Once again I find myself at the beginning of another cycling
team season. This time we don’t start off with the jolt of a race weekend but
rather with the relief of two weeks of spring break ahead. 14 of us are headed
down to the Bay Area in CA for team training camp. We hope to take advantage of
steep windy climbs and descents, new scenery and (generally) warmer sunnier
weather. The goal is to get in lots of long, difficult and above all fun training
days and be able to focus more attention on skills, form, strategy, confidence
and joy of riding. Also lots of relaxing, sleeping, recovering and de-stressing
in preparation for the busy season (of academics and cycling) coming after we
get back to Walla Walla.
The plan for this year’s training camp takes us on a tour of
five team members’ homes-which is super exciting! Our first stop is
overnighting in Albany courtesy of Noah’s parents. Then we spend our first week
down at my parent’s place exploring Marin County. Second week we switch over to
the east bay to Adam’s place for a change of pace. Then at the end we head up
to Portland for a night at Kevin’s place on the way up to Seattle for the UW
race where we will be staying at Josh’s place. The UW race will be our first
race weekend as a team! After that we head back to Walla Walla to finish out
the second half of the semester and for some of us the last six weeks as a
Whitman student (crazy!).
It has been a lot of logistics to get us to this place where
we are finally setting out on this grand adventure, but we are finally rolling
out. As is usual for the start of an adventure, I am a bit paranoid that I
forgot something, a little worried about it all turning out well, but mostly in
a daze of frayed nerves that haven’t had time to settle yet and with my brain
not quite comprehending that the preparations are done. And underneath all the
tiredness is a welling excitement for the upcoming two weeks.
A big thank you to all of our chaperones and homestay’s for
agreeing to put up with us for a time and helping us out!!! We truly couldn’t
make any of this happen without your support.
-Mackinzie
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