So here I am in the midst of my training break. A time to back off a bit and just have loads of fun on the bike, maybe get a little more free time. Honestly, one of the reasons I wanted to just take a break is that this is the busiest month of the year for work for me. I’ve just come back from a trip to a conference and am elbow deep planning a big conference for work that will absorb all my energy and take me out of VT for an entire week. Tack onto that a few days of family vacay - and I just needed to be able to slack off a bit this month.

It’s strange to back off when you’ve been going strong for the past 10 months. It’s strange to back off when the results are really starting to show. I’ve lost a ton of weight and can look in the mirror and feel good about myself. Which has me scared that it’ll come back. My riding is strong and I’m scared that I’ll slow down or lose skills. So even though I’m cutting back and just having fun, I’m still trying to get out there as much as I can.

Last week I had some great fall rides. Ran into a moose one night in the woods, enjoyed a warm fall day. And ended the week with a great 5 hour ‘ride’ from home which included cheering on my friends running the annual half marathon and a lovely ride on Perry Hill.

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This week I traveled to Austin, TX for a conference. The only exercise I got was a 40 minute run along the river, but at least it was a reprise of summer for me at about 85 degrees and humid. I had the pleasure of seeing Lance Armstrong give the keynote address at the conference. He was a great speaker, he just told his story. No preaching, no take-aways, no drawing conclusions for the audience. Very straightforward and easy going and quietly funny. I don’t consider myself a huge Lance fan, but I do recognize that he’s done great things for both cancer and for cycling and admire him for those reasons.