a week

another week, another series of mostly usual events. Last Thursday was a totally rad day. primo weather and a long ride that allowed me to get a nice set of sunburned arms! yea, i know my fair skin self shouldn't be jumping up and down because my skin always burns to a crisp, but we're talking February! the pic doesn't do it justice, these were some bomb tanlines by brent bookwalter Feb. standards!


My bday was also this past thursday, the BIG 22. Thanks a bunch for everyone that called, wrote, posted and sent their bday wishes to me. spent a little time this past weekend doing combined bday celebrating for me, my roomate Jesse and Teamate Wes, all who are having their cake day this month. speaking of cake, my girlfriend made me a rockin dirt cake and even put it in a flower pot with flowers!


It seems like everyone on campus is sick, the plague must be going around. i'm staying clear as best i can hoping to dodge it. school has been wicked hard too! Chem test and zoology test in a 2 day period. my brain is mush. Just about done with the "base" phase of my training. for the most part its went well and i've made some solid progress, but i am psyched to get racing. I thikn i'm gonna give er a go this weekend in Greenville, SC at a couple of RR's. A BIG congrats to my teamates who brought home the first victory for the "Priority Health" cycling team this past weekend at the Valley of the Sun Stage race in Arizona. Our new man, Tom Zirbel took home the TT stage win and overall honors! A few more weeks and i'll be out in Cali rippin it with them for a solid block of the early NRC races. Giddy up.

I hope everyone's been reading up and or watching the Tour of California race coverage. Sounds like a top notch race with a wicked deep field. Good luck to my bud Taylor who is 3rd right now in the best young rider comp.

i'll try to post the first race report type post, after this weekend.

ciao.

USADA

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nice donkey

I met two ass' today. nice little fellas.
the drive pavement of yesterday was brutally destroyed last night as the snow and slush began to fall. by this morning it was full on winter and time to saddle up on the mountain bike for a backroad excursion. solo. pleasant and peaceful climbs on snow covered dirt roads, as well as a few miserable and wet pavement descents. brrrr, those were cold but it brought me back to those days when i used to train in the MI winter. i'm not sure how i did that. anyway, here are a few pics from today.

the slush tried to eat me, but i managed to escape.

now thats better...
sweet place for a chimney.
i was getting sorta warm, so i stopped for a swim here
one for the mom..
are you buzz lightyear??

1000!!!

I recently noticed my pagecounter hit "1000"!!!!! so thanks to everyone who checks in on my happenings. i realize most of the page views are from scott, clara or myself; but i'm glad there are a few others out there who enjoy "keepin it real" as a healthy distraction. lots of the usual going down in banner elk. winter has delivered a swift roundhouse kick to our faces the past few days. full on snow, wind and chilly temps. this past Sunday, Clara, Scott and Myself ventured out of the mountains to the Winstom-Salem area where it was sunny and about 20 deg. warmer than B.e. it turned into an awesome day, we ran into my team director, Mark Olsen and his Wife Sheryl who just happened to be down in NC for a couple weeks of MI winter relieft. Totally crazy to run into them, but it worked out great and was way nice to catch up with them. Today I had to drive a bit to ride once again, this time a solo trip to johnson city, TN. The typical "don't know where i'm going" ride but it was sunny 5 hrs. with dry roads so i'm a happy camper :) Have you seen the new E-caps catalog?? I think there are a couple different versions of the cover, but here is the "best" looking one......

It's ME!

thanks to the guys at E-caps/hammar nutrtion. if any of you ever need any vitamins or supplements, check em out and say i reffered you, they'll give you a nice 15% off!

jesse saw the catalog and is already practicing for their 2007 edition. any form tips for him????

