Snowday, V-day, and Later Days.

First, a bit of history:
Rutgers Cyclocross Team podium when we won the ECCC Cross Conference! I finally found the photographer that took the picture, so we actually have proof we podiumed! Note the sweet cowbell trophy that Charlie is holding, that was part of the impetus for our cowbell tattoos. (So far, 4 out of the 6 of us on the podium have the cowbell tats.)



Anyway, I also bring you Snowday 2010 with RU Cycling:
I woke up to abot a foot of snow last Wednesday but rather than stay inside when I didn't have to work, I called Crisitian to see if he wanted to mountain bike. The offshoot was the Cristian, Matt, Andy and I took off through New Brunswick getting catcalls from collegiate students about how crazy we were and tried to take the towpath. In a foot of snow, acceleration is HARD! In the picture you can see me and Cristian sprawled out- I hadn't even fallen that much, but it was exhausting... But really really fun!

The snowday also spawned these two adorable pictures of Robbie and I:

As well as an epic snowball fight in the backyard with Robbie and Adam, doing awesome throw and dive motions, leaving us totally snow covered and tired. It also led to hours of shoveling- my back still hurts! OK, and my dad had to come to New Brunswick to get the truck out of the driveway... it was ice covered and our landlord never got anyone to salt it. Mehh.

I'll wrap up the week quickly- yesterday was Valentine's Day, so Robbie took me to Panera and then surprised me with my best present ever:

Meet Skeets, our new Beta fish. He's named after Booster Gold (my favorite superhero)'s robotic sidekick. Here's a picture of Skeets and Booster Gold together:
That's right, we collect action figures.


Anyway, in other amazing news, it is finally a rest week for me! only 10 hours (not counting riding to classes and the gym) on the schedule (though Sunday's 2.5 hr ride may end up a lot longer if the team does a century, but that's at the end of the rest week.) And it has "get a massage" on one of the days, and who am I to argue with my coach?! Fantastic..

It couldn't have come at a better time, too. I've definitely been feeling a bit on the burned out side lately- I blame the snow and being sick for the last couple weeks, but my motivation was definitely waning a bit. It's funny though, as soon as I saw the rest week schedule, I was already feeling more motivated to get back to high training volume again! It'll be a challenge to stick to actually resting this week, but I can use the time to do some much needed bike maintenance, the chance to get out and finally buy new running shoes, and maybe the chance to spend of time working on my new project...

At the bike team meeting on Thursday night, I accidentally got voted and accepted the position as sponsorship director for the team, typically Mark (Mama Bear)'s job. Yikes! Luckily, I'm really close to Mark anyway, so it should be fun. And I already wrote for our team blog, was planning on usurping the website son anyway, and put together the newsletter for sponsors anyway, so really, the job seemed pretty natural for me. I'm excited about it more than I realized I would be, I already have a ton of ideas. I admit, I love stuff like this. I'm nercous because I'm not so good with knowing what gear is good and whatnot, but that's what Matt and Charlie are here for! And Charlie made a good point- I'll pick it up fast enough. And that's good beacuse I really should be doing that anyway. So yeah, very exciting new project for the coming year.

Off to tutor and then gym for a new weight set with Matt!