Thank god for the off-season!  The majority of professional cyclists feel a huge weight lift off of their shoulders at the conclusion of a season.  Months and months of progressing the form, watching what one eats and also the mental stress of racing, accumulate to a point where the cyclist is begging for the light at the end of the tunnel.  Here today, I want to stress to you all, the importance of an end of season break (and a mid year break!), and how to best utilize your time in preparation for the next season.

Being a pro cyclist, in continuing it’s not always accurate, glamorous image, sometimes presents itself with incredible opportunities. In this situation, four of us from the Fly V Australia cycling team were invited to the Quarq/Hunter Allen Power Training Camp in Spearfish, South Dakota. I’m a self-confessed training junkie myself – I love power meters and I enjoy interpreting the data – so I came to the camp with much anticipation and I had a great time.

It seems like an age ago, and in some ways it was!  How time flies when you’re running around the continent like an idiot.  Gila recap:

Stage 2: Filthy.  Felt horrible.  Would try attacking, would make it 50 meters in front of the bunch…hover there, and then come back.  No fun at all.  Seems being sick didn’t help my recovery in between stages very much.  There was a crazy descent with at least one kiwi riding over the edge….a long valley where the roads seemed dead.  But all in all, the stage felt pretty uneventful.  Phil started to find his legs with a 4^th place in a tough little sprint finish.  At the end of the stage I was interviewed by a New York Times reporter: “Tell me what you know about broken collarbones?” He was obviously here for Lance-Fest ’09.  My witty response?  “If you haven’t broken your collarbone yet, you haven’t ridden a bike for long enough”.  Read across the world.

This was written back during the Tour of the Gila….please accept my apologies for the delay in the post.

Those of you who follow me on twitter might have noticed that I was a little bored last Tuesday.  I decided to make the trip to the Tour of the Gila after all.  Whether this was a wise move or not, only time will tell.  I am deep into a course of antibiotics to get over this stupid little….well I don’t know what to call it….I was run down, I was stressed and hence got a nasty little cold.  Swine is the word of the day.  Anyways, back to the point of twitter….if you don’t follow me, you should, because, well, maybe you should talk to my twitter fans about it – please send in your comments!  I promise to make it worth your while and you won’t feel empty and used the next morning.  Twitter name:  benday78.

G’day folks.  There is a fair bit of juice to catch you up on from the past week or so.  There have been some hectic times and whilst I could paint you all a rosy picture, I figure, screw it, wouldn’t you prefer to hear it the way it is?  Is a reality TV show really reality?  Like come on!  Gordon Ramsey can’t possibly swear that much!

I think I may write this in a few parts so that you don’t all switch off midway through an entry and log back into facebook.  The average viewer…hmmm, let’s use voyeur, it sounds kinkier…..on www.ben-day.com, spends an average of 3 minutes and 9 seconds reading my carefully calculated rendition of life’s tales.  But I would hope that the average user realizes that calculated rendition is more like writing without thinking, which I can also see that you people respond to, looking at my hit count.  Wow, what a beginning to this piece, it’s like I’m caressing you with your words….or is that because I am just a little delirious from time trialling on antibiotics?