Christmas with Dr. Clayton and Family

I am in North Georgia currently with my new chiropractor, Dr. Clayton and his family. It started off when I was on a training ride in Atlanta, GA on Wednesday and I was hit by a car from behind. The driver drove off and left me in the ditch with a messed up back and unconsious. I spent the following days in the hospital where I was diagnosed with a compressed disc and my fifth concussion. The nuerologist advised me to stop racing due to the amount of damage done to my brain with the number of concussions I have sustained. But anyone who knows me knows that I would rather die doing something I love than to get messed up just doing ordinary day to day type stuff. So I am on five days of rest until I can begin training again.

This is where Dr. Clayton came in and I had only known him through twitter when he offered to give me and adjustment to help with recovery from the crash. Things led to another and he offered for me to come to his family Christmas get together for the weekend. It has been an amazing experience from getting my first adjustment done to meeting his family and having a great weekend. Great people here and some great new friends made. So I now have a new chiropractor and a PR manager in his wife, Carla Clayton. One of the things we created was a fan page for my brand management through Facebook. So please check it out when you get a chance. Click here to check it out:

I am heading to go pick up my best friend Greg from the Atlanta airport and we will start our drive back to Montana on Tuesday, arriving on Christmas Eve. Hope to see yall back in MT soon!

Atlanta, St. Louis, Sioux Falls

I'm sitting here in my dorm room writing this blog for the last time as I will be moving out of here in just a couple days. I am so ready to leave and get home to continue my training and see my family. Thanks to one of my coaches, Joe Keener, I will once again be working out with him everyday all winter long, except this time it will be much much more intense. As of right now we have designed a schedule that will last 8hrs everyday starting at 3a.m. and finishing around 11a.m.

Here is a basic schedule as of now:
3 - 5:30a.m. Gym
5:30 - 7 a.m. Meetings and or Ride
7 - 11a.m. Ride
11 - 11:30a.m. Meetings
11:30 - 12:30 Lunch
1 - 3p.m. Meetings

So thats a basic schedule of what I will be doing everyday for training. Thanks to Joe, I will have access to some of the top notch equipment in cycling. Also thanks to Billings Clinic, The Sports Plex, and Renee Soberjing, I will be getting my LT tested after the first of the year which should give us a basic idea of where my fitness is. I will test once more right before leaving for Belgium, once I get there, and once I come back. We will be able to use these markers for this years training and for future years training to gauge my fitness. I cant tell you how excited I am to have these tools at my disposal to make me a better rider and to help prepare for Belgium.

Until then my travel plans are hectic the next couple of weeks. On Tuesday I leave for Dalton, GA to ride with Saul Raisin, an amazing cyclist and amazing person. If you dont know his story, look it up or read his book, Tour de Cure. It is a mind blowing book and will inspire anyone. I will be in Dalton, GA until Wednesday evening where I will then travel to Atlanta, GA to stay with my friend Elise and train in the warm weather before I get to experience the cold MT weather. My best friend Greg will then fly into Atlanta on Sunday and we will stay to watch the Atlanta Thrashers hockey game on Monday then leave on Tuesday for St. Louis. There I will get a tiny bit of last warm weather training in before leaving for Sioux Falls, SD on Wednesday. I will be there for a just over 15hrs before heading to BMT and arriving there on Christmas Eve. So like I said, very hectic travel schedule ahead of me but I'm looking forward to it. I will give an update when I'm back in MT post Christmas so until then I hope everyone has a merry Christmas and I will talk to you soon.

Announcment

Ok so this is the big announcement!!

After talking with friends, family, and coaches, I have decided that I will be leaving Brevard College after the fall semester ends in two weeks to move back to Montana to train to prepare for my trip to Belgium. As I have said in a recent post, I have been selected to ride in Belgium for the Johan Bruyneel Cycling Academy. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I see it as that (not a risk) and I will be taking full advantage of it. I believe to be fully prepared I must dedicate the remaining time I have before I leave to training. This will be best utilized by me moving back to Montana where I will live with my mom and work one on one with one of my advisors, Joe Keener, and nutritional advice from Gavin Frost. I will be working as well with my team coach here at Brevard, Thad Walker. I believe with the support of my family, friends, and coaches I will be as prepared as I can be for Belgium. I want to send a big thank you out to the Brevard College Cycling Team for accepting me and allowing me to be part of the team. I also want to thank coach Thad Walker for believing in me to bring me here to ride. I understand that this is not in the best interest of the Brevard Cycling Team and I apologize for any inconvenience this brings the team, but I need to do whats best for me and seize this opportunity. However, I have talked with coach Thad Walker and I am tentatively planning on returning to Brevard next fall semester to continue my education here and to race for Brevard once again. I also want to thank Wes Dickson and Sycamore Cycles for all they have done for me from tuning up my bike when needed to providing an outlet for me to purchase top of the line equipment.

I will continue to keep everyone updated throughout the training in the coming months and from Belgium. You can check out the main site for my team at: http://www.cyclingcenter.com/

Thank you once again Brevard.

