Monday, January 5, 2009

New for 2009! A new me!

After just a couple of proddings by the Ironclad cycling team -- or pimping, or shilling, or whatever -- to go check out Cyclo-Club, I finally did. I looked around. I threw down plastic and subscribed.

I feel kinda of dirty, for some reason. I joined an on-line cycling fitness club? Whaaaa? I felt that I had to come clean with my wife and almost laughed. I actually just snickered a little. I don't know why.

I guess maybe I was admitting that I was a slug.

What really got me to join up was the promise of a "7-day fat loss bootcamp". I've got some flab. I'd like to get rid of it or, perhaps more realistically, reduce the amount of it.

I also just came off of my fourth season of cyclocross and it was pretty pathetic. Some races were genuinely not fun. Which is no good. To paraphrase Ralphie Wiggum: CX not fun?! That's unpossible! So sometime between the last Crusade race and the USGP finale at PIR I decided that I would do something in 2009 to make my races in 2009 less sucky.

I haven't decided on a goal yet. It's tough to figure out how high you want to aim when you're at the bottom. "Let's see... I'd like to move up 30 places. So I'd go from 68th to 38th. Hm." However, I realize that if I aim too high I'm more likely to fail and get all bummed. But, conversely, if I set my sights too low, then I'll just be wimping out.

That said, I'd like to improve my cardio-vascular capability, my power. I'd like to feel like I've got a little something left after the first lap.

I realized last summer that I had no base to build off of. Nothing. I think my longest ride was about 78 miles. And that was just a little over twice my previous longest ride. I suffered a little from that ride-- my knees were telling me about it.

Bottom line: While I've always said that I race for the fun and personal challenge ot it, I want to be able challenge myself a bit more other than simply finishing (yay me!) a race.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

GOOOOO GO!
We're all new, with you.

proxy said...

I was skeptical before putting them on the jersey, but I'm sold. Cyclo-Club is a winner. Hope it works out great for you. One of the coaches lives here in PDX!