This season started with a bang and ended with... well.... nothing.
My last race was Long Meadow on Aug. 11. I was planning to do a race two weeks after that but an eye infection stopped that plan. I had another race planned for this weekend, but it was delayed into October. There are other races I could do, but to be honest, I'm ready for the break. So I did my last race of the season without knowing it would be.
One of the benefits of hitting all my goals early in the year is that it's not bothering me. I crushed my goal of a 40K in under an hour and I surpassed any performance goals I could have dreamed of. Out 11 races this year, I won 3 and got second place in 3. I'd call that a spectacular year. It also sets the bar for next year :-)
Mentally, was ready for the season to end. Doing 11 races over 5 months, most of them at least a 90 minute drive and several of them overnight hotel stays, it was a lot of travel. I have a hard time treating any race like a "training race", so every race week I'm taking a few easy days to rest up for the race, which really throws a wrench into my training. With races every week to every other week, it felt like I was constantly tapering for the next event or recovering from the last event and not really training.
With the season over, I'm going to spend the next 5 weeks (until we go on vacation) riding how and when I feel like it. That's not to say that I'll ride less, just that I won't be structuring my workouts around certain goals or planning them out in advance. I'll just ride and see what happens.
My fitness is a bit of a mess. I'm strong in 20 to 40 minute time
trials, but I have no endurance, no sprint, and no anaerobic capacity.
I'm looking forward to getting a little more balance in the coming
weeks. Oh, and maybe a few Strava KOMs that I lost but didn't bother getting back during the season ;-)
I do have one other little goal related to training volume, but I'll go into that more in a later post. Let's just say that this year has been the highest training volume I've ever had and I'm getting close to a nice big round number.
I've started loosely looking back at the year to see what I did well and what I should take a look at changing for next year, whether it's training, event selection, race tactics, or travel logistics. I'll post some of the results of my analysis as I get around to it.
