretty much everything–she prepared the food, massaged us, accompanied us to the start gate, wiped us down, lubed us up, you name it, she could do it.  She even spoke five languages, which proved helpful since our mechanic didn’t speak a lick of english, so aside from exaggerated gestures on my part to communicate, Simona was there to break the language barrier. 

It was almost strange not having to worry about all the little things I usually have to take care of at a bike race.  The food was there, electrolyte drinks were made, tires pumped up, bike washed down, and protein drinks even waiting in the cooler.  So I, being so unused to the professional treatment, insisted on making my own drinks anyway before leaving, and packing some extra food just in case.  I felt quite silly when Simona looked at me funny as I filled my ABD waterbottles with gatorade mix, going through my usual pre-race ritual.  I think it was more for the comfort than anything else, since Simona was already prepared with an arsenal of waterbottles and a table full of food.

So thanks to such incredible support, all I had to concern myself with was fending off the pre-race jitters and warming myself up.  Mentally I was flying; I was about to compete in the largest event so far in my cycling career.  This wasn’t just any typical bike race:  it was the Junior World Championships, and I was one of the chosen few to be there. 

When my start time loomed closer, Simona walked my to the starting tent to get checked in and have my bike measured and rolled out.   With all the stress of being in a foreign country and huge expectations on my shoulders, I was glad Simona was with me all the way to the starting gate, keeping a a calm and cool face so as not to freak me out any more than I already was. It also didn’t help any that just two days prior I had been stung by a bee right smack-dab in the middle of my forehead, and me eyes were irritatingly swollen, almost to the point where I looked like a different person.  I tried to ignore the dull throbbing as the official called my number, and I climbed the ramp and swung up onto my bike in the ready position.  All I could see was the broad road ahead of me, as I breathed in and out, willing myself to relax and focus.  My mind funneled on one task only, and suddenly nothing else in the world existed or mattered but what lay ahead of me, –

“JESSI RELAX”

Then Jessi Prinner just about slipped off her handlebars in fright from the sudden blaring of the megaphone behind her. 

I had forgotten that Ben Sharp, the Jr. Endurance Manager, was right behind me in the follow vehicle with a loudspeaker strapped to the side.  From then on out Ben Sharp would be my brain for the race; he pretty much told me what to do (when to speed up, what side of the road to be on) for the entire 13K. 

And, indeed, it was the hardest 13K of my life.  The course was incredibly flat and wide open, so bike handling was the least of my worries, but with that said, most of the times of that day were just milliseconds apart.  I finished with a time of 19:20 in 21st place, and Coryn finished with a time of 19:16, in 16th place.  That’s a difference of 5 places in 4 seconds.  After I crossed the finish line and waited for my bike to be rolled out, some random guy ran up and excitedly started taking pictures of me.  He didn’t really speak english, but he kept saying “photo, photo” and I figured he wanted me to pose on my bike.  He even made me take my glasses off.  Apparently seeing an American over in Russia is like spotting a blue tulip (in case you don’t know, natural blue tulips are almost nonexistant, and are worth thousands of dollers).  I felt like a celebrity, just because I had “USA” printed in huge letters all over my skinsuit. 

Two days and about -20 degrees later, the day of the road race had arrived, and it was FREEZING outside.  Actually it was only about 60 degrees (Fahrenheit, not Celcius–that seemed to be a major factor of confusion over there) but I abhor cold weather in ever way shape and form, so one can imagin how I feel about Russia in general. 

The road race course was actually the same course used when the Junior World Championships were in Russia about 30 years ago.  Since their is only a total grade change of about .5 inches in all of Moscow, this course was specially selected due to its artificial hills.  The 16K two-lane road winds around an artificial park, and finishes by dumping us off on a major highway (in case you haven’t figured it out yet, Moscow is mainly comprised of major highways) where the start/finish line is located  The race totaled 81K, which came out to be 6 laps.  The terrain was created by the extra dirt displaced in the building of the major stadiums build for the Winter Olympics.  So as a result, we had to climb about 5 or 6 gut-wrenchingly steep hills per lap throughout the race. 

As we made our way through the check-in process (roll-out and sign in) and over to staging, each country was called up to the line by name in alphabetical order.  I could find no reasonable explanation for this as first, until I realized that the Russians had strategically chosen alphabetical order because, inevitably, the United States of America was dead last in the alphabet of countries.  I could almost hear the Russian team chuckling ahead of us in the peloton. 

