Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Not How I Planned It

Like most bike racers, I came into this spring all fired up. It was my first spring in years where I wasn't dealing with school, I had stumbled my way into a sort-of-sponsorship, and the schedule at home looked very manageable. I was training hard, I did some early season races with some decent results, and all was good. I was clearly well on my way to ruling the New England bike racing scene. And then life happened. A couple weekends where I couldn't race turned into a month where I didn't race. My son got picked for an all star team with a big time commitment. Training days got missed. The training days that happened got more stressful. The weekends going forward weren't getting any more free. Finally my bike racing brain just popped. For now I've just sort of erased the word "training" from my vocabulary. Don't get me wrong... I'm still riding. It's just more haphazard and less focused. A targeted effort without a target just wasn't making sense. Focus had replaced fun so I got rid of focus for now. Fun seems to have come back quickly. There may be some more focus as cross approaches. Fortunately cross is inherently fun so there should be plenty of that to go around.

4 comments:

Scott Sweeney said...

No worries, brother. You'll get there. There's still some time left in the MTB season and you have an entire 'cross season to get it on!!

trackrich said...

I just figured Solo hadn't finished writing his daily insult to you yet and that I'd be next :) It's all good though... it's actually kind of a good reality check right now... it's supposed to be fun after all.

solobreak said...

I thought I saw you riding a tri bike in Dover last Saturday. But my eyesight is not so good so it prolly wasn't you right?

You guys and your seriousness and homicidal pre-race ambiance confuse me. It's just a bunch of grown adults riding bicycles around in circles for shit's sake. Stop smothering your kids and live a little.

trackrich said...

People like me and G who take things too seriously need people like Solo and ThomP who take very little seriously.

And Solo, when you ignore them all week and then spend the whole weekend with them it's compensating, not smothering. Get your bad parenting techniques straight.