The Good and the Bad

Since my racing season has been over for a couple of months and I’m now starting to focus on next year I guess I can finally reflect on the good and bad things about my cycling this year.

Good – I discovered road racing. My first race this year was Hell of North (Utah version). It was a good race I though even though I got tossed off the back I didn’t allow anyone to pass me and held off a late charge.

Bad- I didn’t have one good mountain bike race this year. I knew mountain biking would suffer this year with the focus being LOTOJA, but I didn’t realized that some bad luck/ bad decisions would pay such a big role in the mountain bike racing this year. First at 5 mile pass some idiot was walking along the edge of a high-speed corner and I had to ride into the brush to avoid him causing a couple of guys to pass me on the last lap. Lava was way too hot so I just spun around the course twice. Solitude I should have realized I was overtraining and because I didn’t I ended up suffering at the back of the pack. Jackson started the mechanical issues with the sidewall getting torn, and Evanston I broke my chain.

Good – Proved I could do endurance rides and races. I was happy overall with LOTOJA and felt really good after Kamas to Evanston. The ULCER was a good ride despite the crash, and the training rides I did paid off with knowledge on how to ride for 10 hours straight.

Bad – No cross racing. Being off the bike for the month of October killed any expectation of doing cross this year, I’m still hopeful that I’ll be able to do the season finale on Dec 9, but it’s a pretty low priority.

Good – I had fun this year. Despite all the setbacks, I never got down about training this year and I had fun racing this year which is why I do it.

Next year….

My two main goals are to upgrade to Cat 4 by September and knock 30 minutes off my LOTOJA time from this year.