Back in the saddle, literally

2012-01-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

Week one of training is complete. The total ride time amounts to only thirteen hours. Almost six of those hours came yesterday. I traveled to Arkansas to take advantage of the warm weather and the big hills on Friday and Saturday. Saturday I covered one hundred miles finishing on Mount Magazine, the high point of Arkansas. It was my first century since last June and it felt surprisingly good. I was pretty whipped by the end of it, but in a good way. I will say that I suffered real bad up Magazine, but if you don't hurt yourself in training, how will you be able to do it on race day? There's not much else to say. I hit all the training goals for week one and expect to do so again this week. It's going to be a long, slow build, but with no racing for ten more weeks I can afford to bring my form along slowly. The plan is to make it past June without burning myself out this year. To that end I'm focusing on making sure I rest as hard as I train this year. By that I mean, I take my rest days seriously, plan them strategically in advance, and perhaps most importantly eliminating useless pedal strokes. That is, every pedal stroke serves a specific purpose. During the season, any pedal stroke without a purpose is simply wasted energy. That's it for now. Sorry that was a bit on the bland, generic blog side, but not too many interesting things went down on the cycling front this week. Hopefully I'll have something for you in the next couple days. Now get out there and ride your bike!

A New Beginning

2012-01-02T18:36:00.000-07:00

It's 2012. January 2nd, 2012 to be precise. In two and a half months or so I will embark on what will be the eighth season of my bicycle racing "careeer". When you've only lived for a grand total of twenty one years, eight years is a long time, so long that it is hard to think about a time when I didn't ride or race bikes. Recently, however, I've begun to think about what life will be like after I hang up the bike. It's become increasingly apparent that I will never get paid to ride a bicycle. In the face of that realization I almost quit racing after the 2011 season. I was burned out. I had no desire to train or even race my bike. I didn't pedal for two months. Still, when I tried to quit, I couldn't do it. Instead, I committed to one more go 'round in "big time" bike racing. I started riding again. Not everyday. School and the weather have limited my time on the bike over the last three months. My motivation has returned. I've been itching to get on the bike full time again, but I also forced myself to take it slow and ease my way back in. I didn't want a repeat of last season. I don't want to burn out in May. But finally the time has come to begin training again. Today was the first day of what will likely be a long, slow build back to peak form. This year I want to do everything as best as I possibly can. I want to race right, train right, rest right, eat right, sleep right. I want to do all the little things. When I get to the end of the season (and possibly the end of my racing "career") I want to be able to say that I did everything I could to be the best bicycle racer I could be. So maybe the one hour and ten minutes I spent pedaling around Forest Park in the cold and windy conditions today don't seem like much, but it's a start, and there's no better place to start than at the beginning.

I'll be updating this blog throughout the season, detailing my journey through the cycling world. These are solely MY opinions and not those of my team or sponsors.

Tete de la Course

Back in the saddle, literally

A New Beginning