For better or worse, it's been one hell of a year

I’ve finally had the will and the time took look back on the past year and how it’s been. So much has changed since the start of the year. Have you ever looked back on old times and not even recognized the person you were in those memories? That’s a bit trippy I’ll admit, but that’s how it feels for me right now. But then again I’ve kept making the same mistakes, so I guess I haven’t changed that much, for better or worse.

The big positive is definitely the riding. I don’t know if I really made the leaps in racing I was hoping to make. One thing I know for sure is that my entire mind set has changed, and so have my legs. I went from doing 200 watts average to 250 watts average on my hard rides. I have even had some crits with powers over 300! I’d be silly to really think that all that was stronger legs though. Some of it is from learning how to suffer. There’s a difference between going hard and going deep. So it’s good to know that when I go deep, there is a lot of power in these legs.

But as far as racing goes, my results while good could be better. I had a lot of opportunities to win races where I just let it go. Melon city, a few collegiate races and most recently at New Year’s. Those races are hard to live down for me. Most people get down when they have bad legs or crash. I know those things happen, and while you can stop it, nobody’s perfect. But to have no one between you and the finish line is something special and it kills me when I mentally can’t pull through. This happened to me way too much this year.

I also am amazed at how I didn’t see some of the bad things coming. In retrospect it’s easy I guess, but still. After re-reading some of my earlier post, I literally would say I don’t think I’m going to do well here, and then I seemed surprised later when I failed. That’s got to stop. I need plan better than that. I’ve had this sense of urgency in the last year because I feel like I’m getting too old to race bike professionally. I’ve been putting everything into it, and it’s bit me in the ass. Even though I was one of the people who were balancing school and racing, plus work, looking back I don’t know how I dealt with it all. Actually I do know how, I did poorly in everything just to get by. Not the way I want to live. It’s time to start looking for quality, not quantity.

So I have started working on next year, and there are a lot of changes coming for me this year as well, hopefully I can grow up a little more because I need it. I’d like to think I’ve got this whole life thing figured out, but I distinctly remember saying that before, and I was wrong. I think J-pow said it best. Everyone is human, and we all make mistakes. The best thing you can do is to wake up every morning and try as hard as you can. I’d like to add on to that with work smart and work hard. Hopefully 2012 is full both those and some success. I’ll take the little victories, but I want to succeed at something that matters.

I wish everyone the best of luck in 2012.