2006 in review

The main thing I learned early on is that long winter base mileage without intensity does nothing for me. I spent hours and hours (and hours) of "zone 2-ish" mileage early in 2006 and it accomplished nothing but getting myself dropped in the early road races. My coach and I have worked to change that this time around.

My race season started off on March 5th with the Reilly road race. While the team I was on was having success, I was not off to a good start. Other than the lack of intensity in winter training, my head was also somewhere else. In 2005, I crashed 5 times. Three times on training rides and twice in races. Several near misses were in the mix as well. Once the first race came around in 2006, I found myself gun shy and nervous in the pack. That had to change asap or I wasn't going to race. My coach told me about the "Ultimate Cyclist" cd which blends hypnosis with positive reinforcement. Whether it works or I developed the placebo affect I don't know, but it worked for me and I became comfortable in a pack again.

In 2006, I put a heavy emphasis on time trialling. I upgraded my TT bike with some fancy new gear and I was off. Time trials are not heavily attended races, but those who do show up, are time triallists for the most part. My best success was breaking the hour twice at Monrovia's 40k tt (out of 4 total times), with my best time being 58 minutes, 45 seconds. I faltered, however, at Groveport's tt (home of 2007's state championship) and the state championship. I won the bronze at the state, but I should have done better. Groveport was one day after 7hill's woodlawn race where I got hammered in the master's race in 90 degree heat. Each time I was beaten by Bill Lawhorn of Team Dayton, who I had quite a rivalry with last season.

In September I upgraded to catagory 3 and transfered to a new team for 2007. Project Velo Racing has a goal of youth development and I'm proud to be with this organization! I just hope I can do my part to help our guys to bigger and better things in the future.

Only time will tell how 2007 shakes out, but with an improved winter training plan and a TEAM concept of racing, it certainly looks bright!