No More Cryin'

Hesitation Point, BCSP at sunset last Thursday

I have successfully survived another training cycle, which was capped off with a 14.5 hour week that ended yesterday. Furthermore, today the 50th day in a row that I have successfully followed my training plan. I'm halfway to my arbitrary goal of 100 days, and it's kind of fitting that today is a rest day.

Last week I made reference to my being a drama queen the accumulated fatigue that I was experiencing. I've since realized that I'll soon need to move beyond simply tolerating the fatigue (a new development in itself) to full embracing it. The reason? I am giving serious consideration to entering the Pisgah Mountain Bike Stage Race, which is slated for mid-October.

I have pretty much wanted to do a mountain bike stage race since I learned that such a thing existed just few months after I began racing. At the time, there were no stage races in the United States, and only the La Ruta did not require a partner. This made the dream of stage racing seem really remote and far off.

All of the sudden, there is plethora of stage races available in the United States and Canada, and most of them now offer a solo division. I then considered the possibilty of doing a stage race as soon as 2010, if 2009 went okay, of course.

Then I heard about a relatively affordable four day race East of the Mississippi that I theoretically could do THIS YEAR and I got all excited. They even pay age group prize money, and there aren't a lot of girls who are 29 and under who do endurance mountain bike racing. With nearly six months to prepare, I think I can do this.

A week ago I was feeling pretty confident about my endurance racing goals for 2009. Then I got a little worried about my endurance ride on Saturday. Is there still a chance that I will be too slow to finish the Lumberjack, despite all of my hard work? I'm reminded that, even though the last seven weeks feel like a long time, I really haven't been "working hard" for that long.

I feel a little scared about comitting to something so big with the Lumberjack still looming. However, I know I'll work harder if I have something to work for.