Bittersweet Motivation

Today was strange in that it was the first uneventful ride in a while. Just a quick spin in the East Bay between classes.

Sunday, I crashed headfirst into a lightpole - the only major contact involved the front of my face and cold metal. On Monday, I was nearly killed by a wayward semi-truck on a small group ride in Norton MA. On Tuesday, a squirrel committed suicide under my back wheel on the Washington Secondary - sending me into a precarious spin. Yesterday, aside from the continuous insanity on Cranston Street and Downcity, a pigeon tried its damndest to make contact with my front wheel - bringing me nearly to a complete stop. I have witnesses regarding the fatass pigeon, semi, and lightpole. No witnesses survived from the squirrel incident.

I also feel strange. I cannot believe that the road racing season is over in New England. There was so much that I didn't achieve. I'm angry that I made so negligible progress in the past two months towards a cat. 3 upgrade, and I can't even really blame it on my inability to sprint nor on falling down the stairs in my dorm. I just made stupid tactical errors in all my past few races and was a wuss when it really mattered. Whatever. I've only been racing since March. Apparently it was good experience.

It's motivation, though, for me to keep training in earnest. I'm already transitioning into base training phase...and maybe one of these days I'll start dragging my ass out of bed early enough to spend some quality time with the chilly iron in the weight room. People say that I have talent on the bike...but maybe they're just saying that to make me feel good about my slow, scrawny self.

I've got my goals set out for myself, though:
-Move up to the A category in ECCC this season, and have respectable results there
-Help lead Brown to an Ivy League championship this season
-Achieve an upgrade to cat. 2 by the end of next year

Goddamn. I wish I'd started road racing when I was younger. I still feel like the rookie that I may or may not still be.