Work Travle... Glamorous or not?

Great Wall of China

 Many of you know that I have recently started a new job that requires some travel, thus far stamped in the passport is Canada, Mexico, England, France, Belgium, Germany, China, Honk Kong, and Indonesia with a few new stamps to follow soon.

I have had a number of people comment on how lucky I was to have a job that included travel to far away glamorous places. Well first of all, I do feel lucky and it’s not because of the travel it’s because I HAVE A JOB. Moreover I work for a family that values its employee’s quality of life as much as their own and show it by providing opportunities to young and old that if seized could fund a financially independent lifestyle.

Hong Kong Bay

 So, what’s the point of this blog entry? Well it’s to give you a little insight on what it’s like to travel for work and more importantly what it’s like to work for a small company that you feel personally responsible for.  

Disclaimer: I am writing this 6 hours into a 14.5 hour flight sitting in the second to last row of a 747 where I am conveniently close to the bathroom and enjoying my ample 3.5 inches of leg room.

Hong Kong Inner City

 Let’s first discuss the pro’s I have discovered in traveling for work.

• I don't fly to Cleveland… by that I mean the title on my business card has the word international in it. So with the exception of Canada when I get off a plain I am in a wildly different place with a wildly different culture awaiting me at the door. P.s. I love you Canada…

• I don’t drive a desk daily. I get to mix up my daily routine on a monthly ish basis with travel and frankly I like having trips to look forward to.

• You save gas money… aka food transportation and housing are paid for while gone. However, this pro plays on a comment I made above. When you feel personally responsible for the bottom line of a company the term “expense it” takes on another meaning, case in point the 3.5 inches of room my knees are currently enjoying.

• You get to stay in some pretty sweet hotels, at least in Asia. On the other hand, what gets me 5 star rooms and service in Asia would rent a dorm room in Europe.

• The food, the food is great! I tend to get treated to some of the best local restaurants and pastimes.

• Flier miles, obviously nice for vacations and future free upgrades.

Big Ben, London

With the pro’s always comes the con’s and there are a few noteworthy ones.

• Being away from home. Even though I have an incredibly understanding and supportive wife leaving her home is hard for many reasons many of which you can probably imagine.

• Traveling over weekends. Since many of my destinations are a day and a half away it doesn’t make sense to turn around in less than 5 days at the shortest. Not to mention that the cost of said plain tickets tend to be about 60% cheaper if you leave on a Saturday.

• Sights and sounds. You get to see and experience some really cool stuff but your either doing it alone (example, walking thru Paris) or with a business partner that only wants to keep you entertained.

• Jet lag. Even though I am getting pretty good at bouncing back I have quickly discovered new levels of exhaustion and mental fatigue related to jammed meeting schedules sandwiched by many hours of travel.  

• Racing/Training. Being off the bike for over a week, eating out every meal and rarely getting any type of physical activity while gone certainly puts a damper on my training regime.   

Paris

 Would I go so far as to say this job is glamorous? Not so much, but what I can say about this new job/career is that it’s a blessing to have been given the opportunity to enjoy my work, provide for my family and work for a company that honors God in everything they do.

Dresden, Germany

 For those of you that travel for work domestically or internationally I would be curious to hear your comments on the above and any interesting insights you may have to achieving balance in family, work, and recreation.

All for now but keep an eye out for the 2012 team and racing sneak peek due out soon.

All my best,

El Uruguayo

Cyclocross

So cyclocross…

Last Saturday was my first cyclocross race in Jackson Park located on the south side of the city just past the field museum via lake shore drive.

This race is the first of a series called the Chicago Cyclocross Cup that runs from September thru I believe January? The points and structure of the series is very similar to the Illinois cup that runs throughout the road racing season. I have to honest though, it seems like this series is taken a little more seriously than the ICA cup.

