Well, my first race of the season is but a day away. Albeit simply a "training" race it is a race nonetheless and I am not sure how I will fare. I honestly have to admit that I do not have very high expectations going into this race as my training has been no where near the level that I would have liked it to be. I gave in much too easily to the minor bouts of illness and numerous other "excuses" over the past few months. With all that being said I feel that I am in much better shape now than I have been for the past several years and am anxious to see how it plays out over the course of the season. Rightly or wrongly I am planning on hitting it especially hard in the coming weeks to "get ready" for the start of the real season on the 5th of April at the Tour of Walkersville followed by the 6th of April at the Tysons Crit.
I am truly hoping that my history plays out in my favor as I have NEVER been one to prepare ahead of time for an event, this includes rehearsing before speeches/presentations, studying for exams, warming up on the range before a round, etc. etc. etc and have always fared quite well. I seem to operate better on the fly and often feel that I would leave my best on the practice field and not have it at game time. Something tells me that this will not apply to cycling, but we shall see. If it doesn't work I will simply head back to the drawing board, find a source of motivation from somewhere, and hit the second half of the season with a fury.
I am partially guessing that a little dose of the motivation that I will need will be coming in late April when I head over to the Netherlands and Belgium for some riding and to catch some of the Classics (Amstel Gold Race and Fleche-Wallonne). I rode the motivation from watching a couple of stages of the 2005 Tour de France in the French Alps (mostly around Galibier) into an interest in cycling and getting my ass into shape.
Starting a cycling career at 39 (hitting 41 at the end of the month) isn't the way to go and I have very little expectations in terms of results. I just want to have a good time, mix it up a little, and hopefully help a teammate along the way.
It all starts tomorrow.
Later
Mur de Huy
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Good luck you slacker. I am like a nerd which I was not in school who has been studying for months.
Jeff -
I'm with you. I crammed before exams, wrote papers as they were due and this has translated over to my cycling "career" (e.g., forgetting a jersey at Giro di Coppi, arriving with no time to warm up at the Chantilly Crit). We need to change. Preparation is key. Shall we start a support group?
Fish
Post a Comment