Where to Now?

There has been a request for me to update my blog.  I didn't realize I had so many fan! [Not a typo].

There hasn't been a tremendous amount of excitement for me to write about.  In all honestly I have been drifting into a fairly dark place lately.  Those of you that know me are probably wondering how I can tell the difference.

In reality, I have all-but-given-up on quite a few things lately.  It is somewhat sad when the bright spot in my day is staring at a dirty basement wall for 1 to 3 hours.  There is an amazing transformation that occurs when you are on a bike, trying your hardest to make yourself hurt.  The physical suffering  supersedes the emotional.

Yesterday was the great Iceman click-off, where thousands of people stare at a blank loading screen for several hours hoping to get an entry to the coveted Iceman.  I ended up taking around 4.5 hours to get through, and was fortunate to only get charged twice.  All of this for a race, that I honestly didn't have very high on my schedule.  It wasn't an 'A' race, and why should it be?  I am not going to win, but was going for fun, to hang out around the fire at Timber Ridge and eat pie with my Team Big Kahuna friends.  Perhpas it was stupiditiy, or arrogance, but I decided since I shelled out the dough for a USAC license, I may as well use it.  So this year I am racing in the pro category.  My time last year (2011) would have placed me around 95 of 100 riders.  So now I have to decide how hard I want to work to avoid embarassing myself.

And that, leads me to my goals for the year.  What do I expect from myself.  What is it that I think I might be able to do, but not easily.  The first leap I made was to the Expert categories for the season.  This seems huge, since I started racing in 2010 as a beginner.  I am definitely  having some self-doubt right now.  Coming from such a charming, yet cocky bastard such as myself seems hard to believe.  So, the easy goal is to not finish DFL at any race, and the reach would be to remain in the top 50%.  A podium would be the icing (with a cherry) but I don't thing I am there yet.

Another twist I am adding is a couple of skinny tire races.  Having done 25 or so races last year, I wanted something different.  Since I have a honest-to-goodness road bike this year, I figured I may as well use it.  So I will head to Frankemuth and see how much I can suffer without having to dodge trees.

Training has been going.  I am still trying to find the perfect perch on the bike.  Saddle number 8 should arrive today.  As mild as the winter has been, I have yet to ride outside in 2012.  I have acquired a loaner CX bike for Barry-Roubaix (Thanks Frosty!) and need to get some work in on that.  B-R is a training race for me, so again I won't be concerning myself with a top finish.

As my priorities sit right now, I need to get outside, and I need to get my head right.   The former will just take a nice weekend, the latter will require much more. 

Maybe I should re-title my blog "Thoughts from a melancholy mountain biker"....