Time is flying.

The month of March has been a busy one. Wendy and I participated in a charity spin class at Supreme Fitness and the proceeds went to Multiple Sclerosis. The morning of the class I rolled out of bed, didn't comb my hair and threw on my glasses. We hit up an hour of pilates before we dove into spin class. The spin class was pretty fun and full of energy. About 1.5 hours into spin, the cameras showed up. What I hadn't realized is that NBC 15 was covering this event for the local news. Boy did I look like shit. The camera man shot the class from a few different angles. For some strange reason he parked himself in front of me, zoomed in, and shot film of me for what seemed like hours (it must have been my bright yellow Chain Smoker jersey that attracted the camera). Sure enough, my ugly mug made the news. The next week at work I had multiple people come up to me to say they had seen my stellar cycling performance on Channel 15. Of course this included finger pointing and laughing.....which is a small price to pay for a great cause.

The MS issue hits home with me. In 2005 I had a MS scare. I was experiencing some very strange symptoms that were making me extremely sick. To make a very long story short, after multiple blood tests for various diseases, a trip to the ER for an EKG for my panic attack and a MRI of my brain to check for MS lesions, it was determined that I did not have MS. 10 days worth of super strong antibiotics "cured" me as I might have acquired a tick-borne illness that was similar to MS. We'll never know. But for that 2 month period, those MS-like symptoms turned my world upside down. I certainly feel for people who are affected by this disease.

Base training has been going well but has mostly been on the trainer. I haven't been impressed with the WI weather so far. Last March I remember doing a 60 mile ride in shorts and a jersey with Ryan. This year has me freezing my limbs in my winter cycling attire. I've been piling on the miles as my coach has been scheduling the hours. This week it's 10 hours, next week it's 11. My fitness has slowly been coming around but I'm certainly not in the shape that I was before my injuries.

Iola is around the corner and it makes me so nervous that I want to puke. I haven't had too many high end workouts yet, I haven't ridden on my mountain bike in almost a year, I'm still 10-15 lbs overweight and my usacycling license says Expert. I think I might be in trouble. I'd like to do the Rock Cut Race to gauge my fitness before I embarrass myself at a WORS race, but the weather doesn't seem to be cooperating and my mountain bike isn't ready to go yet. On a more positive note, Chequamagon is a go. I opted for the Short and Fat this year as I wasn't sure I would be able to handle the 40. My 2008 racing year is going to be centered around the Cheq Short and Fat and perhaps Sheboygan WORS.

The single speed commuter is almost done. Now it will be time to turn my attention to my Trek Fuel EX 9. I'm scrapping the Hayes disc brakes for Avid 7's. I'm convinced that there is not an easy way to bleed Hayes brakes and the brakes are constantly making noise (no matter how they are adjusted). My life was so much easier before disc brakes, but damn do I love them.