This is a melancholy time for me. I love fall; I think most people that sweat a lot in the heat of summer prefer fall. No more being drenched in perspiration after a ride, white salt marks on the black shorts, mounds of wet bike clothes that seem to move on their own while waiting to make a load.
No, I don't miss that. The cool morning breezes, just cool enough to need the arm warmers, but legs still bare in the breeze, the clean smell of rotting leaves, the muted colors that the morning mist paints the Iowa countryside, these are the things that push me out of bed in the morning and get me on the bike in the fall.
The sadness comes from the season already lived. Miles cycled, goals met or unmet. All verbs in the past tense. It's hard to look forward now, over the hump of winter, into the next future tense of my cycling career. Of course, the miles I ride now are for that future, but I'm looking behind now, at the season past.
My main goal, moving to category 3 was met about a month ago. Kind of anti-climatic. I was looking at three more races, two category 3/4 crits in the Chicago area and a finale in Pella as a 3. One morning at the computer, it seemed like a good time to construct my race resume and send it off to UsaCycling for approval to cat up. Sent it in at 11:30 and by 12:05 I was a 3. Like I said, anti-climatic. At 12:10 I went and made myself a sandwich.
I podiumed once this year, at Wheels on Willy, coming within inches of winning. At Kenosha's Superweek race, I had a 5th and was within a bike length of winning again. After that, a bunch of top tens and three 11ths. Why 11th? I crashed once this year (in a race), at Eagle Point in the crit that I direct. Very disappointing as I should have done better. Again dissapointing in a way is my 15th overall at Superweek as a 4. Not bad for starting the series with a flu bug, but still was aiming for a top ten or higher overall.
The racing portion of my season seems like a season of 'could have' and 'should have', but the first 3000 miles spent in France was life-changing. A sea-change in my approach to the sport. The miles put in there provided a long aerobic base to draw from during the rest of the year. I didn't really come down until a couple of weeks ago, when fatigue started to settle in the legs and there was no more 'pop' for the sudden sprints in the Pella crit.
Next year I'll need to take a bit of recovery after the early part of the season before building up again for Superweek. I plan on skiing this year again, but I think that there will be more emphasis on getting miles in on the bike as well to get ready for a steady diet of interval work in March.
So, here's to the off-season and an indian summer stretching to Christmas!
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