Purse Strings

A tight budget for the next couple of months has married with a healthy dose of burnout to bring about my decision to can the remainder of my road season.

I have trained hard. I have raced plenty. As of yesterday, there were four races remaining that my schedule and logistical constraints would have allowed me to make it to through the month of August.

I'm tired and I need to recuperate for a bit, so I just decided to can it despite this technically being my "best race shape of the year according to the calendar."

To be honest, it's less physically exhaustion that has me down. My body feels good. It's more being mentally drained. Giving up weekend after weekend after weekend. And even the week itself (since March) has been centered around that weekend's race--

Recover on Monday. Go hard Tuesday. Don't do much on Friday.

I need a small change of pace. I need a return to gym lifting and a shift away from road racing. I need to not think about racing my bike for awhile and think about finishing school, finding a job, and doing what I can to reclaim some sanity and relieve some stress.

In total, I have done 28 races this year--this includes USCF and Collegiate criteriums , road races, and time trials. In addition to 5 "practice" criteriums with the fast guys.

My results were not the most impressive, but I'm okay with that. I aimed high this year and I maybe fell a little short. But in the big picture, things progressed nicely. Last year, I didn't finish a race with the pack. This year, I had 4 top 10's in crits, one of them being a top 5. My team also won two team time trials. I feel as though I rode solid (if a little squeamish in scary races) all season and am still 1) continuing to improve and 2) motivated to continue to improve.

So, not a bust. My biggest goal was to get an upgrade this year. I missed the points requirement (sufficient top 7 finishes) by a long shot. I'll probably still request one for next season just based on experience in pack racing so that I can get out of beginner races and ride with folks that corner confidently at high speed. But we'll see. It will be completely up to the discretion of race officials.

So that's that. Initially I was bummed about making the call. But now that the call has been made, I have mentally committed to it and enjoyed my first stress free weekend in quite some time.

Shifting gears a little now, with the same big picture goals in mind.

The next few months bring a shift toward more base and muscle endurance/time trial style training, rekindling my relationship with the squat rack, and getting my sprint legs for cyclocross in the fall.