poop

its saturday and the weather has turned to full on crap. 40 and rainning right now, with snow and cold temps as far as we can see in the future. good thing i opted out of zoology yesterday to pound out some miles and allow the sun to hit my bare legs one last time for a while. i found a bitchin new climb, 40 rpms and some serious power output just to make it up. turned to gravel at the top too!! suckiest part about the ride was definitley riding through Boone. If i ever say I'm gonna move to a big city, i hope all of you kick me in the teeth to remind me of my extreme disgust for traffic and stoplights. walnuts and bananas in pancakes is the recipe for this morning. happy late bday to scott stewart who turned 19 this past thursday. dang i feel old. i haven't shaved in a few days, first out of laziness and then for the thought of winter protection. it might be time to make it happen though. check out the latest issue of velonews for a write up on my homie, ex-roomie and linebacker turned cyclist, Taylor Tolleson. we've begun our preperation for our collegiate race here. it should be another doozy filled with sick amounts of climbing and some sketch decents. here's a pick from last year....

bad spinach

I think the Spinach I have in our fridge is bad. I just ate some and my stomach is a bit mad right now. to the garbage it goes. had yoga class today. Namaste!!! i think that means "i give the best of me, to the best of you" or somthing like that. our teacher is always saying it. She also uses all kinds of other wacky words that i can't remember. she sure loves some yoga and isn't afraid to get up in your grill and show you how to do the moves. hopefully my teamate dave doesn't get too excited when she is positioning his buttox. after a good dose of yoga, i ventured out on a ride with my roomate jesse and the lovely clara. a bit chilly, but no dogs and i only got dropped a few times so all is well. i had to wear tights for the 3rd time this year as well as plenty of other snowman garb that makes me look large and in charge. i sure could use all those cold weather riding clothes that i lost at cross nationals c/o the pirate. in other news... we got our electric bill today and we knocked like $20 off of it from last month. good thing jesse and i are related to polar bears. look at how good we look....

The Trainer king from Texas venturing into the tundra
name that road...see you later bye

i live out there, so don't go there

I've been tryin without much sucess to pound out some zoology notes. WOW, this stuff is boring. The sun is coming out so it looks like i might rethink my idea of an off day and head out for some healthy active recovery. yesterday was rad. we had a rockin group ride of about 10 riders, all of varying abilities, head out on the 5 hour Iron mountain loop. I have to say i was impressed with such a large group making it through a ride like that. kudos to lmc cycling. i even got to pull down the knee warmers for a good bit and maximize my sunshine absorbtion. giddy up! no camera on the ride but here's a lovely post ride pick of yours truly.... yes, i take pictures of myself. just for your enjoyment though. haha.


i just found an old bag of carrots in my fridge. not sure what the shelf life on carrots is, but they seem ok. on other news, i'm doing a load of laundry, "whites" as we speak and i also just renewed my license plates online. hot dang, thats productive.

i hope by now you've all headed to cyclingnews.com and checked up on our fellow Americans at cross worlds. congrats to the juniors on what looked like some solid riding. what most people don't realize is how incredibly HARD it is to actually race to your full potential at the World championships. my sympathy goes out to Mr. Troy wells. apparantly he got crashed while riding in 5th by some Swiss punk and broke his elbow as well as both carbon wheels on his bike. the amazing part of it is that he somehow went on to finish before heading to the hospital. that takes some GUTS! I gotta say I'm pretty happy that I decided not to petition my way onto the worlds team. If selected, it woulda been great to work with the awesome American Team over in Europe, but i think the costs would have outweighed the rewards for me. plus, its been really nice to just focus on training the past few weeks.

ok, i've said enough. ciao.

they got him

Friday at last. i'm stuck in class till 2:00, missin some plush sunshine. hit up the coffee shop during the dead zone today and had a delicious matte latte. two more days of riding and then i get a few rest days to recover before making the last push through my base phase. i rode the Roan Mtn. loop yesterday, one of my favs and a solid 5 hours. The team here is having a "goal" meeting tonight so we can all get on the same page and start crushin some heads when the racing season begins. I gotta say one of my top team and individual goals for the collegiate season is to defend our Team Time Trial title. that event is dang painful, but its such a beautiful art when it comes together like it did last year at nats. sadly, my 3 TTT companions from last year have all moved on so we'll be starting from scratch, building from the ground up with a solid set of new guys who i'm sure will impress. here's what we're gunning for.....
On a more serious note, the code red pirate (coach Doug Owen) watch that was issued in December has been temporarily suspended. Looks like they got em folks!!!!
cheers

Get a Leash!

