End of the Season

I rode my last time trial at Cleves last Tuesday. I'll miss the last one this upcoming Tuesday and missed two others, one in July and one in August. All in all, I think rode 18 at Cleves, one in Dayton, states, nationals, and a few others. Thats a lot of high intensity efforts over a 5-6 month span.

Going into the season I had three main goals: win the state tt in the 45-49; place in the top 15 at nationals, and set a PR at Cleves. I reached the first two but came up 15 seconds short at Cleves. With so many attempts, I can't be disappointed. Some years its just doesn't happen. My average speed on that course compared to 2009, my fastest year, was just .06 slower. My top three fastest times averaged were about 8 seconds different. So while 09 had some really fast times, it appears that in '10 I was maybe a little more consistent. Given the duties that come with managing the event and having to ride about 90 minutes earlier, I'm pretty happy with the results. To e another year older (48) and no slower is fine with me.

I head to Gatlinburg tomorrow with Dan Waite, by bike. We'll then do some riding around the TN/NC area for the rest of the week. After that I'll use OCtober and most of November for nothing but easy rides, mental and physical recovery and getting back into the gym a little more. I've logged almost 10,000 miles so far this year with 14 centuries, with two days above 140 miles starting tomorrow. Its been a challenging year of racing and training but the work I did with Dawn at Sports Nutrition to Go, Barbara at the Center of Human Performance and Hoyt at CTS has helped immensely. Its all about pacing yourself, proper recovery, maintaining focus, and training hard at the right times.