Saturday, October 08, 2005

Getting ready for the season

Okay, so the 2006 season is still months away, and in reality I'm not really focusing on training right now, but I'm starting to think about the season ahead, along with everything else that goes on in life. I've been racing mountain bikes in Colorado for a long time, racing on the road here before that. Unfortunately the cold hard reality is I'm never going to be great. I don't have the genes, nerves, time or skills to be a great racer. I ride and race because it is hell a fun and a great challenge. Beyond lack of physical skills is the fact that I work as a "professional" in the financial industry, have a wife and four year old son (Seamus) that take time and energy too. Racing is for fun, but the priority (even if my wife would debate it at times) is on my family.

For the 2006 season I'll be racing in Sport 35-39 for the first time. The last two seasons I finished 5th and 6th (2004/2005) in the Mountain States Cup (www.racemsc.com) in Sport 30-34. Even though 2004 had a better overall placing I think I rode better in 2005. I was stronger and could actually stay with the leaders during races. The 2005 season had a stronger field in my category, with a teammate of mine Brian Costello dominating the early part of the year (six wins in seven races) before he moved up to Expert and started placing in the top 5. The winner of the series in 2004 raced Expert in 2005 and never was close to Brian in the races later in the summer, so I take 2005 to have been a harder year to do well.

Beyond the racing my wife and I are building a new house, which is why my focus now is not on training. We'll be moving in to the new place in early November and then I'll figure out when to start to train again. Until then I'm focusing on making sure the house gets done, and we get all the new stuff Adrienne (my wife) wants for the place. I'm also helping the team I race for (www.comotionsports.com) get our sponsors lined up for 2006 which takes time away from riding. We won our third successive team title in the MSC in 2005 (my first year with the team), so we should have some good luck keeping (and getting more) cash sponsors. It is always a huge effort though to contact people and get them to give up money to sponsor an amateur mountain bike team, but we try.

I did make it out on the mountain bike this morning. Put in about 2 hours at White Ranch near Golden. The ride was good and early fall in the early morning is always a great time to ride, especially since tomorrow is suppose to be crappy weather. Given that I've only been getting in 1-2 rides per week since mid-September I felt good. Maybe all the running and weight lifting I've been doing is paying off. Over the coming months I'll cover what I'm doing (and not doing) for training and let others follow yet another cyclists journey on the web.

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