a whole new ballgame.

[off the back at opus. photo; t.c. worley]


so, for me 2007 was an ok year on the bike.
and by "ok", i mean generally pretty crappy, with a few bright spots.

i had some good goals, including qualifying for elite nationals on the track, and maganging to be in the front third of some cat 3 races.

but, my training didn't really go to plan in the off-season.

i raced in the early season with mostly disappointing results.
- dropped and dnf at ken woods.
- dropped, but finished way back at durand.
- dropped in every opus, save one.

and so on.

i wasn't terribly sad though, i knew my first races as a cat 3 would be tough, but i was expecting to be a little stronger.

then i took all of june off, on my european vacation.
that didn't do much for the form...

by august a had raced myself into some mediocre form and was in the front of the square lake race, until the final climb. i rolled in off the peloton for 14th, i think.
i was honestly happy that i even finished the race, let alone was in the field until the last part of the last lap.

i needed top 3's to get into track nats, but with only half-ass form, (and a "motivated" field), i could only muster 5th.
there went that goal.

with the racing miles the form improved a touch, and held through the first part of the cx season and i was pretty happy with some of my results.

so, the big question is; how can i improve for this season.

first off, if you are not keeping track of your riding, you should start.
it is extremely helpful to be able to look back and know exactly what you were doing last year.
then you can pin-point what was missing.

my case is simple. and glaringly obvious.
i just didn't ride enough. and when i did, it wasn't hard enough.

my 2007 pre-season miles are a joke.
i was really busy with getting the lgr team off the ground, and training suffered.
also, when i did get the few miles in that i did, they were lacking intensity. they were just base miles.

now it's 2008, lgr is a fairly well-oiled machine, and things are looking better!

check it out, on the bike time '07 vs. '08:

• year______ 2007._____ 2008.
• _______________________
  
• jan. _____ 7 hours. ____ 33 hours
• feb. _____ 5 hours. ____ 26.5 hours
• mar. ____ 20 hours. ___ 7 hours as of 3/5/08

holy crap.
2007 is embarrassing.

granted i was in the gym alot more last year, but still...

i am predicting a bit of an improvement this year.

we shall see.