Crammed in a ride today between classes. ventured out on a short section of buffed out dirt road. I was almost turned into dog food. these pups are usually agressive, but today they were out for blood. I delivered a swift and sturdy kick to the face of the brown one, He didn't eve FLINCH! yea, just kept chasing a lunging at me. i inreased speed and finally shook him, but gollllly he was a pain in the arse. you gotta wonder what kinda treatment from their owner makes a dog behave like such a useless beast?

Here they come!
Thats the one that got a size 45 Carnac in the face. He's a sturdy fella.

had to wear tights today for only the 2nd time since i've started training. can't complain there. yesterday i did my first race specific preperation. intervals? sprinting? time trial? no, no, and no. I unrinated off my bike while riding. gotta tune up those skills before the long early season races. I managed to empy the bladder and not even splash too much on the shorts, all while never stopping. I think i'll have some fine form with a little more practice. also got my power tap working. knock on wood. maybe it will work for more than 2 weeks this season.
my eyes need rest. i spent the last hour looking at protozoa in a microscope. don't you wanna be a biology major??

monday and deer

gotta love mondays. class all day and my first chemistry lab. does a biology major really need chemistry?? ugh, i suck at this stuff. i'm taking the 2nd semester of a two semester chem. course. the kicker is that i took the first semester 3 years ago when i went to grand valley. yea i know, brilliant idea brent. so to say the least, i'm a little behind and my mind is already wacked! today was definitley one of those days when i had to keep reminding myself it was a good idea to be going to college and trying to race bikes at the same time. Training has been goin solid though. did a solid 11 strong group ride yesterday and managed to avoid the rain for all but the last 20 min. good thing my new Ridley has stealth mode. By the way, my teamate Wentworth did some research on the model of my bike "Damocles" and the EPIC Sword that is painted on the top tube. The Greek story about the sword of Damocles goes to exemplify the idea of "why don't you try walking a mile in my shoes" as to say the lives of others aren't always as glamerous as they seem. Wow, that is a pretty solid quote for a cyclist. wouldn't you say??

Thanks to my mom's new husband Jack and his superb hunting ability, Jesse and I ate some tasty deer meat last night. after eating it my stomach began to rumble and then all of a sudden BAM!! check out this pic i took when we were done eating. maybe Jack shoulda left him in the woods.

Jesse wins!

Time for an update, which usually means its a bad day to ride outside. My roomate Jesse "balls" Hayes doesn't let that stop him. he's loggin some solid trainer miles today. i get to listen to the hum of the trainer and him sing along to songs of "Caddyshack" look at that form!



I made the call yesterday to take an off day today. the legs were a bit tired on the bike yesterday and I have my weekly hours in the bag. had a cycling team gathering up at Danny's place last night. the usual cycling shin dig but not a bad time. even threw in some hacky sack for good measure. We had a recruit with us last night too, fast mtb kid named Kyle Hemmaker. good guy. hopefully we didn't scare him away. My boy Taylor and my teamate richie are racing the track world cup in L.A. this weekend. right about now they could be bleading out of their ears and filling their body's with poisen. hope all goes well for them. not sure what to do with myself today. probably continue the everlasting process of cleaning up my room, sleep some more and maybe hit the grocery store. the tour of my phat pad continues today with our freshly cleaned kitchen. wanna come over and cook us dinner?

The Dead Zone

Well its Wed. and that means my class schedule is crap supreme. sweet chemistry from 9:30 to 10:30, then zoology and zoo lab from 1:00-4:30. who does that?? UGH! the time between is basically "the dead zone". not enough time to do anything cool or productive, but too much time to just sit on my arse idol.

