Life at the Olympic Training Center

Before I say anything, I have to say this.

I LOVE the Velodrome!

I am still in awe of everything I experienced this past week. For 6 days I lived in a facility that has been home to the greatest athletes this country has produced and they let little Aaron Trent come play for a week.

There were people on regular bikes (CP, amp, Spinal Cord Injury), Tandems with Visually Impaired Stokers and sighted pilots including a Cat1 out of Knoxville, and the wheelchair crew were on handcycles.

Then there was the staff that made our camp run smoothly save for the punctuallity of our rides, haha. Pam was the camp organizer, Ian works for USA Handcycling, Rick and Scott coached, Vanessa was plain awesome and drove the van and various other things, Ron helped and took meticulous notes, and Good Looking Johnny G was our wrench and he helped out with everything. All of the staff was great and I want to thank them for doing their thing!

Tuesday: Started at 3AM so I could catch my flight. When I got to the OTC I got my key and my cafeteria card (freakin sweet!) and built up my bike for a shakedown ride. This was my first experience with handcyclists and on our ride they were drafting me at 27 mph! I have so much resprect for the power those jokers than produce with their arms.

Wednesday: Skills and drills in the parking lot were pretty basic, but I picked up a few things about cornering and bumping. Our afternoon ride was out and back on a rolling highway. I drafted a handbike at +35mph down a hill on the way back.

Thursday: Morning time trial on the air force academy. Our camp coach, Rick, told us it was 10k and undulating. It was a lot closer to 13k and it was all uphill out and all downhill back. Not exactly 10k or undulating. I was dying on the way out and kept watching my speed. I was wondering why 16-17mph hurt so bad and I was wondering where on earth the turn around was. Finally, on the horizon I saw the white OTC van that signified the turn. I started on the way back and was absolutely hauling tail. It was all downhill! That's why the first half hurt so bad. I was running hard trying to make up for lost time and came into the home stretch and buried myself to the line. Ouch! The times and times per kilometer were posted at the camp meeting after dinner. My time/km was markedly better than I did at Nationals in June and I am knocking on the door of making the national standard so I was very happy with my effort. The National Team standard is based on the average per km time of the 6th place finisher in each category over the past 4 years of major races (Worlds and Paralympics); the Elite Standard is based on the bronze medal times. Hitting the national standard is the key to getting on the Paralympic Team and is my biggest goal for 2009.

Our evening ride was skills in the grass outside the Velodrome. We started off with bump drills and I was paired with Greta since she came out to ride with us. She rode right into me with a shoulder and I learned real quick how to shoulder back. I fell over a few times while trackstanding. Matt and Andy did the bump thing together. I haven't talked about them here but we hung out a lot and got the nickname of "the three stooges". We were the only people on regular bikes, there were 7 tandems, and 10 handcycles, so the 3 of us rode together a lot. I'll look forward to seeing and racing with them in the future.

It's late and I need to study, I'll write more later.