2008 in Review

Bob inspired me to take a look back at 2008. Like Bob, I diligently track all my rides and races and can tell you my total miles, hours, results, etc. The short version is I trained a lot and raced about 50 times. I had some good races and some not so good races. The highlight for me was having Tanner with me at nearly every race.



Best ski season ever - 2007/2008.

Best ski day - Powder Mountain Jan 29th.

Best ICUP races - St. George and Hurricane. I love the warm in the winter.

Best flat of the year - Tanner's dimple on a family ride in Ogden.

Best weekday race series - Solitude. Got to race head to head with Tanner. I beat T by 2 minutes the first week and 8 weeks later, he beat me by 2 minutes. Watching his progress this year was a Dad's dream. I'm now the slow guy in the house.

Best coming-out party - Tanner's dominate win in the first UT Cross race. He put the wood to the B's and put a big target on his back for the rest of the season.

Best non-race ride of the year - the PC perimeter ride with the Porculized crew. T and I only did about half of the epic, but it was a memorable day.

Most fun at Cross Nationals - watching T battle back to a top 20 finish.

Nearly the most fun at Cross Nationals - watching Ali, Sam and Eric finish 2nd, 4th and 13th.

Favorite ritual - weekly loading 4 bikes, a tent, chairs, 2 sets of spare wheels, a trainer and other gear into the Element during cross season.

My best race of the year - finally winning the 45+ State Championship.

My biggest regret of the cycling year was my lack of rides with my extended family. My heavy race schedule just didn't allow many Saturday rides just for fun.

I really do have a life outside of cycling, but mostly limit this blog to cycling topics. However, 2008 reinforced again who fortunate I have such great family and friends and a job that allows me to finance my play. Life is good.

Looking forward to 2009, I'm going to take a different approach to cycling. I've been riding for 20 years and did my first race 10 years ago. For 5 or 6 years, I just did a few MTB races each year. A few years ago, I got "serious" about racing and began training and racing on the road. I decided two years ago to train hard and see what I could do. I began working with Dave Harward and didn't miss a workout for 2 years. The results have been steady improvement and satisfying race results. I've confirmed to myself that I don't have the natural engine to win many races, but I can be competitive.

The downside of "training" is I lost some of the simple joy of riding for riding's sake. By the end of the year, I was getting to the point of "having" to ride rather than "wanting" to ride. At the same time, Tanner's desire to race more seriously has grown. Therefore, I'm passing the training baton to Tanner and going back to just riding. I'll still ride as much and probably race as much. However, I'm planning to lose some structure, ride how I feel and base my race schedule on Tanner's. I won't be chasing series points and hope to do some different events. The only structured training I plan to do is for the Cross season with the goals of defending my State Championship and having a good race at Nationals. In short, I plan to follow the Dr. Cross Negacoach method. My basic nature really likes structure and checking off daily tasks, so this change in philosophy is not a small thing for me. We'll see how I do.