Ride Fast, Take Chances

I wanted to post for two reasons: 1) because I need to prove I'm still alive post-Lumberjack, although nothing exciting has happened since 2) there are 15 hours left to vote in my poll, but I've pretty much come to my decision already. However, I see the new helmet option just got a tie-breaker vote sometime this afternoon. I guess I still haven't used my vote yet.

Anyway, I decided on mostly option four (JFR) with the possibility of a new helmet if a make it through some Wednesday Worlds training rides over the next few weeks. That has as much to do with not wanting to be the dork in the visored helmet on the roadie training ride as anything, but whatever. I need to show that I'm actually going to do the ride more than once before I invest, I guess.

I'm at a bit of an impasse regarding my schedule. I entered the Shenandoah 100 months ago, but as the hardest course in the NUE series, I'm having serious self-efficacy issues after this weekend. I'm not saying I will still do it and I'm not saying I won't.

I'm saying that I have three, three-week training blocks, each capped with a DINO race between now and then and I will decide later. The surprising thing is that I when I looked at my calendar and saw this I thought, "Cool, we're just about to hit the fun part of the season." The last two years I've been sort of burned out and jaded by the time the AMBC race rolled around mid-season. This year, I'm really looking forward to it, as well as the last half of the season.

My other realization is that for the first time in forever I'm not coming off bad race thinking I have to start training for the next race. I'm just thinking I need to start training. Period. Not for any specific race, but because I'm sick of being slow. I need to get fast.

I'm the first to encourage myself or anyone else to push their boundaries and attempt races, events, or categories that we're not 100% ready for yet because that's how evolution happens. But as my favorite Vanderkitten socks say: Ride Fast and Take Chances. I'm really good at taking chances (to the point of stupidity sometimes), but I need to work on the riding fast. Playing the martyr gets old after a while.

I've spent 2 1/2 years planning what I'll do when I outgrow local Indiana racing, but the fact of the matter is that I'm still very far from it. The competition is a lot stronger and deeper than it was when I first started racing. I need to take care of first things first.

So we'll see how the coming weeks shake out. I would really love still be able to to knock out my first hundred-miler in 2008 and I totally want to ring the gong at the Shenandoah, but I also want to be reasonable in my pursuit. I may have to get my hundred during 24 hours of DINO in late September, even if there's no gong or glory. I may even have to wait until next season.

For now, I've got one more easy day of riding and then I'm taking a crack at Wednesday Worlds. I'll worry about the rest of the week's workouts (and the rest of the summer) after that.