At first I didn’t notice the significance of this because I had started in the back of fields before and managed to get to the front, but little did I know that Junior National Championship races work differently.  If only someone had given me a heads up beforehand of the chaos that would soon ensue, I would have at least put my medical insurance card in my jersey pocket.  After the announcer (or announcers I should say since there were multiple people to repeat things in multiple languages) counted down the time to the start (and they made sure to start RIGHT on the hour, not a second too soon or late) and the race commenced at the sound of the gun, all the deep, philosophical thoughts humans were supposed to believe in suddenly disappeared and was replaced by shear, primitive madness.  I have to be honest here, all I could think about in the first 500 meters of the race was how I was going to be sent home a broken mess the next day.  In that first 500 meters, EVERYONE wanted to be at the front, but if you know anything about bike races, there is only so much road, and so riders of every nationality were fighting with recklessness for those few desired positions.  Let me just give you a glimpse of what I saw from my eyes:

The mass of riders (62 to be exact) was seething like a cloud of angry hornets (like the one that stung me in the forehead four days prior on that very same course) as girls took frighteningly risky moves just to gain one or two positions.  The peloton flexed and a girl was shoved off the road and into the ditch.  I heard multiple angry screams all around me of girls getting pushed or knocked out of the way.  I decided to swing over closer to the center of the road as riders kept being flung off the road to the left.  I cringed as I saw handlebars colliding, wheels bumping, bikes fishtailing.  From behind me I heard a crash and several screams, and moments later the French girl next to me was upended and I could hear the screeching halt of brakes and crashing of metal as she cleared a path of riders behind her.  In short, frantic, panicked breathes, I began repeating to myself outloud “It’s okay, Jessi, everything’s fine, everything’s fine, everything’s okay…”

In just a short time, though, the craze died down and I was able to switch into bike-racing mode instead of survival-mode.  I managed to stay as near to the front as possible, and for the first few laps I was positioned decently, out of the wind, for a good portion of the time.  The steep, grinding hills, though, began to wear on me, and each time I would drift futher and further back from the field.  My legs began to shoot with pain as though I were at the end of a grueling 100-mile ride, and soon all I felt was searing lactic acid and sharp, painful flashes at every grade.  The field would string out on the hills, and condense once it was flat again, with more riders being dropped each time. On the occasion when the Italian team began drilling it up the hills, I got caught at the back when a gap formed, and it was a scattered race to catch back on.  Eventually my dropped group caught the field again, but I my legs felt like had been ripped to shreads, and half-way through the second to last lap, I got dropped for good.  Kendall Ryan, my teammate ended up in the same group as me, so us and a bunch of riders worked together in a paceline, determined to work ourselves into the ground, even for the few meager places we were left with.  Throughout the entire last 16K lap of the race, I was “seeing stars” up every hill.  The pain was so vivid, it was almost tangible.  Somehow, though I felt like passing out, I managed to make it up every last hill (I was actually concerned that I might not make it up one of those times) and eventually the pain was so relentless, I began to only feel dullness in adapting to it. 

For the entire last 1k, I switched it into high gear and cranked out every last juice of energy left in order to do something in the form of a lead-out for Kendall.  After I crossed the finish line, and it was all finally over, I found that I had come in 35th place, roughly mid-way in the entire peloton.  At that point, though, I wasn’t as concerned about the places I had received during my competition at Worlds, but the priceless experience I had gained in the process.

With that said, there’s nowhere to go but up, and next year I plan on doing just that in Italy (oh, yeah, did I mention the Jr. World Championships were in The Boot next year?).

So much for a short report.

Until next year…

I know lately I’ve been pretty bad about keeping my blog updated, but my usual hectic school life has started again, which means that by the time I actually get around to writing something, I feel like by brain has been thrown against the wall several times, and then stewed in boiling water.  As you can imagine, I figure it’s most likely better if I just don’t put any words whatsover on the page at that point, because managing a decent post would be futile, and even forming a semi-understandable sentance might be a struggle. 

As of right now (as I’m writing this post, perhaps not as you are reading it) I am sitting in a hotel room in St. Louis, the Gateway City.  As far as my teachers know, I have suddenly come down with an upset stomach, and unfortunately could not be in school today.  Luckily none of my teachers know about this blog, so little do they know I actually just took this Friday off to drive down to Missouri to compete in a four day criterium series called the Gateway Cup.  Much better than sitting at a gum-infested desk trying my hardest to keep my eyelids open.

