OK, I admit it, I’m an obsessive jock. All my earliest memories involve some sort of sport. It was baseball, football, wrestling and diving when I was a kid. My jockular puruits turned to tennis and golf when I hit college (even the football team’s water boy was bigger than me at Penn State). Outside of being “vertically challenged”, I guess the individual sports appealed to the control freak in me. Consequently, I have always been accustomed to training and improving in one sport or another. Cycling and especially racing bikes (MTB and road) however, has challenged me more than all the others. Only wrestling comes close to the cardio vascular requirements of cycling, and only tennis even remotely approaches the stress the legs must endure.

In my last post, I was excited about how I felt stronger, even though I was training harder. I may have turned the proverbial corner, at least the first of many corners on this long road. Nevertheless, I still had a fresh set of X-Rays taken on Sunday, and sent them to my surgeon extraordinaire; Dr. Harlun Amstutz of the Joint Replacement Institute.

I’m chompin’ at the bit to buy these bibs for the Giretto d’Italia, but I can’t do it till I know if we are an “official” LIVESTRONG event. The suspense is killing me! It’s been about a week since I made the decision to ride in my self proclaimed Little Giro (Giretto), and I’ve managed 5 good training days and 2 days of rest so far. The training is harder than I thought, since now I have to push and structure my indoor rides for myself, not just a class of newbies or intermediate riders. I’m excited about the process though, as I’m starting to feel the extra sweet soreness that comes only from well earned pain… er I mean training.

So here’s the idea. We get as many riders (intermediates to advanced) that we can to ride our self made “Little Giro” – or Giretto d’Italia for cancer under the LIVESTRONG banner. This will consist of just the first 5 stages of the actual Giro, done about 5 hours in advance of the Pros, but covering every km that they cover. The fact that the founder and worldwide ambassador for LIVESTRONG™ , Mellow Johnny himself, will be riding “right behind us”, makes the event all the more perfect!