This is who I am

Recently I admittedly have fallen in love with the sport of cycling. Going 20-30 mph with the wind at your back in the fields of Charles City or New Kent county certainly has its appeal. The normal college kid gets up before there 10am class, logs onto facebook, chats their friends, and does some reading if theyre feeling really productive. Few can say the woke up early to ride through the sketchy marijuana fields of Charles City or have gotten chased by a dog while sprinting on their bike at 30 mph after. For these reasons I love cycling.

4 years ago my hs soccer coach told me that in order for me to make the varsity team it would be necessary for me to run 2 miles in 12 minutes. I was furious, I could barely run one in 12 minutes. I reminisced to my freshmen year where my mom had convinced me to go out for the team and after the first practice which consisted of a 2 mile warm up, which tired me out pretty well, followed by hill repeats, running was NOT the sport for me.

A year later my mom was raking leaves and I had decided that i best be starting this running thing if I ever wanted to make the soccer team. So, I went for a 5 mile run in my jeans around the neighborhood. I hadnt planned on it being 5 miles, i had planned on just running 1 lap. What started as me running 2-3 times a week, on nonpractice days turned into an obsession. I had to run every day, except day before game day.

The next fall after running for almost a year by myself I went out for the cross country team. I had switched out of the jeans and started wearing basketball shorts. The first run we went on I realized I was pretty decent at this thing. Quickly I got the XC thing down and began wearing booty shorts like my XC brethren. Fast forward to my first race, maybe a month later, I had high hopes but it turned out a disaster. After going out for the first mile in a PR, i slowed down a good bit the second one, and fell over shorty after, scraping my palms and knees after a collision with another runner. I staggered across the finish line, dissapointed and disheartened.

That spring I opted to quit soccer to run track, my new found glory. I frequently had bad races, from running to hard on distance runs and not fueling myself properly. Senior year in districts I had a "breakout race" where i ran to my potential for the first time of my life and after that I had a few more good races in track. After graduating from hs I decided to attend Miami where I would run. Although I enjoyed my time at Miami, like highschool I suffered an injury from running 80 mile weeks which really took me out of my element. I was now at a school where all I knew was running and I couldnt even run. I had very few friends not on the XC/Track team and I was far from home. I then decided to transfer to W&M, probably one of the best decisions I will ever make.

At William and Mary I learned how to be a normal kid. For the past two years I had always been a runner. I wouldnt even think about drinking beer, shit, I didnt even drink soda. Most nights I would be in bed by midnight. W&M changed that. I was forced to learn to make friends who didnt care that I could beat them in the mile by 2 minutes, in fact, some of them couldnt even run a mile....and low and behold, THEY DIDNT CARE! This was a whole new world to me, there were things outside of running, and thank god i was beginning to see that.

Fast forward to today and I feel like I have gotten a much better hold on my life. I have realized that not only am I a runner but Im also a son, a big brother, a student, a friend, a deli employee at the mother fucking Wegmans, a cyclist, and a wanna be fish. Life requires balance, sure you can put your attention into some in particular, if you really want to succeed, theres certainly no problem with that. However, if you neglect one of these roles it definitely can affect yourself and those around you. When I train, I bust my ass. This is why today I ran 1:16 for my second half marathon, a 2 min PR over my previous. I have learned to train smarter, by surround myself with great cyclists like Cory, and Joa, who have taught me how to ride bikes. It is important when your out there to focus. As it is important to realized that not everything is dependent on your performance. Whether or not I ran 116 or walked the last 5 miles and ran 2 hours, I would still be Greg Grosicki, because that is who I am, and never again shall I forget that.

And...im a senior

Well, the good news is that even with my starting a blog during my junior year I was able to devote enough time into "studying" to pass my junior year. Excuse me from blowing my own horn (o god i am getting old using phrases like that) but not only did I pass but I did so with the highest GPA of my William and Mary career too! How I managed to do this while riding nearly 300 miles a week for the past month, not to mention getting in runs 2-3x a week and a swim here and there is what impresses me the most. Anyway, enough bragging about myself. I would like to start this off by saying thank you to all my wonderful friends in Williamsburg. Many of you, I feel, will change my life especially the W&M Cycling team, who have taught me so much about the sport I have come to love. Thanks as well to all of my wonderful friends who make those long nights of studying a little more bearable with frequent runs to Wawa and long late night conversations about things that seem important at the time, but yet are extremely unimportant in the grand eternal scheme of things. None the less, this is what college is all about, you only get to do it for four years of your life, so live it up. I am down to one and I am not about to let that last year get away from me!