Today, or tonight I should say, was my first race of the series.  Indeed, this was the first NRC race I have ever competed in, and for those of you who don’t know what that means, all you need to know is that these races attract the biggest, baddest, and most highly regarded women racers in the nation.  Powerhouse women’s professional teams like TIBCO, Colevita, and Webcore all attend in order to obtain vital points to compete in the overall NRC competition that takes places over many races all year long.  Powerhouse women like Tina Pic, Brooke Miller, Laura van Gilder, Kori Seehafer, and Katheryn Mattis were present as well, but that’s okay since just about every newspaper that ever did an article about me has claimed that my nickname was the “Powerhouse”, even though I’ve never heard anyone call me that in my life.  The pro,1,2 women’s race started at 8:30 at night, and the .9 mile course was surrounded with floodlights to give us spotlights along the pitch-black course.  Indeed, the course was still shadowed in darkness, and was even spattered with sections of pitch black, so you could barely see the riders around you.  Take all this and add a fierce 70-rider field with a fast course, and it seemed like complete and utter chaos.  But I love chaos, and once I was set loose, I couldn’t help but think that this was one of the funnest races I have ever done.  It was almost as if the darkness shrouded the intimidating identities of the riders around me, so I didn’t feel discouraged like I normally do in a race of this caliber.  I managed to stick all over the front of the field, sitting in the top twenty for most of the race, attacking once (grand failure) and trying for a $100 prime (does 3rd place count for something???).  By the last 4 laps, team TIBCO was already performing its amazing leadout dance at the front of the field, warding away swarming riders and deterring attacks.  I felt strong enough to move up in the last three laps, and by the final lap I was situated in the top 15 places.  Leadout riders continued to peel off, and struggling riders were getting blown away, but one could not blame them for the pace in that lap was blistering and it seemed as though it was a .9 mile sprint to the finish.  I could feel the energy and adrenaline pouring out of the remaining riders in front of me as they hammered through the last two turns, fighting for every place as they knew they were the meat and potatoes of the race.  In a split second decision as I rounded the last turn I cut from the outside to the inside as the line was faster and the leadout TIBCO riders (as I later found out) were blocking the outside.  This move boosted me into the top ten as I finished my sprint to cross the line in 8th place.

For it being my first NRC race, and coming with no expectations, I am estatic with my results.  I just hope tomarrow will bring a similar story.

Until later…

And that is the first reason why I discovered living in Russia would be difficult for me.  The second reason occured to me in an elevator.  But first I should probably explain how I ended up in Moscow, Russia to begin with.  If you guessed it had anything to do with cycling, you’d be right, because pretty much anything substantial that happens in my life usually has to do with cycling.  In fact, if I weren’t a cyclist, I’d be the most boring, uninteresting person in the world.

Anyway, as you probably already guessed again,  I was flown to Moscow to compete in the Junior World Cycling Championships as a representative of the United States.  I was accompanied by two teammates, both from California, named Kendall Ryan and Coryn Rivera on the Junior National Team.  Upon arrival, we immediately resorted to looking like lost Americans wandering around the airport looking for our transportation. 

Fortunately, our Russian transportation guy could find us easily due to our extremely oversized luggage (most of us had to travel with two bikes along with the usual suitcase and carry-on).  In fact, we were sort of creating a large blockade in the midst of a traffic of people, who insisted on staring at us like we were zoo animals and passing as close as possible as if we weren’t matter taking up space.  It was then that I discovered Major Difference #2 between Russians and Americans (the first was the language thing): Americans tend to have a lot more personal space than Russians.  

So after finally collecting the Canadian National Team, who incidentally flew on the same horrendous 10 hour flight from D.C. with us, we headed towards the exit doors, where we would see the magnificent city of Moscow, Russia for the very first time.  As we burst through the doors with about 11 million other people jammed between us (remember Major Difference #2), I was immediately suffocated by a large fume of smoke that I at first mistakenly thought was the airport on fire, and then realized it was just a crowd of smokers standing outside, doing what they do best.  And that was Major Difference #3:  Russians smoke like no tomorrow, and I was to later learn that they consumed vodka at the same rate.  It took me a bit of adjusting during my stay to get used to that, because where I live, Illinois, it recently became illegal to smoke in or around any public building. 

