Catching Up

To date, I have made some progress toward the goal of 10 Cat 5 races, having completed 2 so far. The Mothballs Criterium, in Goleta, proved to be quite an experience replete with crashes. I was implicated in one (almost two!), but managed to finish the race nonetheless. The Anger Management Criterium, in Long Beach, was a better experience, which involved no crashes and a top 15 finish by yours truly.

The priority now is training - keeping some base miles in on non-race weekends, and keeping the power up for workouts during the week. The two prove to be incompatible in some ways.

Getting Started

This blog, assuming I can maintain any kind of consistency, is about managing priorities. I have several to juggle; a new baby boy who is 2 months old, my wife Jean, a job and a desire to race my bicycle this season. The first priority, Jack, is a real joy. It becomes more and more fun to get up in the morning and see him smiling back at me. It creates substantial conflict to try to be good at all of these things.

This season, roughly February - September 2008, I will try to manage all of these priorities. The new one is bike racing, and in this blog I'll try to chronicle my attempt to train amidst the moving target of business travel, diaper changing, family time and everything else.

My goal is to race 10 Category 5 races by July, so that I can exit that crazy group (full of crashes!) and move to Category 4. Finding time to race will be tough, finding time to train will be tough.

Currently, I have a system in place that allows for 2 nights/week on the trainer in the garage. I can focus on interval workouts there, which should be what is needed after a few months (couple of years really) of base miles. The CycleOps trainer I use has the benefit of a power meter, which is great if you know how to use it. I don't really, but am learning.

I will do my best to post some kind of chronicle of training, competing and life. Hopefully it goes as planned...