2013: The Beginning

Now is that interesting time of year as an endurance athlete. The race season is long since passed. You've taken time off, lost fitness, gained 'too much' weight, and let the mind wander. The 'off-season' was a haphazard compilation of fun riding, no riding, frustrating riding, and dreams of lots of riding. It was also a time to catch up on things that were but a figment of the imagination in the sweet-spot of summer racing and training: beer, late nights, that extra couple hours of doing something for no reason...essentially what everyone I know calls "life" or "fun". Aside from the extra time spent with friends -whether it is spent going out to dinner at 9PM or sitting at home catching up - I have few qualms with the dissipation of such things. This past week was the culmination of apathy for the structure and intensity by which I normally construct my training and general life planning. I had a hell of a lot of fun, saw many good friends (I'd like to 'give thanks' to the holiday bringing so many great people back home), indulged in good food and libations, and really let my training fall from a priority to a daily supplement. I ran in a race and played football the day after - two things I know make my body recoil in soreness...from Thursday through Saturday, I actually had to hold the railing while going down stairs. I went out to the bahhhsss with friends three times this week and shockingly enjoyed every bit of it (except almost falling asleep Saturday night!).

Some would think that these things signify that I am far from being prepared to re-enter training, or that it was such a "detox" that I will struggle to maintain focus upon an abrupt return to my daily toil. Neither of these are true. This ability to detach is critical in understanding the importance of every day's work and still being able to maintain focus on goals that are months or years away. Without an ability to step away from every minor detail, we lose sight of the entire picture. That doesn't mean that if a workout goes poorly then nothing matters or if a workout goes uncharacteristically well that all is perfect. It means you step away, understand the outcome, and grow. It's the beauty we experience as dedicated athletes while training: we wake up every single day knowing, not thinking, that we are better than we were yesterday. It's not always physical improvements though; every day offers different types and magnitudes of growth.

Today marks the day that I officially step into my training for 2013 and beyond (because what I do next season is more relevant to my future than the present). I am taking a variety of critical steps in improving my health, fitness, guidance, emotional strength, and my surroundings - both on and off the bike.

I leave you with something I saw this morning and see every morning when I wake up:

It is time to not only slowly 'return to glory', but to lay the foundation of the rest of my life. It would be foolish and simplistic to say that all this training is only for benefiting my future in cycling or even sport in general. Unlike many others, I do not carry the hope or idea that 2013 will 'go beyond my wildest dreams'. Thus, here is to 2013 reflecting the work, the dedication, the persistence that will lay a foundation of growth and fulfillment for years to come.

Inadventent Reflection: Looking Back to June

It's interesting to look back on your thoughts from months ago, when things go entirely different than you ever anticipated. Well, here's a fine example of that. I wrote this on Tuesday morning, June 26th, 2012 - the day of the Exeter Crit. When I wrote this up planning to put myself in great position for the finish as I did at Keith Berger on Sunday the 24th. It was great - my positioning could have been slightly better...going into the sprint I was in 7th, but too far back on the top three to get up there. I was already into 6th place, and was next to a younger rider - he was about 3 feet to my left so I had a real clean lane - when out of nowhere someone completely cleaned out my front wheel. He came from behind me and on my right side, where no one was when I started the sprint so I was focused forward and to the left - working to pick off a couple final guys. Had my acceleration been typical to me, I would've given a really great battle for 4th place. But that was long gone when I hit the ground at a touch over 38 miles per hour. It would have been my best ever race. Even if I ended up in 5th, it would've outweighed anything: 2nd at Washington County GC, Winning the 4/5 Witches' Cup, controlling an entire crit - placing in all 3 primes and 2nd in the finish. Would've put all those to shame. But some ignorant and foolish rider took me out...I could never find a video of the finish to figure out who did it, because I didn't see a damn thing when it happened.

So here I am, almost 5 months later, and nothing for the rest of summer went according to plan. Actually, it went quite a lot worse. I did a few smaller races, but never returned to the fitness I had back in June. I've flat out missed over 4 whole weeks training since that crash (only a few days due to injury). I probably missed 4 weeks in the previous 4 years. I'm getting back into riding consistently...not feeling perfect, but much better is for sure. After this weekend I'll be into my 2013 training and getting set to run my 24 Miler birthday run in January.