We were transported to our hotel via coach bus, which was to be our only mode of travel during the week we stayed in Moscow.  As we travelled the 45-minute route to the city, we passed through a more rural setting, with red brick houses (literally, ALL the houses were completely made of brick) mixed with thick forest.  I was surprised to find how flat Moscow and its surrounding lands were, and how similar most of it looked to that of the U.S.  If I had been randomly dropped in Moscow without any knowledge of where I was, I would probably assume I was in Iowa or something.  Until, of course, I saw the gas stations’ signs posting numbers like 21, 23 and 26.  Then I would just be really confused.   One might assume that by that point I would get the hint that I was in another country, but then again I would probably just conclude that the earth had run out of fossil fuels and that gas had simply skyrocketed to ridiculous prices. 

Which then leads me to Major Difference #4: Russians use a currency called rubles, which is roughly at an exchange rate of 30 rubles to every U.S. dollar.  The actual currency itself does not look so different from our own, except that I did notice how much more colorful it was.  Oh, and speaking of colorful, I discovered Major Difference #5: Russians prefer their nuclear plant smoke stacks painted in pastel colors.  I think this is a fantastic idea.  All six of them seemed much less scary that way.  Perhaps they should even try adding smiley faces on them for the kids.

Anyway, we eventually arrived at our hotel, which I will only describe as looking “questionable”.  I suppose, though, as the old saying goes “It’s what’s on the inside that counts”.  The name of the hotel I cannot include in this post, not for political reasons, but simply because I never really knew what it was called. 

By the time we finally made it to the 26^th floor and into our rooms, I was exhausted, not to mention my internal clock was 8 hours off from the clock on the hotel lobby wall.  My room, which I was to share with Kendall, was a small space (about half the size of an American hotel room) with two slim, one person beds.  There was no clock within the room, and no heating or air conditioning (only a window that opened without a screen), but there WAS a super cool heated metal bar in the bathroom, which we used to dry our cycling clothes on ultra fast.  Also, there was a radio with large speakers built into the walls, so we could listen to all the radio in Russian we wanted.  Plus there was a T.V. (which I was overjoyed to find that CNN was the only channel in English) and a mini fridge that we never used since the food downstairs was questionable enough, and didn’t need to be incubated for another day for the fear that it might morph into something scary that would come out and devour us in our beds at night.

That night I was so exhausted from jet lag that I slept the soundest I ever have without any sort of sleep aid, leaving the window open to let in a cool breeze since it was soon discovered our room was like a tiny oven, even when the weather eventually dropped into the 60s.  A pigeon probably could have flown in, flapped around for a while, pooping and cooing all over the place, and I wouldn’t have woken up.

And that’s was day 1 of Russia.  Day 2’s report will be twice as long, and Day 3’s will be four times as long.  They grow exponentially. 

I knew I was doing well when I had passed every rider in front of me by the turnaround, and by that time the race was pretty much over because the real race was on the uphill, seeing as though not much time could be made up on a screaming fast downhill.  As I crossed the finish line I looked up to see a time of 40:3-something (I actually don’t really know what my time was.  Every article or e-mail I read says a different time) which really didn’t mean much to me at the moment because I was the first person in anyway.  It was only after the other riders started coming in that I realized how truely fast my time was–almost 2 minutes faster than most.  I must say, having to sit there and watch every rider finish was a truely nerve-racking experience, but when I saw last year’s winner (Coryn Rivera) cross almost a minute down, I knew I had won this one.  Believe it or not,  I have so many silver and bronze medals that my living room wall is in danger of falling over, but I have never actually gotten a national jersey.  The only other time I got a gold medal was by winning the 2007 15-16 girls track scratch race in Colorado Springs, but never got a jersey from it because it was an omnium event, which means I had to win the overall (scratch, points, and 500m TT) to get it.

So you can bet I savored my first real national championship.  The podium ceremony that night was packed with onlookers (even more than usual) and included several national coaches and other various important faces.  I would love to be able to say that I walked up there all cool and suave, and then did a super amazing back-flip up onto the podium with a dazzling smile on my face, but the truth is that I took one look at that crowd and suddenly felt more like hiding behind that podium.  If you’ve ever read my rider report about my horrendous Vernon Hills podium experience, then you’d understand that I have a serious condition of Stageaphobia, and I think both me and the crowd were both relieved I didn’t have to make any speeches because, after all, I have set the world record of the “Worst Sentence Ever Put Together By a Human Being”.  I really didn’t feel like breaking that record, so I already had an escape plan in mind which included jumping into the river (which happened to be only several feet from the podium) and swimming to safety on the other side.  Fortunately, as I have said before, I didn’t have to make a speech, so all I had to do was stand nervously on the top step, not make too much of a mess of putting on my jersey, and inconspicuously try to figure out that the podium girl was trying to kiss me on the cheeks like French people do. 

