Anyone who thinks that a cycling training camp is all about riding your bike, think again.  A few nights ago we were treated to a ballet.  Of course, the girls were more into the ballet than the guys were, and a few of them were even able to skip out the back door (at least the ones who got to the car first), but in my opinion those who left missed some incredibly hot bodies performing several spectacular pieces involving athletic grace and stamina.  The dancers performed 4 different pieces, which ranged from quite bizarre to flat out fantastic.  My teammates and I spent the entire show scrutinizing their bodies, oohing and ahhing over their muscular legs and ripped bodies - the women included.  And you can imagine there were a few giggles about certain bulges on the men, too.  But really, the dancers had bodies that most of us would kill for.  I’ll admit that I could learn a few things from these people. 

After the show was over, all the riders were invited back stage to meet the dancers, which after sharing stories with them about performing, recovering, traveling, etc, I realized that our athletic worlds are very similar.  Straight after a performace they are expected to sit in a car for hours, stretch out the stiffness the next day, and then perform again straight away, just as we do day after day.  Although, it sounds like we are more fortunate in the sense that we have soigneurs who travel with us to provide a much needed massage after our “performances”, whereas they must use comp tickets to trade for massages.

For me, it was a nice way to spend an evening, watching someone else do the hard work for a change.  And I think that even most of the Navs enjoyed the show more than they thought they would.  They just had to put on the masculine front at first, but now we know they all have a feminine side. They’ll hate me for saying that but c’est la vie.

Other than going to ballets, having 10 meetings a day, taking more photos yet again, we have found time to ride our bikes.  Yesterday the Lipton girls rode up the mountain during a great 5 hour ride.  We covered a lot of terrain yesterday and experienced temps ranging from warm spring-like to freezing winter-like.  Heading out of Albuquerque we climbed and climbed until we reached the ski area at over 8000 feet, where parts of the roads were still covered with snow, and then we quickly put on our jackets before we were blown away and developed frost bite before descending back down the mountain.  Back in Albuquerque at just 5000 feet we were able to strip away a lot of our clothing to feel the fresh air on our skin.  Boy, did that feel good.  After weeks and weeks of training with layers upon layers on, it felt refreshing to reveal bare skin to the sun and warm breeze.

Today we will take a short recovery spin and then tomorrow is our last day of camp.  We’ll work some more on lead-outs, sprints, attacking, chasing, etc so that our legs take one last beating before stepping on the plane for home Saturday morning.

Although the weather the first week in Albuquerque was a shock to the system, it has cleared up nicely and I only hope that when I return to Colorado the streets will be dry and the temps will have warmed up so that I don’t have to get back on the trainer again!!!

I’ll be posting some pictures soon so stay tuned…

MM