Here's my write-up that was from June 26th...which was effectively the end of my 2012 season:

Title: Self-punishment to yield self-benefit

"Everyone knows that in order to grow you need to challenge yourself and work your ass off, sometimes to a point that is seemingly beyond your capacity (but really you just learn that your capabilities are greater than you ever imagined). That's what cycling has been to me. Ever since I really started racing bike last spring and declared myself a cyclist a year ago, I have been growing so fast my only rationalization of it is to soak up every bit of it. For a while I just accepted it and loved it, as naturally as anyone would. But a couple months ago, when I was a Category 4 racer and I wanted to race Green Mountain Stage Race as a Cat 2, I realized that accepting improvement was not nearly enough anymore. I was going to have to embrace every little component of cycling in order to grow as I needed for myself: making sure my body position is stable and smooth, knowing how to race and not merely racing, knowing every last strength extremely well...and knowing my weaknesses even more, and on and on. There is a theme in cycling when it comes to getting better: knowledge is absolute power.

A teammate and good friend, Jeff, has been guiding me through this process and with excellent effectiveness. He might know my capabilities - both intellectual and physical - even more than I do. I am slowing gaining progress on learning how to race well, something that is borderline subconscious for Jeff after his years of high level racing. It is extremely hard to learn to race when your focus is jumping categories quickly. When you upgrade really quickly you don't have time to test yourself with attacks, bold moves, igniting a breakaway, and drilling the hills so hard you think you're going to explode (with the hopes that everyone is even worse off than you by the summit). You learn to race just smart enough and just strong enough to ensure those upgrade points keep coming - but by doing this you merely learn to race in a comfort zone that results in...well...a result, regardless of how good or bad it is. You get many top 10's and not so many wins, where a couple more months in the category would yield big wins. Along the way you're bound to get a W here or there but while your focus is winning, the strategy is getting yourself to the next level. In order to ensure this, you sacrifice a little bit of that top end of the potential that is needed to yield a win.

Now that I am Category 2, something I desired to complete at the end of the season, it is an entirely different sport. I was beautifully positioned on Sunday at the Keith Berger Crit for at very worst a top 10 (my head was 100% on a top 5 as we went down the back straightaway), and it fell apart in milliseconds. And I couldn't do a damn thing about it. All of Monday I was struggling to focus on anything else, I wanted to find where I failed to adapt to the situation and give myself the edge above everyone else. I couldn't find it. I was ready to give an amazing effort at a top finish, and it disappeared in front of me and I was hopeless in doing so. As much as I hate failing at a goal because I made a mistake, I learn so much from these things: I have had few situations in which I made an error that was fatal to my finish. At the Nutmeg crit, I foolishly went on a massive bridging effort and then breakaway for half of the race. I got sucked back into the pack despite trying to stay away. I recovered enough for a 4th place in the end. No longer will I get such chances, every little thing you do to waste energy will cut you down in the finish. If that wasn't enough, the guys I am racing for cash and upgrade points are amazing atheltes. They are guys who write off people like me as 'not worth the worry' and cruise seemingly effortlessly to victory."

It was interesting reading this after going back through past drafted, but not posted blogs. I think that should be the key reason many people write their own diaries (whether public or private), so you can put yourself back in time to when you wrote it.

It's nice to see a little flicker of the excitement I had within me back in such prime fitness this summer (even though I wasn't even close to where I could have ended up in 2012). That excitement about my current fitness is no longer there, but it is not a bad thing as I know I am sitting in what I would like to describe, mathematically, as a 'local minimum'. Not sure if that has ever been used in actual endurance sport terminology, but here is my definition: The time point that signifies the lowest fitness on a periodic or seasonal  scale.

My excitement about my fitness may no longer be present, but it has been replaced by the raging fire that will ensure great levels of improvement.

Cycling Bars: The Making of a Double Batch!

So, you like the cycling bars, right? Well I like them a LOT, and go through so many of them that I needed to make a double batch. I'm going to figure out the cost of a batch & per bar once I remember to save all my receipts!