Anyway, heres what I have been up to this week. Packing up all my stuff in my room every year I realize just how much shit I have. Every year I tell myself I refuse to let this congregation of shit that I have accumulated happen to me the next year, and every year it seems as if that congregation of shit is larger than the year before. Guess some battles are not worth fighting. Needless to say, move out was a pain in the ass but thanks to assistance from my buddy Kyle I was able to get all of my crap out to my "whip game proper" aka my mom's old purple Toyota sienna in 4 trips. On my way out from the Burg KG and i went to Berry Body and got some dank frozen yogurt. The place really is legit, to bad I didnt find out about it until the end of the year, luckily I see many trips in my future next year!

Training this week has been pretty solid. At the beginning of the week my quads were kind of torn up from the crit/quarter marathon combo last week, but as time passed they healed and now life is good. This weekend i have the Marine Corps half. Im definitely in good shape right now. I also am only running 2-3x a week, far less than I have for the past 5 or 6 years of my life, so well see how it goes. I am definitely hitting some fast times in my workouts though and most of my runs felt good this week so Im excited for sure. Heres what my training has looked like for the week:

Monday- 70 mile spin with Cory (double reservoir very pretty route!)

Tuesday- 20 mile easy spin with Colette in the morning, 8 mile tempo in the afternoon at 6 min miles

Wednesday-70 mile ride with Eric out route 7

Thursday- 6 mile run in the morning, 25 mile ride with the crew at Wakefield with some sprints thrown in as per usual with this ride

Friday (Today)- 3100 swim with some 100s with descending rest as the main set. Burke Lake loop and first 2 miles of the XC course for a little over 6.5 miles at a pretty chill pace (probably 630s)

Anyway, Im excited for the race Sunday, good luck to JOA and Wilson at the Sprint into Spring Crit this weekend, and Cory whos trying to ride 3 consecutive 100 mile days. Also congrats to all of my senior friends graduating this weekend, im happy for them, and they will be missed next year!

Fort Richie and the beginning of my 2010 Cycling Season

So after figuring out that I was not admitted to OCS in Quantico, VA this summer, it didnt take long for me to get online and register for my Cycling license to permit me to race USCF races this summer. This weekend marked the beginning of my 2010 USCF racing season, fittingly, with the same race I began my Category 4 career with one year ago at Fort Richie in Cascade, Maryland.

My legs had been feeling kind of dead during the week, likely a side effect of Cory and I's 120 miler last weekend. Luckily, as the week progressed and i eased up on the training as the weekend drew nearer the leaden feeling in my legs mostly left and they began to feel more normal. The Fort Richie Race is about an hour and a half away, down 270 and out 15 north past Frederick and passing the house of the Darster in Damascus. I must admit, on the drive up I strongly considered getting off at exit 16 on 270N to visit the Darsters mom for some fresh baked goods instead of racing. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it I was able to bypass the exit and get to the race. Before leaving my house I frantically tore apart the fridge and the pantry for some sort of food to eat for lunch...unfortunately I dont think my family eats food at the house anymore, a change since I lived at the house. All i could find was a hotpocket and nature valley granola bars that expired in april 2008. As I heated up the hot pocket i debated eating the granola bar, and decided against my moms advice not to feast it. Now if youve ever watched tv im sure youve seen the commercial for hotpockets, they never advertise it as being the perfect pre-race meal...cause they're NOT.

I made it to the race at around 140, an hour before my race. Everything went smoothly, and after the 3 race was over we rode a few laps on the course. I got stuck in the back of the field at the start due to an unfortunate timed warm-up lap circumstance. The race went out and although I was in the back third, my legs felt good and I steadily began making my way up to the front of the pack. I must note this is much harder in a race of 75 then it was in collegiate where after a few good surges you found yourself on the front. After about 10 minutes I had jumped up to midpack, and it became much easier to follow the surges of the leaders, my legs thanked me. I settled in and after a few more laps realized I had become to complacent with my position and had began drifting back as I lost a spot here and there. I decided to put in a few moves to regain better position. I found myself riding next to an old NCVC team mate, Nate Hakken, who currently rides for Gam jams, that I had talked with thursday on the wakefield training ride. Knowing he was a solid rider I sat on his wheel and he managed to work us up to the front of the pack.