All of you Chicagoland residents know what a pitiful and depressing day last Sunday was, it was nothing but overcast skies and intermittent showers all day long. While Corie and I were driving into the city from Naperville I was thinking to myself “I wonder how many people will actually show up in this weather”. It didn’t take long after arriving at the park to realize my thoughts were those of a true roadie that had no idea what the CX culture was like. Yes, I had heard of the European like hooligans, costumes, and alcoholic post-race recovery beverages, but I had no idea how fun the environment was! On a day that would have cut road races fields in half and sent all 5 spectators indoors this place was jamming! All I can say is I truly enjoyed being there and getting to race almost seemed like an afterthought, almost.

Now the race…

As I said it was obvious that the weather didn’t stop anyone from pining on a number so I was pretty confident that the 100 riders pre-registered for this race were here and ready to ride. Due to the size of the field I knew that starting position would be important so I made sure to be at the staging area 20 plus minutes or so before the start of the race.

Just a quick note for those of you who don’t shave their legs for competitive reasons, Cyclocross is the red headed step child of road racing and mountain bike cross country racing. Meaning that you take a slightly modified road bike and race it around an off road fully flagged course while navigating obstacles such as sharp S-curves, off camber up/down hills, barriers, (forcing you to jump off the bike and then quickly back on all the while maintaining forward momentum (hopefully))sand pits, low trees, and much much more. This course also included a turn that in the slick conditions would gracefully deposit you in a pond should you not handle your bike properly.

Back to the racing, after the aggressive back and forth for starting position I was second row dead center for the start. After the whistle blew I knew it would be a crazy dash for the first turn but I had no idea just how nuts it would really be! Let’s just say next time the whistle blows its game on punks!

After witnessing the mayhem of the start I was able to settle into a bit of a groove navigating the obstacles and riding fast enough not to get passed (much) but not so fast as to eat it on every turn. It seemed like the couple times someone would try and pass me it would be headed into a corner and seconds later I would be running over their dumb A$$ as they thrashed about on the ground after dumping their bike. In fairness I wasn’t exactly making up ground on the riders in front of me but I certainly wasn’t falling behind.

I finished the short 35min race in 38^th place, not too bad considering the conditions and my novice but certainly not satisfying. I am looking forward to racing in more controllable conditions and hopefully placing higher in the field but I absolutely enjoyed every minute of my new found down and dirty method of getting my competitive “rocks” off.

I will be in London, Paris, and Brussels next week for work so keep an eye out for some quick post and fun pictures.

That’s all for now…

Gateway Cup Race Report

The Gateway Cup is a 4 day race series held over Labor Day Weekend in St. Louis MO and as I learned firsthand, a highly contended and hugely attended series.

I made the 4hr drive down to St. Louis on Friday afternoon for the first race of the series held on the streets surrounding Lafayette Park. Races were already underway when I arrived 3 hours early for my race slotted at 7:15pm, now you may be thinking to yourself “hmm… 7:30pm this time of year, isn’t it pretty dark?” well… YES it’s very dark!

These types of races are commonly referred to as twilight races and usually take place middle of summer in the late afternoon/evening sunshine, but for twilight races held late in the season, the higher category elite races normally held last get to race in the DARK.  Don’t get me wrong, darkness falling on the final few races of the night is NOT an oversight by the planning committee nor is it a surprise to any returning riders or the community of fans that show up in the thousands to line the streets with glow sticks, light sabers, and beer.

I had read in the race description that the latter categories race “under the lights” to me meaning that the entire course would be sufficiently illuminated to facilitate a large peloton at high speeds. Well… half of that was right…the half about a large peloton at high speeds, not the part about being sufficiently illuminated. 

 Here is a clip of the race...

Well enough about the conditions and on to the race. As the whistle blew the last remaining light had disappeared off the horizon and the 80+ rider peloton tore off down the course. Knowing that my fitness has suffered over the past two months, and my novice of racing in a 80+ rider group at NIGHT I decided to stay tucked away in the upper third of the group thinking to myself I would stay out of the wind and still be able to keep tabs on the front of the group.

The first couple laps were nail biting and fun all at the same time, once I figured out that the majority of the group knew what they were doing and had the same priority of self-preservation I felt more comfortable staying tight in the group and rounding the corners at 27mph+.