WAIT!!! whew, productivity achieved. just got a call from the coach "Mr. Rick Crawford" what a guy. mvp. discussed the upcoming training a bit and just caught up. of course usacycling and noel's national team program were brought up. apparantly a few kids at fort lewis just dropped outa school to be race with noels program. thats a great opportunity and I hope it goes great for them, but I also hope they did it for the right reasons. It really sucks to have to make decisions like that based on fear, pressure and intimidation. that seems to be an inreasingly large aspect of the sport the more I progress, decisions, decisions decisions. its really hard to make the right ones for the right reasons when there are guys out there who abuse their power and pressure developing riders.

well enough of that, I hope i didn't step on anyones toes. just the thoughts in my head at the moment.

after a couple dreamy days of riding, old man winter has kicked me in the teeth. wind, snow, clouds and cold temps were the recipe for this morning. looks like today will be my first roller base hours for the year. i hope for sanitys sake there won't be many more. what happened to my core workout muscles? I attempted some abs and such this morning and it seems all those muscles have disolved.

this is what i see when i step outside....

check it

take a look. this is my latest project. A "Astue PC Desk" is the precise name I believe. It was a grand christmas gift from the dad. that catch was that I had to fully assemble it. yea, I'm not sure how it happened but its together. A sturdy metal frame complemented by a beautiful fine grain wood. I'm counting on it to yield countless hours of productive studying.


The riding has been dreamy the past few days. overshot my weekly hours a bit, but couldn't help it with the shining sun in the sky. mr. ipod has been my loyal companion, along with a few choice teamates. more stellar group rides to come i'm sure. I'm tryin to get an independant study so i can drop this oil painting class i have. you may ask how can it get easier than oil painting? well the fabulous world of "independant studies" can often fill that requirment. they're calling for snow tomorrow. jesse and i are on our way out the door now to build a sweet dome over banner elk so we can still ride. i'll let you know how it turns out. here's a pic of my new noble stead before its maiden voyage. pretty hot for a training bike.

Long Time No Blog

To all my 5 loyal fans, sorry for the delay in an update. I'm back in NC, the B.E. and its pretty rad to be back. picked up my lovely lady at the airport, did some catching up with the roomate and even hung with the "Classic" a bit who just recently returned from exotic plaes across the world. also saw the dave "money shot" flynn and rode with Stu "bagel" Lamp. riding has been dope. i've logged some solid miles the past couple days. thanks to my new friend the sun, i'm pretty sure i'm no longer vitamin D deficient. thanks sun! my bags have vommitted all over my room so that needs to be taken care of. BIG NEWS. our collegiate coach is enrolling in classes and will also be racing with us this semester. i hope usacycling lifted that no pirate rule. classes start tomorrow. boooooooo.

this is the only pic that i can access on my computer. its so sick (the bad kinda sick. ill) that i can't even download pics or access old ones. i'm takin her to the doc tomorrow.

jesse thinks he's a rapper

The mitten

Another day of standard operating procedure in the mitten. still no sun and i'd be lyin if i said it wasn't starting to crack me. rocked out to a plush 12 hours of sleep last night. oh! I shaved my legs last night for the first time since cross nats. they were beginning to look a little too similair to the legs of chewbaca, so it was time to smooth em out. plus its almost time to startin dialin in the training so its fitting. yes, cyclists are an odd breed. I rode my bicycle today! felt nice to get outside and move a bit, i think my body is a little happier. it better be, because its about to get a lot of it. I heard a new biggie song on mtv today. do they have old sound tracks of him rapping before he died?? thats the only thing i can figure. there seems to be a little monster that has creeped into the back of my throat and made it a little sore, but hopefully another good night of sleep will kill him. i looked down there with a flashlight, this is what he looks like.

