The American Dream

Posted on by Lindsay
My trip home from Redlands earlier this week began with an American Airlines flight from Ontario, CA (ONT) to Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), followed by a 90-minute layover before the second flight. I was waiting at the gate at ONT before the scheduled departure of 2:25pm, but by 2:15pm, there still was not a single airline employee in sight. I looked the flight up online and saw that there was a delay, but no announcement was ever made at the gate. This was not unlike my trip out to Redlands, where the American flight was delayed by 90 minutes without explanation or apology. I started to get anxious; the flight was now scheduled to land 19 minutes before my next one was due to depart. It didn’t look promising. A phone call to the airlines and a visit to the gate counter indicated that (a) if I missed my connection, the ...continue reading.

Initial thoughts on being a pro

Posted on by Lindsay
Being a professional cyclist so far is totally cray (in the words of my teammate)! I am now rich and famous, so much so that I sign $100 bills when people ask for my autograph, which is, like, constantly. Okay, none of that is true. Few people know who I am, including people who have already met me before, and cycling appears to not have caught on to that whole "do what you love and the money will follow" concept. I still work full-time so that I can pay my bills and support my eating habits (which another teammate described by saying, "You are a food hustler! You pack away more food than anybody I know!"). But I do feel different now, because when I put on my team kit and head out to train, I can legitimately call it going to work and there is a sense of pride about ...continue reading.

The best conversation of training camp thus far

Posted on by Lindsay
The Scene: We're all sitting around the dinner table talking about The Bachelor (having already exhausted the topics of periods, birth control, chamois/girl part interaction, chocolate, etc). Everybody has various levels of experience with The Bachelor, and then comes this: "Big Suze loves The Bachelor!" "Is Big Suze your cat?" "No, my mother-in-law." Maybe this won't be nearly as funny to you, but everybody who heard this interaction broke a sweat from laughing so hard. It's a conversation I won't want to forget, much like everything else about this experience.

Cramming several weeks of joy into <1,000 words

Posted on by Lindsay
Hello friends. Sorry to be light on posting lately, but things have been busy. I just had a delicious and healthy dinner of vegetables and lean meat and it was SO satisfying that I'm basking in a smugly nutritious glow while trying to figure out whether I'm going to eat chocolate, cheese, bacon, or all three. I've also thought about making another batch of scones, but the last thing I need is that gastric ballast before tomorrow's intervals. Although my body seems to have developed a method for coping with food mid-ride: Breakfast is my favorite meal, so having it several times isn't so bad. Riding is going well. Team Colavita training camp begins on March 2 in Borrego Springs, CA and I can't wait to meet my teammates and kick off the season. We've paired off to handle cooking meals for the team and staff on assigned nights and ...continue reading.

That time I opened (and promptly closed) my own business

Posted on by Lindsay
Ally Stacher, pro cyclist for Team Specialized-lululemon, recently launched her own line of bars, Ally's Bars. I too have been doing a bit of cooking lately; after averaging 3-4 trips a week to the same Vietnamese place over the course of a month,1 I tried replicating the dish at home and thus kicked off a series of cooking experiments.2 That plus the news about Ally's Bars led me to decide I needed to make my own bike-friendly food in the form of miniature scones.3 I baked them tonight. They were a success! Pocket-sized, moist but durable enough to hold up in a pocket, and absolutely delicious. However, there will be no Lindsay's Scones coming to Internets near you. I have been in the house with these scones for less than four hours and have already eaten seven of them. Seven. That's over a third of the batch. My order fulfillment would fail ...continue reading.

Chicken or Pig

Posted on by Lindsay
While reading the blog of a fellow racer recently, I came across something interesting. She talked about the book “Base Building for Cyclists” by Thomas Chapple and included the following excerpts: “Commitment to being the best possible athlete must go beyond following a schedule and completing workouts. Commitment is the details of how you live your daily life, how you track your training, how you listen to and take care of your body, and how you act to change whatever is holding you back from reaching your goals.” (p. 243-244) “The athlete who attempts to train through an injury rather than adjust his goals always believes he is committed, but he is not. He is acting obsessively rather than remaining committed to his objectives. Remaining injured is not the way to progress, and by not resting he creates long-term setbacks. This is when obsession is mistaken as passion or commitment.” (p. ...continue reading.