The most interesting challenge of racing at night with inconsistent lighting (besides the obvious) is the ever changing and deceptive shadows. Over the past year I have learned to keep my peripheral vision locked onto my flanks in an attempt to predict moves coming from behind me but during this race I had to do my best at ignoring my peripheral vision and focus only on what was in front of me.

The rest of the race and the following day’s race are pretty anti-climactic, I finished upper half in both races and left empty handed. I’m glad I made the drive down and pinned the numbers on but it’s a hard pill to swallow when you realize that you just don’t have the legs or the lungs to get yourself into position for a good finish.  My success during the first ¾ of the season came from having the fitness to not only get myself into position but also dig deep when it counted in the race to the line. No excuses should or will be made just a lesson learned for next year.  

Next up… ICA Cup review and my first Cyclocross Race.       

Life and Racing Updates

It’s been a while since my last entry and a lot has happened in August so I have tried to summarize for you below.  

As many of you know last October I was given the privilege to take part in a startup company located in Plainfield. I specifically say “take part in” and not “given a position” because I was the second person to come on board and the last thing we had time and money for was to define and hold to job descriptions. One minute I would be talking to a VP of a large company and the next I’m emptying a container of product using a forklift. Needless to say the variety and challenge were great but we knew it would be a long hard road ahead.  

What lead me to leave my well-paying, highly stressful, and slowly marriage killing previous job was to help build something from the ground up and for an owner who believed in taking 80% of this companies’ profits and donating them to ministry.    

To make a long story short 10 months later God has closed the doors of this company, but God is faithful and he never closes a door without opening another first.  When the owner of Kingdom LED announced to me that he would be closing the company he also told me that he had created a new position at his manufacturing company down the road with me in mind.

So once again a guy who painstakingly analyzes every decision in his life will once again in a split second jump head first into a position and a company that I know little about but am confident this is the right move.    

So… what am I doing now? Well my new company is called Sennco Solutions, started about 10 years ago in a basement and has grown to a 10+ million dollar a year retail security manufacture. By retail security I mean the devices that keep display electronics and high theft items in stores from growing legs and walking out the door.

I specifically was brought on board to manage Sennco’s international relationships. I will be taking over the 3 existing distributor relationships in the UK, Canada, and Mexico and in the next 6-12 months finding and establishing distributors in South America, Asia, and Australia.  What exactly this position is going to look like day to day no one knows but I am ok with that. What I do know is that I am flattered to have been given this responsibility and am confident it will be a fulfilling and beneficial career step for both Corie and me.

So that’s the scoop on the work front, now for the two wheeled stuff!

To say the last month on the bike has been hard would be an understatement! Since a crash last month in a race where I was anticipating a great result that would have both awarded my final upgrade points needed for my CAT2 license and clinch the Illinois Cycling Cup Championship I have been a disaster.

Now don’t get me wrong, when you race your bike you will crash it’s just part of the sport. What was most damaging about the crash was not the missing skin or damaged bike parts but the implosion of my well thought out plan for the rest of the season.

Since I don’t get to race 30+ races a season the races I do attend need to count and now that time is running out on the season I am finding myself under the gun to perform and the frustration of not is really getting to me as a competitor.   

If there is a guaranteed way to not win a bike race it’s to overthink it and try too hard. Many would assume I’m racing scared for fear of crashing, this is not the case but what I am doing is just as bad! I am racing under personally inflicted mental pressure that is hurting my confidence and ability to make smart decisions in a race.  

Fortunately this mental pit I’m in did not cost me or my team the ICA Cup Championship.  However, I still need one last result to make my upgrade possible this season, and this Friday and Saturday is where I plan on making it happen.

I know this mental barrier is just another obstacle in my pursuit of being a decent bike racer and it’s a challenge I welcome because I know the end result will reveal a stronger wiser competitor.

Here we go…

Coming soon… ICA CUP review and this weekend’s Gateway Cup Race Reports...