Where I am at now....

Its been a few months since I have posted on my blog. Being a cycling dad life is pretty hectic and sometimes its tough to even get on the computer. Now, starts a new chapter in my cycling training. As of now I have done Road races (circuit as well as straight road) , the longest was the Tour of the Battenkill at 62miles, and it was tough. The shortest was 17 miles "City Cycle 17" and that too was tough due to the wall (22% grade climb) that we had to go up five times. I have done Crits these are tough due to the accelerations and constant high tempo. I did one crit cat 3/4 that I got dropped after 12 laps of the 20 and my average speed was 29.5 mph.

My finishes have not been great, a few of them are not bad and I bested my last years time in the "Lake Auburn Road Race" by a full 10 minutes on a 35 mile course, Thats like beating myself by 3 miles. So, all and all I have made some great improvements but still have tons of work to do to get where I want to be.

My new goal is to upgrade to a Cat 3 (not an easy thing), and start doing the master series races (dont let the "masters" fool you) and be able to do the national championships (which at my age group you have to be a Cat 3 or lower). I just turned 40 so I would be racing in the 35+, this may sound like a bunch of old guys riding bikes, but if you know anything about racing this catagory is Cat 1-4 so basically you could be racing with ex pro's or even guys that are still racing at high levels just using these races to keep in shape. What I'm saying is that its even tougher than racing in the cat 3 or 4 most of the time.

In order to upgrade I need to accumilate 20 points and this is not easy either. My first race on the road to this upgrade is going to be a three day stage race "Tour of the Catskills". This race has the potential for good point accumilation, which I did not know when decided to do it. Which is why I need to train harder and smarter than I have all year. My training started last week and I will keep posting on my training and how its going and what I am doing and why.


Gun

Harvey