The Making of a Double Batch! :)

Big bowl, lots of yummy.

Mix it up good! Once that binder is in, not much is going to change.

Put the binders in, and heat it up!

Continually stir, once it bubbles like this (or has big bubbles in the middle) you're ready to pour! If you're keen, you may have notice I switched where I was heating it...I went to gas - if you do this it is really easy to burn the mixture, and agave nectar + almond butter is not cheap!

A good trick is to pour some then mix, then pour more, etc until you have empty the pot. It makes mixing much easier and a lot smoother and, most of all, more even. The bigger the batch, the more critical it is to do this - such as tonight's double batch!

That would be a 17.5"x11" pan and is about 1" deep. Lots of bars.

I had some extra from the big bowl, so I made some Power Balls. Some sports require one ball, cycling requires a lot of them.
One critical note: the balls do not hold together well, you need more heavy binder (almond butter, etc) for them to actually hold shape well. These were pretty fragile!

Just wanted to give y'all a little foodie goodness!

Wrapping up the CX Season (a while ago)

2012 was my first year doing CX and I was far worse at it than I thought I would be. I was force-upgraded to Cat 3 in CX thanks to me Cat 2 on Road. This concept works great for people who have some history in cycling (junior, MTB, etc), but not for those of us who have been seriously riding for less than 2 years and the most off-road experience was Battenkill - that one time on dirt (okay, I have probably ridden about 80 miles on dirt out of my 13,000 total). Needless to say, I was unprepared...and the fact that my forte (pronounced fort!) is strength just made it exponentially worse because I'd try to go hard, and I'd end up going down hard.

I was committed to doing "well" in the Cat 3 races: by that I mean a top-half finish and having fun/learning. Well, I was having too much trouble with the techy stuff in races to be able to settle down and follow people's lines and work on my own learning how to take/find lines. After a series of very frustrating races that left me without much improvement by means of skills or enjoyment, I downgraded to Cat 4. In the Cat 4 races I was actually able to emotionally (not physically :P) relax and learn. I even had fun in little bits of 5-10 seconds at a time. The only part of cyclocross I really liked was being redlined constantly...it was the only comfort I found in races. However, normally when I'm redlined most everyone else is in the hurt box with me - CX is different...WAY different. Everyone is going "wicked hahhhhhdd!", just some people turn their bikes well and wicked hard = wicked fast. Whereas for me, sometimes the harder I went the slower I ended up going. I accepted things weren't going to be pretty and might not get pretty for the season (spoiler alert: they didn't, but they got a bit better).

So my CX season is long since past, but it was fun and deserves a little blog attention. In other news, today was the One Year "anniversary" of breaking my clavicle! Feels like it's been far longer though. I did a sprint on the exact same place where I crashed (read here: http://pursuingglory.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-first-crash-32mph.html). It went well, hopefully I get a little redemption in the Doppio Ciclo on Saturday, as I was unable to participate with my fresh injury last year. It'll be my last 'race' with Base36, which is both bad and good. The guys on Base36 welcomed me as a newbie to the sport last year when I didn't even understand bike racing...I just could ride. Now, I leave the team having grown quite a lot - through wins, losses, crashes, injuries, bad moves gone good, great moves gone bad, and everything else in between. The progress I have made is massive, I'm very happy with myself - but I'm not at all surprised given the atmosphere and guidance I had from so many people, especially Jeff. My first "race" as a Base36 rider was a local crit where I attacked off the front going into the last (1.3 mile) lap. I got caught with 250m to go and only managed 7th place. In a couple Pro123 races this summer I positioned myself to be sprinting for a top 5 finish - neither of which worked out due to a crash in front of me one time and being crashed out another. But nevertheless, knowing you are right there and ready to place in a pro race is a huge thing. Getting yourself in position is 90% of the battle. I have no doubts that very early next year that last 10% of the battle won't blow up in the final seconds of a race. It's been a while since I really thought about seeing the white line and watching the my front wheel eclipse it. Feels like an out of body experience, but I'm excited to be reunited.

Next post: 2013 Team and thoughts on the upcoming winter training season.