2009 kickoff at Tour Down Under

After a loooooong nine month sabatical from racing I’m finally starting my first race at the Tour Down Under tomorrow with my Garmin-Slipstream teammates.  I can’t tell you how pumped up I am to be back in it. It will be really nice to get the rhythm of racing back into my body.  I know were going to have a great race this week from the relaxed and confident vibe surging through our team right now.  We’ve spent the last week here in Adelaide getting in a good 3 day block of solid training and course recon.  The rolling hills, wind, and heat in this area are definitely going to be the deciding factor in this race, but with the team we have assembled here we should have no troubles.  We’ve also had some good down time to get adjusted to the time change and the heat.  But the race starts tomorrow, so to get the competitive juices flowing Director  Matt White took us for a good game of Aussie lawn bowling.  Its pretty much long distance Bocci ball but you roll the balls and the balls are unevenly weighted so they curve to one side or another as you aim it towards the target ball.  Some fierce competition ensued between the Aussies and the Kiwis and it got pretty intense at the end of the game!
The intensity will kick up another notch tomorrow night with a criterium in downtown Adelaide.  Looking forward to making our 2009 racing debut sprinting out of 250 corners in the space of an hour!

Thanks for checking in
– 
Timmy