After the podium ceremony, I walked around for a while in my National Champions jersey and gold medal, just to savor the moment, because this was a moment I had worked so hard for over the past five years.  It would be easy to make it sound like it was just another victory in a stack of medals, and another result to add to a growing race resume, but in reality, this meant far more than that to me.  From my first year of racing I had dreamed of winning a National Championship, and it had become an unsaid goal of mine since winning the silver medal in the time trial of my first Nationals as a 12-year-old.  Every year since has been a frustration in some way as my collection of silver medals increased rapidly, but I still failed to win one gold.  And to finally win in the hardest, most unforgiving type of race brings the greatest satisfaction, to know I didn’t just win by the luck of another’s crash, or by a millimeter in a photo finish, but instead because everyone had started with the same opportunity, with the same course ahead of them and the same clock counting their seconds, and I had simply ridden it the fastest.  It’s the most basic form of victory in cycling, but also the greatest test of all, because there are no secret energy-conserving tricks or shortcuts or team tactics in a time trial; it’s just you and your bike.

And that’s what is so great about time trials;big names and reputations no longer matter, because when that gun goes off, and the clock starts ticking, the true champions will show. 

And they have shown.

Upon arriving in Bend, Oregon, I decided that this was definately the place to live with its rolling hills and decent shops and absence of humidity.  Our hotel proved to be average, except that our door took about a million tries with the card key to finally open.  Though I must admit the hotel I had in Bend was a five star compared to the one I’m currently staying in in Moscow, but I’ll save that story for later.  The Jr. Women’s 17/18 RR was a moderately hilly 16-mile loop that we did three times so the entire race ended up being about 57 miles.  I had predicted that my enormous peloton of 15 riders would be shattered by attacks early on in the race, and I would end up in a small group of five or six riders.  Instead, our group decided to take a leaisurely 40 mile ride through Bend, Oregon that made me question whether or not this really was the Junior National road race and not some club ride.  It was finally on the last lap that the attack was made by Coryn Rivera up a long ascent, and the peloton suddenly woke up from their 40 mile nap to chase it down.  With the pressure on, a small group of riders formed a break off the front, and I didn’t even have to look around to know that it was the usual crowd that I’ve always broken away with for the past five years in the junior national championships.  I knew that unless we kept the pace high, the rest of the peloton would just roll back on our wheels, so we immediately formed a paceline and hammered it to the top (which doesn’t surprise me because we have been practicing our 5-man break every year since we were 12 at the Junior Nats).  To say that the hill had a top is a bit of a false statement, actually, because it really went on for just about forver at a slight, but killer, grade of about 2-3%.  When it was my turn to pull through, I gunned it (I don’t really know why, I guess I just felt good) and gapped what tiny break there was.  Coryn and Jackie bridged up to me and we immediately jumped on the opportunity and worked together for the last few miles up to the finish.  On one of the last steep inclines of the race, just when I felt like my legs were about to fall off from 5 miles of climbing, Coryn attacked and tore our tiny group to pieces.  Jackie and I attempted to chase, but the small gap remained for the entirety of the final 3k, where I managed to outsprint Jackie for the silver medal in a fast, 300 meter downhill finish. 

I think I have gotten a little ahead of myself; perhaps there are some of you out there who don’t have the faintest idea as to what a velodrome is.  Basically, it’s like a running track, except for bicycles.  Velodrome races used to be a very popular form of entertainment back in the early 1900s due to the fact that the track bikes were just about the fastest mode of transportation around, even more so than any automobile of that time.  The rise of the automobile industry pretty much choked the life out of track racing, and the amount of open velodromes has dwindled in the U.S. since then. 

I think one of the coolest parts about being a racer is that I can say the word”velodrome” all the time.  It’s like what the hippodrome was to the people of Constantinople back in the day–a place of amusement and valor.  This type of track had to have a special sort of name probably because Europeans wanted it to sound really cool and they’re not like Americans who like to shorten every word they see.  And if they don’t shorten the word in question, they change it entirely so it doesn’t even look like the original word, yet we are supposed to know what it is.  “My fav pic waz w/ u n me n ur peeps in da ‘burbs “.  See how long it takes for you to figure that one out. 

