2008 Year in Review

It's been over a year since I last posted. I guess I've just been too tired and burnt to do it. I've been blogging vicariously through GK at mudandcowbells and now the words want to come out. The 2007 cross season really took it out of me. I was very focused, trained extra hard, tried to peak for states and nats. I had a successful year. A few wins, a bunch of seconds, I don't think I ever finished outside the top 5 in any of the 45+ races. After a disappointing Nats I really wanted to come back and try again.

However, the 2008 road season got in the way. I had the most fun on the road ever. We had a somewhat tight team. I had a role to play. We animated races. We had great results. However, I felt my talents were wasted. What about me? I felt there were races I could have won but I was the helper, and I stuck to my guys. But even they did stuff that was just screwed up. Like chasing each other. The first real disappointment was those guys I helped were supposed to help me in my district race never showed. Now that team, for whatever reason, is no more. I'm staying with the now much smaller core that I like racing with. But I digress...

So the 2008 season turned into the "I'd like to cross some rides/races off my list" year. So I did the infamous "Death Ride", and revisited the Everest Challenge that kicked my butt in 2001. Both were hard. Both were fun. Well, EC was not that fun. I didn't really train for it, but I was in decent shape and a lot smarter than 2001. So, I did it. Finished. Unofficially crossed off the list. But that put the 2008 cross season training back a month or so.

The 2008 cross season was somewhat successful. You can't complain if you get a win or two and end up as district champ. But, I wasn't mentally into it. I hadn't trained for it. I didn't have any official goals like I had written down in 2007. I wasn't focused. Yes, I won a couple of small races, but in the competitive series I was just top 5. I didn't try that hard. I didn't have that burning desire. I kicked up the training toward the districts but still wasn't as fast as I was in 2007. The district championship just kind of fell into my lap. Two guys I raced with the previous year aged up to 50. They beat me in the combined 45+ 50+ race, but I was first 45. I just didn't feel like I'd won. My last race of 2008 was the Colorado State Champs and I pulled out halfway through the race. I got this pain in my lung a couple of laps in and then started going backwards. HR would not stay up and legs were toast. I coughed up a bunch of phlegm and just bagged it. Not sure if it was the dryness of the air in Boulder, or the lingering cold I had the previous week. Whatever it was, it was not right. Speaking to Brent Prenzlow last week, he said that he had difficulty racing in Boulder as well. So, that race sucked, but I loved Boulder.