Cheyne's Chronicles Part 1

Monday, August 13, Day1

I woke up around 4:30 am to catch my flight from Rochester to Colorado Springs with a stop in Chicago along the way. I landed in Colorado around 11:15 Colorado time because of the two hour difference. The first thing we did when we reached the Olympic training center was check in and then build our bikes. After building the bikes we went for a ride on the west side of the city next to the mountains. My heart rate seemed higher than normal and my breathing as well but it was of course due to the change in elevation. Colorado Springs is around 6200 ft. When we got back from the mellow ride I got a chance to get to know my roommates better. I already had met one of them two years prior at a regional camp in Kutztown, PA. His name was Zach

Felpel and he is17 years old. My other roommate was Max Durtschi from Ketchum, Idaho and he is 16 years old. We soon found one of our favorite places to hang out, the cafeteria. The food was awesome and they had absolutely everything.



Tuesday, August 14, Day 2



This morning's ride was quite hard. We headed west into the mountains for some field testing. The first field test of two was about one mile up at moderate grade. It was a big chain ring climb but only because it was so short. After the first test I really felt the elevation change. It took me
like 20 minutes to recover and then I coughed the rest of the day. The second test was in Cheyenne canyon and was around three miles long with nasty steep switchbacks. I rode more in my zone on this one because I knew it would be very easy to blow up if I rode too hard on this climb and at this elevation. After getting back and eating lunch we had a lecture session
with USADA about doping. The message was "Don't Dope." After that we took to the bikes again for some control and handling games. The game was basically to grind into people and make them put their foot down first and the last one up would win. The mountain bikers were very good at this. Later we had another lecture about collegiate cycling and I was the only one
it immediately applied to because the other 19 kids all had at least one more year of high school left.