Friday, March 22, 2013

Stream of Consciousness on a slow Friday at work.

I'm really excited to race my bicycle against other people on bicycles.

This year i started "training" about a month earlier than normal and i can really feel it. Not so much in my ability but in that fact that i've only raced twice so far and it feels like i've been riding my bike forever.

I hope i dont burn out this year.

If i do burn out i can take a few weeks off and then hit cross hard.

I hope im good for cross, i keep telling Dave im going to kick his a** and im only half joking when i say that.

okay, i'm 3/4 joking and 1/4 serious.

But cross is six months away, right now im excited to be on my road bike. And my mountain bike.

Maybe this year ill get my mountain bike the way i really want it. it's totally awesome as is, full carbon with a great wheel set and other bells and whistles, but there are a few small tweeks preventing it from feeling like "mine". still looking for those perfect handlebars and i'm not sold in grip shifts.

The same could be said for my road bike. New handlebars and a new saddle, like this one, would be nice.

i'm so horrible at gear and bike maintenance. im only interested in that stuff when im actually pedaling, as soon as i get home i've forgotten all about it.

New goal, have the mountain bike the way i want it by Bone Bender and the road bike the way i want it by Snake Alley.

The weather sure is crappy right now. i was planning on spring fling tomorrow and the marathon mountain bike race at gods country on Sunday (the marathon field is huge!) but it looks like weather will cancel both of those.

I wonder if i can get in a total of 7 hrs between today and sunday? That would make this week my biggest week so far this year in terms of hours in the saddle.

Im hungry.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Oh im stressed (said in my best Seinfeld doing Kramer voice)

It's been over two weeks since I've posted. I've had stuff to write about (im the 2013 Street Cred champion! First race of 2013 at Spring Fling) but no time to do it.

What's got me stressed?

X and i are trying to buy a house.

I don't know much about this but apparently it was a buyers market for a while, but now, all the sudden, it's a sellers market. We've been out bid twice and each time the home went for $10,000 to $20,000 over asking. And these houses (the good ones at least) are selling within one to two days of going on the market. So for the past 6 weeks I've been like a doctor always on call and rushing off to see houses before someone else gets claims them.

It's stressful.

It's fun to imagine owning a home. to imagine how your going to set it up. to imagine the extra space. to imagine being settled and starting a family. but it's not fun to run all over town to find this magical home.

All of this is really testing my will to ride. this past week i was aiming for 9 to 10 hours and got 5.5, but that was particularly bad. X and i went out Friday and Saturday and we're getting two old for back to back nights like that. but when life is stressful you need to go burn off steam, then after that you're too hungover and tired to ride, that's how it happens. i've been training seriously for about 9 weeks now and i've averaged 7.5 hours a week. that's about three hours less than i hoped for. That 7.5 number is about what i always average and for a married guy who works 40 hours a week i think it's pretty good, but i came into this year really motivated. I felt like i finally understood what it would take to raise my game. unfortunately real life strikes again so im trying to stay positive and pedal when i can. I did start training earlier than normal so that should help. I really want to reach (as in earn it) cat 3 on the road.

Warmer spring weather and more sunlight should be a boost.

Hopefully the same goes for X. She may have actually forgotten how to ride a bike.

I had to write this winy post in order to get it out of my system. This blog can be therapeutic. expressing my feelings.

p.s. i will be posting about my street cred victory. I dominated that S*it!!!