2006

The new year hoopla has come and gone, along with the rest of the holiday season. always seems like a big build up for just another day. still some good times though. did some skiin at boyne and watched my friends huck and hurl themselves into the air. somehow i managed to stay on the ground thanks to Noel's voice in my head (come on Booky, time to get serious). little bit of a bummer to not be the skiier i used to be, but cycling=sacrafice right? I'd like to find out who or what stole the sun becaues it definitley no longer exists in MI. Man, I'm flippin tired. less then a week before its time to head back to NC. I'll miss the MI crew but I'm psyched to see the suspects in banner elk, and am also pretty stoked to do some training. congrats to my mom who got married this past friday. i offically have a full set of step parents now. BIG news on the team front. my team here, Advantage Benefits/Bissell just pulled in a new and rather large title sponsor that looks to be a great fit with the team. so new name, but still the same great roster and organization that has been set up for 2006. more news to come on that. my rooms a mess, i better look into cleanin it up.


anyone wanna buy a bike?? FELT and GIANT FOR SALE

morning... sorta.

usually i update this diddy before callin it a night but Today!!! MORNING!! sorta. i just woke up so that qualifys. chowin down to some cheerios mixed with cinamon toast crunch. brings back caf memories. still haven't ridden since cross nats. moms getting married today. i get to walk her down the aisle with my bro and light some candles or somthin. how long do christmas trees stay up after the big day? ours is still up. Also, who is gonna buy my bikes??? too bad people don't read this to find out i'm selling them. headin up north for some skiing tomorrow. maybe there will be snow up there. 20 days without the sun here. i thought that only happened in antartica. i've never heard of "global darkening" before so it must just be fabulous MI.

pick up the new velonews. they finally put a rad guy on the cover. i pulled down a pint sized quote in the cx nats write up. brings back memories of that race. hmmmmm.

Merry New Year


the classic will return. Jan. '06

random

i was told by my buddy aram, an experienced blogger that blogs should be random. I had lunch with Bob Hughes today, the man that owns Advantage Benefits Group (One of my sponsors). what a guy. champion. its 12:30 now. still not sleeping. tv. internet. points, I love points. Is there anything in this world more valuable than points? Dick Tracy, that is a bomb movie. i watched it tonight. some trippy colors in that flic. i've only had coffee like once in the past 2 weeks. how messed up is that. guess its detox or somthin. thinkin of doing an ecaps order, bout that time to start giving my body what it needs and creating the spendy urine. oh, a correction from my profile courtesy of my boy Taylor. "i'm just a little kid from the big mit" the big mit is MI. maybe i'll update that. skiiing tomorrow????

guess that food. i ate it

merry christmas. even to pirates

Dec. 25=Christmas!!!!. I've experienced 21 of them, all of them splendid times with the fam. did the gig at the moms house and the gig at the dads house. some solid presents. i think the fishing waiters that my step mom got me take the cake, guess i have to start fishing more. also pulled in some new socks and underwer. hanes boxer briefs size md, black and blue.

Grandma is comin in tomorrow so it will be christmas again! Feelin fat and pudgy, but i'm not gonna step on the scale for another few days. Aram is riding like 30 hours this week, Ed did like 21, clara is proly around 17. my riding hours read "goose egg" feels bomb.

Code Red Pirate Watch

Where is the snow?

Isn't it a rule that it is supposed to snow for christmas when you live in a bung cold place like MI??? or at least some sun? maybe we'll get lucky tonight, although I doubt I'll be dreaming of a white christmas. I prefer to dream of other things, like Clara. here's a pick of my fabulous girlfriend. Most of my day today was spent talkin to her, thinkin of her and wishin I was with her. she is it Italy with her family, being fabulous and beautiful per usual, standard operating procedure. I'm not sure why this text is coming up as a link? man computers can be dumb!

Clara is my blog buddy, along with my rippin fast teamate scott "skinny" stewart. we've all caught the blog bug and have begun to waste countless hours talking about our uneventful days. check em out...http://www.scottastewart.blogspot.com/ and... http://clarabeard.blogspot.com/ under construction like my own, but assured to reach rockstar status in no time.

went to church tonight, then to the bros girlfriends house. eventually i'll get pics up of my brother as well as the rest of the cool notable people. Whats up with the group of 4 guys at our church singing some country version of a song, not even a christmas song?? the last memo i got said country music wasn't all that rad, especially in church. I'd imagine Santa is gonna come soon, so I better head to bed. I hope the real santa comes, not the one that smells like beef and cheese. SAAANNTTAA!!!!!

What's a christmas graham? I want one!