It is pretty clear, by now, to anyone that comes here, even intermittently , that I’m not racing any cross now. Since the Master’s World Championships is this weekend in Switzerland, I obviously am not going there. The same goes with Nationals in Boulder.

I had planned to race a short cross season. I went out to Southern California and trained for a bit before the UCI races in Louisville, but then was pitiful. Finding out I had shingles, it was a relief. But, I had no idea what it had in store for me. This shingles thing isn’t something predictable. And predictability is something you need in athletics. It has been about 2 months now and my leg is still seized sometimes. Plus, the headaches etc. It’s not nearly as bad as it was a month ago, but it is still something that makes it impossible to train through the winter. I needed a timeout anyway, so I can’t be too disappointed.

I had talked to my friend, Ned Overend, a little about still trying to race the Master’s race in Boulder. I told him I didn’t get very much satisfaction out of it. He agreed. It’s not trying to belittle anyone else, but it is more of a relief than a happiness I feel after the races. I’ve never lost a Master’s Nationals Cyclocross and I’ve had some pretty awful physical days. If I’m riding good, I’d just rather go and see how I stack up against the Elites/Pros.

It is sort of a disappointment I never once raced in the current World Championship jersey I have. I meant to line up in some Master’s race this year, but it just didn’t happen. I wore one for the Nationals Championships, in Madison, last year, so I guess that counts. But, that was last year’s jersey. Whatever.

I’m planning to get out of here and make my way to Boulder. I truly enjoy spectating at cross races. It is a learning experience seeing how different riders take different sections. You don’t get to see that much when you’re out there on the bike. Watching last year at Madison, I loved every minute of it. There were sections of the course where a rider would lose 10-15 seconds in 30 seconds. That would have been more than a minute during the race. They must have been making it up somewhere else. It was a very good learning experience.

Anyway, hopefully this year will work out better. I need to figure out how much energy I can expend at each point during the season now. It doesn’t work all beat up or ill. Historically, I’ve went through these things, it just seems to drag on quite a bit longer the older I get, which is just part of life.

Okay, the guys over at Dirtwire.tv sent me a link to some of their videos from last year’s Worlds. Here’s one below. They have a zillion of videos of cross races, Nationals, Worlds, etc. Click here if you want to check some of them out.

This is pretty much how the jersey sat all year. just hanging up. I never washed the US National Championship Jersey I wore at Worlds.

Nationals last year in Madison.

I watched a video the other day from a law professor and also a police officer, saying that under no circumstances, should you open your mouth when being questioned by the police. I wouldn’t have thought that it would be any harm if I had nothing to hide, but now I think I am wrong on that.

Michele Scarponi probably should have watched the video and applied it to the press. I just saw this article over at Cyclingnews.com where the in the interview, Michele can’t really get his story right and contradicts himself. That isn’t a very good thing if he would like the readers to believe what he’s saying.

When repling to questions about using Dr. Michele Ferrair, Lance’s guy, he says“…I only saw him once for a test. To say that I ‘frequented’ him is a bit much. I was given a suspension, I accepted it and basta. It ended there.”

Then just a little later on he says, “You’re still asking these questions and it’s something from the past. I repeat: my story was blown out of proportion and I suffered the consequences. For this reason, I don’t even like talking about it. I saw him once, if that, and I paid for it with a three-month suspension.”

If that? Either it was once or more or not at all. It can’t be once, if that. If that, would mean, he didn’t see him at all. Or just saw him when he was riding by and didn’t have any relationship with him. But he has already admitted to meeting up with Dr. Michele Ferrair, a doctor that had been banned by the Italian Federation since 2002, for a two-day test on the Monzuno climb, near Bologna.

Cyclingnews did go and ask the guy why, after already serving a suspension for blood doping, relating to Dr. Fuentes, would he use Michele Ferrai for anything. His response was, “I understand the question. Do I have to answer this? I’m thinking about how to respond. I never thought that going to see him one time would have brought all of this on top of me. I didn’t think I’d done such a serious thing. Clearly if I could go back, I wouldn’t do it.”

He probably should have asked the first three lines in that paragraph to himself, early on in the interview, and then walked. Or better yet, never do interviews.

Vinokourov, Nibali and Astana threw Scarponi a bone. It’s such a joke. I don’t understand why these guys get their 2nd, 3rd, whatever chances. They aren’t smart enough to quit doping. Or maybe they are and just know that they were super unlucky getting caught in the first place. If you use him as an example, the only way he ever served a timeout was when got nabbed with his doctors. It’s not from testing.

Anyway, I doubt these guys are going to get much smarter and are going to keep doing these interviews, thus piss me off. I don’t think he should be racing at all, let alone finishing 4th in the Giro or riding the Worlds last year. I guess that pisses me off more. The whole thing stinks.