Looking Back

So I was having a bit of mid season burn out the past couple of weeks. I’ve been somewhat unhappy with my results, yes I know shut up. How can anyone bitch about going from cat 4 to having there points for cat 2 in 4 months of racing? Well simple, after spending upwards of 28 hours a week on the bike, never missing a day of training, taking a night job, pushing away all my friends, maxing out the credit cards , and giving up any chances of getting a date, I was hoping to be untouchable.
The season started out ok but quickly seemed to not be what I was hoping it would be. I mean you see these guys in the 1/2 fields riding solo for 50 miles, and I can’t even hold off the cat 3’s. I’ve always been the type of person that gives up if I don’t see myself winning. I know it’s a shit way to be but it’s me. Its why I bitched out of the hill climb, I didn’t want to get second.
Well my attitude started changing over the past week or so. I think it was actually after I flatted at TOWC. I just went into the crit angry, its hard to explain but I just didn’t care how I did. I was just going to go hard, I didn’t give two shits if I place or even finished but I was going to make people hurt. Well I don’t know if I made anyone hurt but I rode strong and actually placed higher than I had before in a crit (cat 3) and picked up a prime.
Last weekend I fell somewhere in the middle, I rode my ass off in the RR but still gave up because I didn’t think I was going to win it. Sunday however I just rode my ass off and crashed but had an absolute blast. So I’m thinking that I’m probably just going to go into races with no expectation of placing but expecting to go as hard as I can and finishing ( flats, crashes excluded).
I know no one noticed me when I was just sitting in the field conserving energy and getting slower. But now that I’m riding my dick off (RYDO) it seems that people are starting to take notice, and I seem to be getting faster. I just think I’ve done a whole lot of work not to be winning.
Ah but this is when I take a look at how far I’ve come. Last year I did the Reston race 3/4 and was just hanging on and thought that it was one of the hardest races I had ever done, this year I was one of the aggressive ones in the race and it felt easy. So maybe I should stop my bitching and look at how far I have come and just realize that I still have room to grow. But if I’m not soloing a race in 2 years there will be some good deals on 52cm bikes I can tell you that.
And all my sacrificing hasn’t been in vain, I love my night job, I’ve made new friends, almost paid off the credit cards, hell I even got a date out of it, but I’m still not untouchable..