Doing things a little different for 2012

This year: no coach, no rigid structure, no staring at tiny screens just hoping it will finally display that magical number, just fluidity.

This past cx season I noticed that I was able to train at a higher level without focusing on the numbers.  Instead, I based everything on feel.  Maybe this was stupid and foolish but I feel it left me in a better place physically and, more importantly, mentally.  The few times I did hop on a road bike and actually measure power during cx season I was blown away by the quality of the workouts I'd been doing.  I'd never been able to hit some of those numbers on the road but somehow I was hitting and exceeding them with shocking consistency.  The reason for this:  I actually enjoyed riding and racing my bike again.  I was no longer attempting to fight a schedule and hammer out an interval when everything was falling apart around me.  That is the model I am going to take into the 2012 race season.  Yes, I will write a schedule but if I feel like doing intervals on Tuesday instead of Wednesday then Tuesday it is.  So often racers become so focused on their prescribed schedules they forget why they're even doing it.  We do this because we love racing.  We love pushing ourselves and we love the feeling of going out there knowing we're trying to be better than we were before.  No one is paying us for this so why don't we all just take a few deep breaths and enjoy ourselves.

This year I will be there at the finish.  No more off-the-back in the first 8 miles.  No more trying to will myself to get over just this one more hill.  No.  This year I am going to be there.  I make no promises as to winning races or obtaining my Cat 1 upgrade but I will be there for my teammates, turn myself inside out for them and use my brain and legs to be as close to the front as I can.  All of that aside, I'm going to have fun and I'm going to enjoy every mile.  Like I said, we're not paid so we may as well enjoy this silly sport if we're going to spend as many hours on the road as we do.