Sunday, December 15, 2013

Balance

I've been injured, out of work and away from my family for extended periods of time.  Thankfully not all at once, but I know all too well how just one of these components puts my life and well being out of balance.  It's also rocked my family chemistry.  I strive to find balance in my life. 

At a time of year when lots of folks are giving thanks and counting their blessings, I wanted to thank each of the juniors for their weekly posts to the team blog.  Almost 52 weeks of thoughts, feelings and emotions poured out to our cycling community in hopes of giving back to your support. 

Being a top level junior cyclist is quite a challenge.  Pressures with school, family, friends and cycling time are not always in harmony.  They sometimes collide.  We've got our December team camp coming up after Christmas and it's been fun to pull together the curriculum and activities.  We'll spend some time reflecting on the challenges that training time puts into our lives, share some tips, time management and coping techniques. 

Thanks for following the Team Specialized Juniors!  Larry Nolan

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Variety

          At different times of the year I am a totally different athlete. My summer is normally dedicated to road and mountain cycling and the fall is my bmx season. These two sports have few similarities other than the fact that they are on a bike. My training is far different, as bmx is explosive and road requires endurance. I have bmx raced since I was 5 and it has given me the bike handling skills to help in all types of cycling. Every year the window of my bmx season shrinks a little bit. Sean is another bmxer turned roadie and I'm sure he agrees it gets hard to train for both. My focus is definitely shifting over to road as I get older. I am not built like the prototypical bmxer, as the professionals are often built like football players. As I get older the competition keeps getting bigger and this makes it hard to keep the same power as I am built like an endurance athlete. I have been transitioning to road the last few years and it's been a natural transition. Bmx has helped my road cycling in many areas. Each one has also helped the other for me. This variation throughout my year and during my road off season is refreshing and fun. I will always enjoy bmxing even though I won't continue it at a high level years from now. These two types of cycling are so different and it's the variety that is so special in my life.

-Christopher

Sunday, December 1, 2013

The Transition


     At the end of my 2012 season, I had achieved my long time goal, World Champion in XTERRA off-road Triathlon in the 15-19 age group, as well as Overall Amateur World Champion. Although I had been training to be a triathlete ever since I was 5 or 6, I found that my performance on the bike was superior to that in the water or running. 
    Leading into the 2013 season, there were many people who thought I should continue being a triathlete.  I was even offered pro status, but I knew that my time as a triathlete was coming to a close.  I had decided to focus on cycling.
     When my season started in the Nor Cal High School Mountain Bike series I had no idea that it would escalate to me racing on the National team in 4 different countries.  In the beginning of the season I had not yet decided to focus on mountain biking, so I decided to try out some local criteriums.  I continued to race on the road and on the World Cups including Germany and the Czech Republic.  I then realized I would have to spend more time focusing on the mountain bike rather than on the road for a little while. 
     Although I knew mountain biking would be my main focus for the season, I could not keep myself away from the thrill of racing on the road for half my season until I received the message from Marc Gullickson.  He offered me a position with the Junior MTB National Team in two world cups.   Not long after coming back from my first two world cups, I entered the Nevada City Classic Criterium and won the junior race, then followed it up with Leesville Gap Road Race (elite cat 3/4s) and won the day in a sprint to the line with 4 other men.  Well, after a fourth place finish in the Mont Saint Anne World Cup in Canada, I finished up my 2013 season with Cross Country MTB World Champs in South Africa.
     This brings me to today, finishing my High School cross-country running season with state champs, in which I placed 8th place in the division 2 varsity race and ran a 15:29 5k. My main focus is to have an outstanding season on both the Mountain and Road Bike.  I am so excited and grateful to be a part of the Jr. Team and I am really looking forward to working with my new teammates and coaches.   

Give thanks and grow the pie!

Thanksgiving weekend not only has me thinking of ways that I can be more appreciative, it's also got me thinking about pie.  You see, fighting for ones slice of the pie has been and will continue to be one of life's challenges.  It's human nature to be competitive and reach for more than you have.  A related challenge to this equation is to view the slice of pie that you are going after to be a part of a bigger pie.

I travelled to the California State High School Cross Country Championships at Woodard Park in Fresno yesterday.  Team Specialized Junior Neilson Powless competing plus my cousin had just become a grandmother.  Coincidentally, she's been a teacher in the Fresno school district for a few decades and was part of the State Championships becoming an annual event in Fresno.

Cross country running is such a beautiful sport.  No "little league" parents to be seen, just a bunch of "best efforts" by every single athlete.  Lots of cheering and the team scoring format is the BEST!  (Top five for each team score, 6th and 7th runners help the team if they can score ahead of the other teams 5th scorer)

Yesterday - 1000+ high school cross country runners competing in five divisions for both boys and girls!  Organizers, volunteers, coaches, parents, siblings, and friends helped to fill the whole park.  What a sight and what a buzz as the waves of runners set out onto the 5km course competing for their respective titles. 

At the end of the day (end of the year), there were 10 individual and 10 team champions.  The size of that pie won't change anytime soon.  The part of the pie that I'm referring growing are the 1000+ runners.  Criky, what if we could get 1000 runners to try bike racing?  How quickly could our cycling "pie" grow?

Congratulations to Neilson for his personal best 15:27 5km time over a rolling dusty course and for his very fine 8th place finish.  He's only a junior so there's still the 2014 season ahead of him!

Larry Nolan, Team Specialized