Desert living

I'm pretty sure there's not much I can say about Tucson that hasn't been said already in a thousand bike racing blogs, but it's worth mentioning anyway. I guess everyone comes here for a reason- it really is a great place to train. Lately I've been heading out with a great crew every morning,including my TMK/Jittery Joe's teammate Adam Myerson, Thom Coupe from Bikereg, and teammate from last year Logan Loader. Sometimes we start the ride together and branch off to do specific intervals, but yesterday Adam, Thom and I did a pretty long ride that even had a great dirt road section (Battenkill?! This race was also mentioned in an exclamatory fashion by Adam after we finished a block of tempo...). I guess I can leave New England, but New England never leaves me.

Here's a pic from the ride:



At the mid ride lunch break we had some awesome carrot cake at a remote gas station- so many calories I didn't have to eat for the next two hours! Speaking of eating, I had been watching my diet pretty closely, and started to eat too many meals that looked like this:



Now I'm eating a lot more of this:



It's all about balance

Also, what they say about the "Shootout" is definitely true. Last Saturday's ride was by far the hardest I've ever gone in February. The ride in Naples were pretty quick, but the shootout is the same speed, uphill. Apparently last week wasn't even "that fast." Tomorrow will be fun.


Today was a rest day, but also a milestone. I've been putting it off for a while, but I finally had to transition from my school "Blitzmail" account to a real life email system (gmail). My new email is toby.marzot@gmail.com. Big changes, exciting stuff. Sadly, so many emails from Kevin will be lost forever.

Multimedia news:

- If you haven't seen the Office episode from Season 4 where Michael and Jan have everyone over for dinner, you should. Hilarious.

- Also been watching some Sharkweek episodes on Netflix

- Saw this on a forum (Velocipede Salon):



- The other day I was getting ready to do an interval and remarked to my ride partner that I was going to listen to some Zooey (She and Him). He gave me a funny look. Not sure why:

Rest day blog post #2

First off, if you want to read something scary, check out the latest Naples Velo Facebook post here. It seems like there are a lot of people here who work to make cycling safe, so hats off to them.

Actually, it's worth sharing how impressive the cycling scene here is in general. It's dead flat, the roads are crazy-busy, and yet at least 20 people show up for group rides every single morning at 7 AM! Each day has a designated format and "speed limit" so you always know what to expect. Only problem is that no one every goes easy...even the "recovery day" ends with a 2k leadout into a sprint. Oh well. Getting up at 5:30 to make it there takes some getting used to, but the reward is often a pretty nice sunrise. Not sure the blackberry caught the full glory of this one:



In other news, after countless hours of staring into drainage ditches on long rides, I finally saw an aliigator the other day. unfortunately, he ran away before I could snap a picture. Our interaction went something like this:



To conclude today's update, I'd like to share what I think is one of the best new jersey designs for 2010. I might be a little biased, but still, check it out on Dartmouth Cycling's twitter, here. (just the two guys in back are wearing the new kit).

Seems like those guys are ready to have a great year, and I have never seen the cycling team so well organized and professionally run. Props to Michael Rea and crew. If I had to miss something about school, of course it would be the cycling team. And roads like these:

Also, if anyone needs any inspiration to go out training:. I don't remember where I found this, but it's one of the craziest racing clips I've seen.

First ever blog post, exciting times!

My goal with this blog is to share things I find interesting and exciting, from both my travels on the internet, as well as on the road racing with Team Mountain Khakis fueled by Jittery Joe's.

I'm currently training in Naples, Florida. Every time I come down here, I'm given at least one good, thorough beating by the locals on group rides. I'm still recovering from Saturday's ride....I'm not one to get too caught up in power numbers, but the profile from this ride looked a lot like one from a mid-summer New England crit. As an old teammate of mine (Chris Rozdilsky) used to say, "tales of the big ring."

In other news, I've been on a mission to watch all of these.. Thank you netflix.

Also saw this on Top Gear the other day. Hopefully I'll do better when I one day realize my dream of being a professional race car driver.