The Year (2007) in Review

Yep, it's that time of year - gotta figure out what I want to accomplish for next year, at least from a cycling perspective (is there any other?)... :)

But before I try to figure that out, I need to do a quick review of what I did - right and wrong - for this year. I didn't plan on getting back into racing for 2007 - it just sorta happened! One of my cycling buddies had talked about doing some racing this year - and I thought it would be cool to try it again, myself. I mean, I had raced - way back when (in my college days) - so why not try it again? Ironically, the guy that initially motivated me about racing again turned out not to race this year - maybe he'll get into it for 2008!

Before I got into the serious racing stuff, I thought I'd start out with some easy things - like the Swanton Time Trial series - informal, needs no racing license - not too long (11 miles, 5.5 miles out and back, with a solid, one-mile climb just before the turnaround point) - you can read all about it right here. I also heard about this cool (and again, informal) time-trial series called Beat-the-Clock, which had the extra benefit of being a great charity cause, with all the proceeds going to the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF) - read all about that great series right here.

Well, I did (finally!) do one of the Swanton Time Trial races, but not until it was near the end of the season (see the results of that race here). As you can see from the results, I did pretty good for my first Swanton TT - 34:14 - almost 20 mph (I was shooting for 33:00, which is exactly 20 mph).

And, I did 2 of the Beat-the-Clock time trials, both 10-mile TTs on a rolling course (Canada Rd in Woodside/San Mateo) - one in May, where I did 26:14, or just about 23 mph - wooohooo!! I did the second one in September, slipping a bit to 26:42 - but followed that ITT just 5 minutes later with a 2-man TT - we did 26:07, which was mostly my partner, who had done a better ITT (he was my 30-second man in the ITT), with an excellent time of 25:00.

After I did my first Beat-the-Clock TT, I decided it was time to get serious and get an official racing license, which I did in May - and promptly joined a local cycling club, the Santa Cruz County Cycling Club (SCCCC) - too many 'C's in our acronym! Then, with my fresh new racing license (#264162), I looked around to figure out what I'd do for my first race in 30 years! I decided to sign up for the Watsonville criterium - a few people I knew had said that it was a fun crit - and since it would only last 30 minutes or so, it couldn't be *that* bad, right? Well, it turned out to be a blast - and I even managed to get 8th place, after forming a breakaway with 7 other guys (yeah - I got last in the sprint finish, but that's not 'cause I'm a bad sprinter - I was just, uh, rusty - it was my first race in 30 years).

With that first race under my belt, I was hooked again - and totally motivated to do more races - a few more crits (although I never liked crits as much as I liked the regular road races) - and I had a couple of road races singled out - they were not too hilly, and not too long - good test cases for my re-entry into the cool world of bike racing!

And, I continued training - I had been doing a LOT of climbing in those first 6 months of the year, getting more PBs in May and June, as I continued to get stronger and faster.

Then I made a strategic error - I didn't realize it at the time, but it turned out to have some dramatic effects on my conditioning. I decided to start doing a lot of the 'Noon Goon' rides, as I affectionately called them. They are great training rides - leaving at noon every weekday from Palo Alto and, after a 10 to 15 minute warmup, going at a race-type pace for the next hour or so. My strategic error? I started limiting my training mostly to these shorter, faster rides on the weekdays (instead of the climbing routes I had been doing by myself) - and the weekends consisted of either doing races or more of those same shorter and faster routes - but not too much climbing.

Well - that strategy paid of well for the crits and flatter road races that I chose to race (4 crits and 2 road races) - but when I went to get ready for the Mt Diablo Challenge race in early October, I found out I had lost a lot of my climbing ability!

It turns out that I'm one of those types of riders that needs to climb all the time to keep myself in climbing shape - I'm not a natural climber, so when I start to get in better climbing shape (from climbing, of course!), I need to keep climbing - a lot - just to not go backwards!

It was depressing to see how bad I was on the longer, harder climbs in September and October - and I continued to beat myself up the last couple of months, bemoaning how much conditioning I had lost. I noticed that when I tried to push it on the climbs, I was a LONG way from any of my PBs that I had established earlier this year.

So it was fun getting back into racing, but I paid a dear price for my training strategy - and now I have to figure out how to re-capture the motivation - I'm terribly de-motivated right now, as I've seen other cycling friends of mine get better and stronger (especially on the climbs), while I've been pedaling backwards at an alarming rate!

So, how do I stop the carnage and start moving forwards again? That, my friends, is the crux of my dilemma these days.

Fortunately, I have a secret game plan that I'm putting into action - and if it works, I'll have a very interesting blog entry to create in about one month! I won't reveal the secrets right now, as I want to get some more feedback before I announce to the world (uh, yeah - all two of you!) a very interesting idea I had that can be used to 'get back into the game', so to speak...

Next up will be a blog entry about my cycling goals for next year - I've been putting a lot of thought into it - and I have some very definite things I want to do for next year - and they don't all involve winning races...

Stay tuned!