It was another one of those flat, straight, 120 mile days at the Merco Foothills Road Race. You know, long, fast and did I say flat?

It was also the first team road race of the season which made it the first without radios. So what's the verdict? Well, it was different and I kind of liked it. But I'll reserve final judgement 'till we do some bigger events.

As for the race, the attacks started right off the gun. A number of small groups got off the first lap but they all came back. The winning break of 13 went with about 3.5 laps (80 miles) to go. All the major teams were represented so we quickly got a gap that hovered around 2 minutes for the rest of the race. Me and Ben were there for Bissell.

About 70 miles later the group started angsting for some action. The attacks started but we made it through the rollers intact. I tried a few moves in the last few kilometers but nothing worked. However, I like to think that those, plus my super leadout, softened the field so Ben could take the win. I finished 8th.

The picture above is by Wil Matthews. The one below is also his and features both of the princesses in my life, Sara and the Pinarello. It was taken at the Marin County Triathlon and is currently number 9 in this gallery.

Every year I pick a special weekend in early March to spend in Merced. It just happens to always coincide with the Merco Cycling Classic.

To spice it up a bit this year I decided to head down on the romantic 702 San Joaquin. Luckily my Pinarello race bike was already down in Merced so I just packed my backpack full of high quality italian made Giordana spandex and was on my way.

I arrived just in time for a spin with the guys. We headed out on the TTT course from the day before. A course that the Bissell guys deep cleaned.

As for the crit, well, lets see. It was the same old attack, attack, chase, crash, block, chase, attack, hang on. If you need more, read the report soon to be found at PodiumInsight.com or something.

Tomorrow we'll have to cowboy up because 125 miles with a bunch of Giant Yahoos who are full of Energy, United, and looking to Clean Up will surely lead to hard racing.

I consider Snelling to be NorCal's season opener, so naturally, I had to be there. For those that don't know, Snelling is a flat, flat road race that runs 6 laps and about 75 miles for the P/1/2.

The wife and I arrived early and it wasn't long before we started hearing rumors of enormous puddles/lakes/secret fishing holes on the course. Would this year take us to Crazy Town or just Levanger again? I couldn't wait to find out.

Well, it was Crazy Town. Attacks, crashes, and hecka hard racing all put me deep into the box for the the first few laps.

Thankfully, a group of about 15 finally got off the front. Bissell had Danny Holloway up there and since he was riding a replica of Ben J-M's Pinarello training bike I was confident in his ability to win. This allowed me to spend the next 3 laps just sitting around talking to people while Chris Jones and Will Routley hammered on the front.

With a half lap to go, I attacked over the Merco finish hill with someone yelling, "No, Paul" from the field. But with a gap of still over a minute, I figured it was fair game to start racing again.

A little chase group formed with Phil Mooney, Will, James Mattis and some other dude. I never thought we could catch the break but it was splittering so we started picking people up.

At that point I backed off 'cause I wanted to let Holloway do his thing up the road. He did and won. I managed to somehow win the chase group sprint for 7th. After suffering so bad for the first few laps, I was pretty happy with the result.

And for those of you that skipped because of rain, it turned out to be a wonderful day, my wife even said she "got some color."

The last few days at camp have been pretty standard. Yesterday we scouted the second half of Stage 2 in this years Tour of California and Thursday was picture day. It was long, but lead to this beautiful picture of Ben and Frank in their Merrell casual wear. Today, however, was the big show, the Chileno Valley Grasshopper. Last year was fun, but this year was straight up Chuck Norris, tough as balls.

It's an 80 mile course with about 8000 feet of climbing. It starts in Occidental and heads right up Coleman Valley, down Highway 1, left on Marshall road and then loops back to finish up Joy road.

The winning break went at like mile 5 and was made up of me, Jared, Andrew, Wohlberg, Ben and Rob. Wohlberg was reliving the glory days and putting everyone in the cave but I still managed to pump him for the Bodega Bay and Marin County sprints.

We chopped off for the next 3 hours till we hit Joy. Some crazy stuff happened but we all just kind of rode into the bottom together. I got 3rd and Ben was 2nd and Andrew won.

So, one more day of camp, if it rains I can take the day easy, and to be totally honest, that's what I'm hoping for.

I'm going to just come out and say it, I'm stoked to be at camp. Last year someone took time out of their day to inform me that, "It's not pro to be excited for camp." I'm sure that same someone also hates Christmas.

Why am I excited for camp? For one, lots of new chamois and other cool stuff. But mostly, it marks the start of the season. I can't be the only one that is tired of base training and ready to go out and race.

So what have we done so far? Well, Tuesday's "Make sure your bike is setup ride," turned into a Ben JM easy ride, ie. 3 hours full gas.

Today we checked out the Geysers. Director Wohlberg came with us so we slowed a bit on the climbs as an act of professional courtesy. Thus allowing plenty of time to check out how beautiful it is out there.