Lets backtrack, November 3rd, 2019, after my last scheduled cross race, I was completely burnt out. To be expected, obviously. Racing ST in January and keeping any sort of fitness that long is going to take its toll. I’ve gone down this road, but this time it was just different. I really was sick of it. I can honestly say I could give two shits about riding bikes. That lasted a month, I went a whole month not touching a bicycle. I sold my SSCX and ended up buying a motorcycle, which was fun to tinker with and learn with. That kind of took over a lot of my free time when I was solo. I enjoyed wrenching. I really thought, I wasn’t going to give a crap about cycling anymore. I would just be a gear head again. I didn’t get fat or anything, which was interesting.
First day home and the latest photo I have of it:
As always, projects are never done. I learned a lot and still have some learning to do, but taking a non running bike for the price I sold my SSCX into this, with just some elbow grease and some cheap parts, it’s been a blast.
December came and the weather started turning around. I was getting the itch to do something, but still, nothing was sparking excitement. I rode maybe once a week, if that. Then one warm sunny weekend, I jumped into our local “zones” ride. It’s pretty much an endurance ride with 3 sectors that have “race” sections. I knew I would have no business racing any of them, but I could sit in the slacker group and have a good ride, right? Wrong. I got dropped in 2 of the 3 and completely rode by myself, assessing my situation and the WTF am I doing.
It really was the rock bottom of my fitness. I was hoping it would spark me into starting to ride again, and it did.
Short track was two weeks away,
and I was totally against it. With some nudging from some friends, I decided to jump into the first one. The course is the same, so you can really compare apples to apples with lap times. I do the 45 minute open race (compare to Cat1?) instead of the expert 60 minute race. Last year in this category, I went OTF and completely crushed it. This year? 18th out of 27. A good 30 seconds slower on each lap. Eye opener, and it mostly just added fuel to the fire.
I did some workouts during the weeks that I did last year to get in shape, and I got faster. I felt better. I was being competitive. Not where I was, but more of the middle pack I was expecting.
I ended up crashing out of the 3rd race after just hanging off the back of the lead group. I pulled the plug, realizing this was a waste of time and only wanted a result I got what I wanted out of short track.
I had some sort of “fitness” to work with. What was I going to do? What was going to keep me motivated for 2020?
Mandi and I watched the BWR documentary or whatever it was, and it looked awesome. I always said, that was the kind of events I liked. Gear selection and WTF am I doing in the same thing. I would love to do that event, but it doesn’t exist over here, and I’m not rich enough to take a flight for a bike race.
AND THEN… something happened.
[USER=1585]@jShort[/USER] posts about the BWR race coming to the east coast, only to find out its in Asheville. Interests perked up. I floated it by the boss and decided, with my fitness the lowest it has been in a while, I’m going to dive into this head first. I signed up at 12:01 and I’m fully committed. I decide to crack open the Time Crunched Cyclist book again and figure out if I can squeeze some magic out of it. I followed the endurance plan last year and was juts off the podium on same local events. Granted they weren’t 140 miles long and I may have not done all of the hours on the weekends, but it offered some promise.
So here we are, on a Thursday, 2020. All caught up. 2 weeks into the CTS TCS plan.
I wanted to recap this year because I feel that a lot of people could be inspired by it. I know I will always have some residual fitness, and not really “couch to marathon” material, but it’s close enough. The target race is an event that people know about could relate to.
Here is my strava fitness/freshness recap from the last two years. It is the lowest it has ever been, since I used HR/Power.
I have no idea what this will turn into. I’d like to recap every “ride/workout” I do, but it would be more training related. Not sure if that is cool anymore. Which I think people would enjoy, seeing the 4-5 hours of riding a week and what can come from it. Maybe I will always post a photo every day or something? I like adding the pressure of keeping a blog to the mix.
jamespearl 