Anyway, I think I was talking about velodromes when I left off.  So the other day I was listening to one girl’s tales about this asinine track she rides in Boulder, Colorado.  Apparently it’s only about 140 meters in length and has 45 degree banking.  So for all of you who barely even know what a velodrome looks like, I will give you a visual;  if you go into your local cupboard, find your favorite brand of soup can, open the lid, empty the contents, and stick a marble inside and swish it around and around, that’s what a cyclist would look like on this velodrome.  I think I would get bit dizzy if I had to do a 1K pursuit on it, and probably hurl my cookies on a 2K.  I asked her if they hold races on this velodrome, and she said they did, but that not many people go because it’s kind of scary.  I would imagine that a large enough field could just simply wrap around the length of the track so that the lead riders would be riding right on the wheels of the riders in the back.  Now how in holy heaven would anyone be able to keep track of that?  The racers would just be riding in circles for five or so minutes and the officials would have to pull names from a hat behind the podium to see who won.  Sometimes I think the difference between velodrome racing and the circus is a very fine line.

I had been to California several times in my life (which means two) and I can never get over just how sunny and warm it is.  It’s like Illinois on anti-depressants.  I remember how the first time I went to California I couldn’t believe they actually had palm trees.  In my mind, palm trees are reserved for Hawaiian scenes or Christmas haters.  So as I got off the plane I had to squint my eyes at the extreme brightness of California, and asked if it could tone it down a little.  I found my host housing host waiting patiently as he held a card that said “Jessi Prinner” as I descended an escalator, like a scene you only see in movies.  I guess there is a little bit of truth to Hollywood after all.  Maybe if you travel the world enough and see all there is to see, then you’ll discover that Hollywood movies are all actually based on real life events, and were simply inspired by what someone somewhere had experienced.  Of course, there’s always the exception of Disney productions because they’re all just stoned. 

Well anyway, I quickly settled into my new house for the week, which happens to be owned by some real avid cycling fans (thank heavens, I don’t think I would be able to survive that long with people asking me if I wear goggles when I ride, how far do  I bike a week, if I’m going to race in the Tour de France, etc).  I’m definately psyched up for this cycling camp (I probably should have mentioned earlier that that was why I came) because it is a mixture of road and track cycling and only women between the ages of 13 and 26 were invited.  About 14 of the best women cyclists in the nation have gathered in San Jose, California to participate in a budding program that will span over a period of about five years.  The camp director (who also happens to be the director of the Olympic cycling team that went to Beijing) called a group meeting at the vintage winery that is owned by my hosts, which is a bit ironic considering most of us were under the drinking age.  The winery was an extremely old building that used to serve as a temple for a group of monks back in the day, and is set atop a hill with a winding road leading to the top.  Of course, me being the cyclist I am I couldn’t help but visualize what an amazing climb it would be from the bottom to the winery.  Maybe we’ll get to ride up it one of the days during camp. 

Yeah, that’s my kind of vacation.

It seems as though my summer just got even busier with the recent update I got via e-mail.  Already I was looking forward to leaving this Sunday (July 12th) to fly to San Jose, CA to enjoy a week at an exclusive cycling camp along the coast of the sunshine state.  Then it’s back home  to Chicago July 20th where I’ll have just a few days to relax before I’m off again to Bend, Oregon (near Portland) to compete in Junior National Championships.  As of a week ago, I was under the impression that that would be the end of my journey, but I was recently contacted by the National Junior Endurance Manager who had even bigger news to share.  Apparently, I made the Junior National Team, and I will be flying from Bend, Oregon on August 2 to Moscow, Russia to compete in the Junior World Championships.  This includes an individual time trial (a race against the clock) and a road race against the world’s fiercest young women.  I look forward to not only soaking up the experience of world travel, but also seeing how I stack up in a peloton of international competition.  That’s right, there will be girls screaming all sorts of unknown languages across the peloton, and I will probably be the subject of many jests seeing as though I will be wearing a USA jersey on my back.  I may have to tone down my “Americanism” a notch or two in order to fly undetected under the Russain radar, but I refuse to ride any less fierce or determined than I normally do because not even the Iron Curtain can contain me.  In fact, I will undoubtedly step up my game for Worlds due to the fact that so much more is at stake and I will have so much expectation resting on my shoulders; not only am I representing myself and my abilities, but also the name and reputation of the entire nation of the United States of America.   Seems like a lot of stress, but I live and thrive under pressure.  Without pressure there would be no greatness, and I refuse to just fall neatly under the category of “good”.  That category is too full; so much potential gets lost in that hazy space.  The bar will certainly be raised in Moscow.  Will this be the year an American wins?  We’ll find out soon enough.