Sitting in the top 10 I heard the announcer say something along the lines of "somebodys GOT TO attack soon." Funnily enough, the same thought was going through my mind and 34 minutes into the race i put my head down and put in some big watts, after a few seconds of this hammering I looked back and to my surprise no one had followed me. I stood up and launched myself up the hill and swung around the corner. On the next straight I heard the all to familiar sound of carbon wheels coming up alongside me. I looked back and saw an AABA rider, the rest of the pack trailing us by a good bit. "Ready?" He asked me, and he took off. I grabbed his wheel and we worked our way around the course, changing pulls after the turns. The wind was brutal and the 11 remaining laps felt like an eternity. With 2 laps remaining we had worked ourselves into a 16 second gap. Unfortunately the last lap a Coppi rider began punishing the pedals and making up ground on us. He caught us with about half a lap left and even worse was that the rest of the field had followed his lead. I desperately tried to hang onto the Coppi riders wheel, but my legs simply were out of juice. I tried again but I simply could not muster any more energy. I turned into the last turn and looked to my sides as riders flew past me. I crossed the finish line, went around to the back of the course and said goodbye to my hotpocket.

Im not going to lie, this was one of the most painful races of my life. There were times when I was pretty confident we would keep our break. Unfortunately, the wind was fierce and the pack was strong. Theres only one thing I can do about this, get even stronger.

These are my people

A week and a half left and I will be out of Williamsburg till late August, i still cant really believe how fast this year has gone. Ill definitely miss being at school and miss all of my friends who are graduating this year, however the stress of finals certainly wont be missed. At the moment I guess I have chosen to deal with this stress by writing in the good ol' blog.

So last night when "studying" with Cory I registered for my road racing license with US Cycling. This means two things, this summer i will not be going to Quantico for OCS, this is pretty disappointing given all I went through to try and get in. But I feel like my dad said it well when I told him and he told me he was sorry but "If its meant to be it will happen" clearly this summer it was not meant to be i guess...Anyway the great news is that I will get to race bikes all summer while I work to get myself in shape for Duathlon Worlds in September! I am determined this summer to become a Category 3 rider. I feel like its really not that outlandish given that a good portion of the collegiate B's whom I rode just as well as this collegiate season are already Cat 3's. I'm not sure what team I will ride for this summer however. It was great getting to ride with the guys of the powerhouse NCVC last summer no doubt, and it is definitely cool knowing that no matter what race you do in DC, Maryland, or VA, you are almost assured to have a teammate. Unfortunately most of the group rides with NCVC start in Washington, which is a little bit of an inconvenience for me try get to. I did meet some great guys on WWVC last summer during the weekday T/R rides out of Wakefield Rec Center. There are definitely some very strong riders in that bunch who taught me and Dockins (an NCVC teammate) last summer a thing or to about how to hang onto a wheel for dear life because its about to bomb down a hill into a turn at 35 mph, and knowing proper bike handling turns out to be pretty important when you are moving that fast through a neighborhood id say. I guess these blazing 22+ mph rides made me feel a sense of debt to WWVC, and for that reason I think I will talk to these guys when I get back about the possibility of joining.


Anyway, the past couple of days have definitely been good times. Blowout was, as always, a good celebration of the end of classes. Met some cool people, which I always enjoy getting to do. The day after Cory and I decided to venture across the river and take the ferry to Surry for a bit of a long ride, in fact, the longest ride of my life and definitely a memorable one. Bonking is frustrating, you simply dont have the energy to pedal anymore at anywhere near a decent power. I did NOT bonk. The human body is meant to exercise, but after 6 hours my runners body simply was aching like it has never hurt before. Cory and i rode 120 miles, stopping occasionally for water/gatorade and maybe a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich or some devil fudge cake. After the 120 mile and 6 hour endeavor I returned to my room where I sat with my legs up against a wall and passed out while facebooking on my laptop. It was a great ride and Im glad Cory invites me for such endeavors, it definitely takes a special kind of person to desire to subject themselves to such a thing as to putting 6 or 7 hours of saddle time in on one day, THESE ARE MY PEOPLE. Thanks again to Cory for working with me this semester and helping me create a training plan that has allowed me to blossom as a cyclist and a duathlete. Im definitely excited to see what the future has in store for me this summer!