Another One Down...

Well, I can now tell you all that I have survived to see the end of another season. Admittedly it has been cut short by the double crash episode I had in Paris-Brussels. It was not the ideal way I had wanted to end the year but it has been a long season to get through after having the raft of problems I had to deal with in the first half, and it has taken a lot to recover from another injury at such a late stage in the season. The season's curtain-puller was my injured ribs. They turned out to be in worse shape than originally thought and I was pretty uncomfortable on the bike. As a result, I wasn't able to sit on the bike straight which in turn placed stress on other parts of the body and like a chain reaction, or equally, a snow-ball effect, I ended up having tendon problems in the lower left leg. My gammy leg at the best of times! After a bit of humming and haring with the Team Directors and the team doctor, we collectively decided that the best thing to do was to shut it down for the rest of the season rather than aggravate the injury. This all happened after the second stage of Franco-Belge and since then the healing hasn't exactly been lightening fast. Certainly nowhere near quick enough to get ready for a hard and fast Classic like Paris-Tours. <?xml:namespace prefix = o /?>

So here I am. I have just returned from the day in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /?>
Paris doing the team photos for next season. It was one of the long, arduous days I dread every year but I'm glad that it's now over and done with. Don't reckon I'd make much of a male model. I just can't get used to posing and wearing make up and having to get all fluffed up for a photo wearing lycra and bike shoes. It just doesn't seem right. We spend most of our time in lycra sweating, stinking, grimy and hurting. There's not a glamorous inch about what we do that warrants getting fluffed up for photos and it's just not my style striking a pose for the camera, although some of my team-mates seemed to step up to the mark for it. I guess what made the whole ordeal all the more painful was the fact that it was 11 degrees Celcius and a cold wind whistled right through my shorts and short sleeve jersey as we stood there posing for photo after photo after photo, trying my hardest to plaster my face with that Hollywood smile Carole has so passionately been coaching me at. Not sure if I pulled that off so well...It'll be an anxious wait for the team post cards to be released!

Once making it through the photo shoot, it was time to talk shop with one of the directors about my next season's race schedule. We worked out my objectives and races for the first half of the season and we also talked a little about