Thanksgiving Update

Sitting here tonight watching the Texas Longhorns vs. Texas A&M game. Its a lot closer than it should be, hoping my Horns pull out the win.
Lately I have made a big decision in that I will be leaving school at the end of the semester to move back to Montana to train and work to get ready for the trip to Begium with the Johan Bruyneel Cycling Academy. Obviously people at Brevard are not excited but I truly believe this is the best move for me to get ready to race in Belgium. I just dont have enough time to train as I need to race in Europe with going to school. Also I need to pay for my plane ticket so I need to save up ALL my money so I can afford that. I am very excited to get back home to MT, its been to long. I am excited to work with my coaches Joe Keener and Gavin Frost once I get back to prepare me for Europe.

For Thanksgiving I traveled up here to Maryland for the first time to visit Jason Bour and his family who were nice enough to have me for Thanksgiving. Today we woke up at o dark thirty to go bow hunting for some deer. I didnt hunt but was a spotter for Jason. It was an unsuccessfull hunt. After we ate a ton and shot some skeet and had dinner. I finished Thanksgiving day up with an @allystacher workout. Tomarrow I am headed to Jason's house by Washington D.C. where I will stay until Sunday when I head back to Brevard for two weeks until I move back to MT. Thats about all I have for an update now. More to come soon, especially once I get back to MT. Hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving.

Update

The last week has been pretty slow and non eventful as I wait for the final details on the Belgium trip. I had an exam in cellular biology that I got a "B" on which wasnt bad considering the class average was an "F". I am looking forward to Thanksgiving break as I will travel up to Virgina to see Jason and the family. Supposedly its a totally redneck weekend filled with lots of shooting guns....I think I can deal with that. It will be a short Thanksgiving break as it is only 5 days long and 2 of them will be driving days.

From there I will only have a couple more weeks of school left in the semester before I get to go home and see my family for the first time in almost 5 months. From there it is still unsure of what will happen next. It will either be coming back here after 10 days or going staying in Montana until I go to Belgium in March. We will wait and see what happens next. It all depends on when the Johan Bruyneel Cycling Academy wants me to be in Belgium.

On another note, my mom is coming a week from today which is awesome! I have not seen her since the end of August so that will be nice. She will be here for a full week!!! But I will update when I get the final details on the trip to Belgium. Thanks for staying tuned.

THANK YOU!

Well this week has been extremely exciting as I have learned that I have been selected to race for the Johan Bruyneel Cycling Academy in 2010. I got the email confirming this yesterday morning from the team director Bernard. I have yet to get the full details on when I will be leaving and how long I will be there for but none the less I will be racing in Belgium for an extremely talented and well drilled team. I will post more details as soon as I know more. I will be on the same team as riders like the national road and time trial champions of Finland. This is a purely international team, not an American team. I will be one of a few Americans on the team but joining riders from Belgium, Finland, France, ect. I cant explain how excited I am that I have got this opportunity but I would not be in this situation without the help of a few people I want to thank;

Fist and foremost my uncle Jerry who got me into cycling in the first place and acted as my primary sponsor, mechanic, training partner, and best friend since the beginning. He has lent me wheels, bikes, parts, money, clothing, ect. over the years and has always been there supporting me through the lows and the highs of my cycling career. I will never be able to repay him for everything that he has done for me but I hope make him proud more than anything.

Next is my mom and who has been there from the start, paying for my trips to races and gas money to get everywhere. She has been there with my uncle from the beginning and continues to make sure that I get to experience such things as this so I get every chance at achieving my dream.

I would also like to thank Dean Hatch, the Montana Junior Cycling Foundation, and Hammer Nutrition for taking me onto the team in 2008 and putting up with me the past two seasons and providing full support (paid entree fees, hotels, equiptment, supplements, ect) so that all I had to do was focus on racing. Without them I would not be able to have experienced the races I have gone to and get the results I have due to their generosity and determination to put Montana cycling on the map. They have provided me with the exposure to bigger races and are also a key part in helping me get a cycling scholorship at Brevard College.

I would like to thank Team GAS/Intrinsik for the amazing summer of racing I had this season and allowing me to race and train with the strongest guys in Montana. They provided me with food, housing, racing, jerseys, travel, and most of all friendship. I learned a lot from them this season and the dedication it takes to become good let alone great at something. These guys and girls who race for Team GAS/Intrinsik and Team Delphine are amazing people and extremely dedicated to the sport of cycling. I have made friendships here that I will have for the rest of my life. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

Lastly I would like to thank Coach Walker for coaching me the past season at no expense to me and for the guidance and for having me come to Brevard College on a cycling scholorship. I love it here and am very grateful for what you have done for me. Joe Keener for providing me with guidance spiritually and as a friend. He provided me with a place to train all winter free of charge from the goodness of his heart, with top of the line equipment so that I would be prepared for the upcoming season. I would not have done as well as I had without a place to train for 5-6 hours inside when there was 3 feet of snow outside and -40 degrees. And Gavin Frost for the great friendship and nutritional advice that allowed me to lose the proper amount of weight to compete at the highest level possible for me this past season.

Without anyone of these people, I would not be where I am today and I would like to give out one last big THANK YOU!!! I will continue to train hard and perform to the best of my ability so your help will not be wasted and forgotten. I hope to make everyone proud whether its racing in Europe or in the U.S. This is for you :)



Website: http://www.cyclingcenter.com/abc_riders.asp

Me and Jeremiah Bishop

Almost forgot, here is a picture of me and Jeremiah Bishop (pro mtn biker and cyclocross rider). I got to hang out with him at a pro mountain bike stage race that we held on our campus this past weekend. Awesome guy!