From One Season to Another

I'm feeling pretty good about the cycling season of 2008.  The idea that popped up somewhere along the way was to complete 30 mountain bike races to commemorate my 30th year... therefore setting myself up for meeting the internal call of duty when I turn 40. 

 

The final tally was 31 mountain bike races, plus the provincial road race (DNF) and a couple of cyclocross races.  The majority of the racing was accrued through stage races, with the final breakout as follows: the ABA circuit (13), BC Bike Race (7), TransRockies (7) and La Ruta (4). 

 

I look back to each of these with fond memories... the dark first few days of BCBR with Jon lending both forward momentum and moral support, the days clinging to threads of my endurance watching Craig's engineroom dish out the power at TransRockies, and the whole range of stories that comprise the Calgary contingent's La Ruta expedition.  The experience of this season was fantastic all around, although as I mentioned earlier, I drifted further from my self expectation needle somewhere part way through the season.  I don't really regret that, this "little financial and global economic meltdown" thing has tugged at my mind a little these days. 

 

I'm looking to come a notch or so closer to my self expectation level next year with any luck... we'll see how busy the spring shapes up to be.  Having said that, cycling is pretty simple in terms of input variables, being mass and power output. 

 

The power output I can sustain hasn't really changed much in the years I've concentrated on cycling, although it does have a few percentage points of range.  The duration and repeatability of efforts are the variables I've had most success in extending.  I don't feel the need for any sort of overloaded intensity through the winter (the J-O-B brings enough of that), but I've generally figured out how not to let base fitness erode too much, such that I'm decently setup for when the snow melts to build it back.

 

On the mass side, I raced La Ruta '08 at the heaviest I've been in 3 years... not an event that is forgiving to additional weight... it's as much climbing in as short a period of time as I've ever experienced on a bike.  The idea this winter is to exorcise (or is that just exercise?) these man-muffin-tops from myself.  Let's hope that works out; adding weight to myself 3 years running certainly isn't helping the riding performance.