2011 - A Regained Me

Yes. That's right. It's been over a year and a half since my last post.

No, I didn't crash the bike and lose my typing fingers (well, close...). No, I haven't been without electricity or internet. And most importantly: No, I haven't been doing absolutely nothing therefore having nothing on which to report.

Here's a quick recap since my last post:

2009: Finished the year with 12 bike races, a sprint triathlon, and our second annual Ragnar Relay. Nearly all smaller, local weeknight criteriums, with one local "major" weekend criterium on the 4th of July. Ended up crashing out of two of them, and in a row, no less.

The first was the aforementioned 4th race in Northfield. It was a fast Cat 4/5 race, but I was hanging on quite comfortably to the front group (which consisted of the majority of the field, to be honest). At exactly the halfway point, the guy in front of me hit the brakes for some unknown reason on a left turn and slid out. My panic button went off and I did the same and laid the bike down on its side, with the knuckles on my left fingers landing first. Scraped 'em down to the bone, and got a nice burn going up the forearm filled with road grime. Picked up and rode down to the starting line and asked to be granted my free lap to re-enter, but they suggested I talk to the medical tent instead, so I was pulled. Nothing major except for torn and blood stained bar tape, a few rips to the jersey and bibs and a lot of gauze for a couple weeks...and about a half-size larger ring size, according to my wedding band that can't be taken off my finger...

Took a week off, came back and entered another weeknight local crit. Got tangled in a corner somehow and went down on the left side again. This time was much slower, but ended up falling on the same knuckles and messing them up again, but no additional damage except a bit more fear in corners...and a random tire mark on the top of my helmet.

Finished off the road bike season with my biggest success being winning a prime during my last race, but totally blowing any energy I had left and ending up 13th during the next final lap (but it was a good learning experience).

The sprint tri went very well, finishing third in my age group. So well that I convinced myself to upgrade to the Olympic distance this last summer of 2010. I came into this summer with the most dedication to triathlon training I've ever done, mainly focusing on lengthening my endurance. Ended up finishing 12 out of 17 total (yes, a very small, and honestly disappointing field; something which I hope to help by joining the board of the race organizers for 2011). My swim totally killed me, and I never felt I could recover through the rest of the race. Came out of the water dead last. Swam off track on the out and back course a couple times, and ended up half-assing it by treading/breaststroke for a portion in the middle once I realized I was last anyway. My inability to recover showed most in my 10k run time of almost 56 minutes, whereas I'm usually a sub-50 minute pace. My Time Trial on the bike portion improved from the previous year though, raising my average pace despite riding twice as far. Either way, I came in with soft goals and not really knowing what to expect, and finished with a smile on my face, so it was still very rewarding, fun, and another learning experience.

Ragnar was probably the highlight, enough so that I don't think I'll attempt to write much on it except for the fact that it's, by far, the most fun endurance event I've ever participated in. On a personal side, I ran my 3 legs with an average pace of 7:45 and a total of just over 15 miles. Our same team ran it again in 2010, and I improved to about a 7:30 pace over 17 miles.

2010 didn't allow me to ride any bike races save for one short mountain bike race at Buck Hill in May. Finished 21 out of 71 over a short, but really fast 3.3 mile track on the side of a ski hill.

Since the last post, I've switched jobs twice. From the fall of '09 through this last September I took a position that consisted of regular travel. Was supposed to be 1-2 days a week, but of course it ended up being pretty much twice that on a regular basis. When it was announced that we were going to be asked to solidly be on the road 5 days a week for the next couple months, I pulled the plug and started the new job search, and ended up landing back in the office, with minimal travel, but pulled off an essential promotion at the same time at a smaller company, and I'm extremely happy and ready to get back into a regular training and racing schedule.


Which leads me to my first post of "regained me."

My wife and I had our third child in September 2010. Look back a couple posts, and you will see that is our second child in a year and a half, and our third total. Life, as I ever imagined it, has completely changed yet again. The cliche of "switching from man to zone" when referring to the jump from two to three kids is probably the most accurate I've heard. Currently going on the fourth month of averaging about 5 hours of sleep per night. My wife also ended her 3-month maternity leave a couple weeks ago and is back to working nights. It's a tag-team effort to raise the family, usually working opposite shifts, but we're making it work despite wanting to kill each other on a regular basis. If it weren't for her sacrifice of even more sleep than I during the week while I'm at the office, we'd be paying a double mortgage just to cover day care. This way we can still claim to be a double-income family and still raise a family without daycare.

Yes, it's crazy. Yes, we're delirious with sleep deprivation. But yes, we can still hold regular lives and do some fun things while we're at it.

I won an entry into the Leadville 100 MTB race last year through Lifetime Fitness. I was pumped. Wife was pregnant. Leadville race-day was at 36 weeks of her pregnancy. I fought like hell to convince her it was a good idea for me to drive myself solo to Colorado to climb a mountain on a bicycle while she stayed home with two kids under 4 and at the [clinical] term of her pregnancy. The pregnant woman won the argument, and I went all summer training my arse off only to be left with sending an email to the race organizers to withdraw my entry a couple weeks before the race (I held out to the last minute leaning on what little hope I still had that she might cave and give me her blessing to go play).

So, this huge disappointment was a big turning point for me. After getting over the anger of not going to the race and torturing myself by looking at everyone's pictures from the race on facebook, I decided that it really was the right decision not to go that year. It was bad timing on my part. I needed to realize that the fam comes first. Playing on my bike is just a hobby, and really doesn't mean anything. I shouldn't compromise my family to go ride.

But, this doesn't mean that I can't keep playing or riding. I just need to find different ways to fit it in.

So, I think the turn that my writing is going to take is somewhat related to the topic on which several books have been written. Notably, The Time Crunched Cyclist.

I need to let my hobby grow, but not at my family's expense.

I'm going into 2011 with a different outlook, but still hope to compete back at my 2009 level of activity.

So, here is the basic outline of my 2011 goals:

-Complete one Olympic distance triathlon
-Complete one organized cycling century ride
-Complete 10+ local cycling races
-Complete one marathon

I've got dates set out for most of these, which I'll outline in a later post when I set up an actual racing schedule. The majority of my writing on here will be related to race reports, but I'll also write about an interesting training ride. I'll also use this as a way for me to write about how I'm fitting exercise and racing into life without significantly altering "real" life to accommodate it.

After all, it's just for fun.