Sep 18 2008
Spent the past few days getting things back in order; mentally, physically, and mechanically. Saturday’s race was a little like taking a rather large band-aid off. I wasn’t sure how bad it would hurt (it did) but it needed to be done.
With a few days to let it all sink in, I’m left with a little sore and irritable feeling from it all. That wasn’t my best race. It’s fair to say that it was arguably one of my worst. I didn’t plan on doing that well. I had a fairly heavy training load the past few weeks so my legs weren’t that sharp. That’s ok. I have my focus further on down in November and December.
But I didn’t anticipate letting myself get mentally beat down. That stings a bit more.
I took a step back and looked at my plan for the rest of the season. Fitness-wise, I don’t feel that far off, which is good. Aside from focusing and making every workout count, there’s not much more I can do. I can’t train that much more than I already am. My bike handling needs serious attention. I need to dedicate more time towards dismounting/remounting and cornering drills. I’m not going to win a race with good skills but I sure as shit will lose time without them.
I shouldn’t be worried. It’s still September and there’s plenty of racing left this year. Other than showing up and being ready to race, nothing happened last Saturday that concerned me that much. I’m confident that I’ll get some decent results later on.
I think the first few cross races are all about getting the bugs out. That is why I did the Krugers races, shake all the cob webs out of the bike in racing mode. The key is you did not bail out when things were not looking good. See you at Barlow. About 1 mile from home!!
Exactly. I left myself with a couple early races to do just that. I hope to have a smoother race this weekend at Barlow. I’ll be a little bit more rested, new tubulars glued up, and probably in a better frame of mind.
Nice finish at Starcrossed.