The year is over: 1 of 3

Holy smokes, the year is over! If you’re anything like me, you taking a deep breath right about now and trying to take it all in. But it’s a lot to process in one go but the off season is the most fitting time to do so as I’ll be taking a break from serious training for a few weeks.

But first things first! I promised an explanation about regionals.

To keep it short, the big issue was school. With this last semester coming to a close right around the same time as regionals and my class schedule full of tough classes, I was feeling the heat to finish strong in school. When it all came down to it, I had big deadlines on Monday and trying to race and get everything done was impossible. Not the kind of decisions you like to make as a bike racer, but 2 races were not worth an F.

I was worried about just passing these classes and I worked like my degree depended on it. The all nighters started mid-way through the previous week, and continued through the weekend. 2 hours of sleep here and there, but it was painful. Most of the work was focused on one class, my senior design class. But the other classes had their fair share of work which I knocked out one by one. Come that Monday, and the following Wednesday where we presented everything, the pressure was off. I’ll spare you the details as we fast forward to that Thursday

Thursday night was the presentation of awards. My group partner and I were not expecting anything and simply showed up because we had to and for one last chance to hang out without all the pressure. The award ceremony began with the usual speeches from the incredibly intelligent processors and administrators of the class who had important advice for us. But as we were all still heavily sleep deprived we didn’t car a whole lot. And as things moved onto the awards, we sat as the other teams were called up. The first ones received participation recognition which we assumed all groups would get. But with three groups remaining, the next group called up was given the viewer’s choice award. Something was going on here, and we like it. The next group was called up to receive second place. This left us, and we were called up to receive first place! The excitement began with pure disbelief. We quickly realized that it was no joke. It was big chunk of change to go towards tuition and a big help. Thanks to the university for the opportunity, and thanks to my friends and family for helping me through the tough push to finish it up.

With the semester over, it was just train, train, and train for 4 weeks to get ready for nationals. The training was good, but it took me a few days to get out of the rhythm school had me in especially with sleep. But after a few days off and lots of sleep, it felt something I had been missing for a long time, motivation and determination. It’s hard to say I made gains over the period, but I would hate to think of what I might have felt like without that break and those couple weeks of hard training. The last goal before Nationals was New Year’s Resolution in Chicago. My hope was for some more UCI points, to give my UCI stand some more dimensions. With only getting points at Jingle CX, the pressure is on to get more before those points expire.

The weekend started off in a less than favorable way. With the forecast a little uncertain coming into Saturday’s race, anything was possible. But with the women lining up it looked like it would be fast and a little icy. As the women lined up, the snow began to fall, and my concentration fell too. I don’t like to make excuses, but the start was poor as I couldn’t clip in because there was snow clogging up my pedals and shoes. It was just the first little issue in a long list that led to a disappointing result at the end of the day. I just wasn’t riding hard, and I wasn’t suffering like I needed too. Plus I couldn’t keep the rubber side down. I am thankful for the race, because I learned a lot. But you never like to learn lessons the “hard” way. Sunday was much better as I was able to place 15^th. Not what I was hoping for, but the field was stacked and I was a little tired. The big take away from the weekend was race preparation. You need to make sure all those little details are taken care of, but you don’t want to let them stress you out and keep you from enjoying the race.

To keep things short, I'm splitting this post up. Check back soon for part 2 of 3!