Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Got busy!

Sorry about the lull here. Life got a little crazy (and still is with the holidays and all....)

I did the last cyclocross race of my season at Kirtland park on Nov 21. Woof! I had a plan for the start, and lined up where I wanted, even though it was second row. Got off the line reasonably, and was sitting comfortably mid field by the time we went down the hill. Yeah... midfield. I ended up hauling 3 guys around the course for two laps before thinking "Hey! Why am I doing all the work?" At which point I sat up a bit... and two guys got away from us. What the heck! I ended up chasing one down, the other was gone.

I got into a nice battle with Rudy. He flatted which let me catch up to him, then we just went back and forth until two laps to go when he either popped, or decided his season was done here also. At which point, I was also running from Mitch. Mitch caught me with a bit more than half a lap, and I thought I was controlling the gap. Then at the most difficult turn on the course, PM turned inside me taking my line. I thought about continuing my turn, and taking us both out... but decided that would be bad form. It's not nice to take out a leader when your getting lapped.

So, I finished 17th. Not where I wanted, but I raced about as hard as I could. So I can't complain about that. I finished 14th in the A overall, and fourth in the bragging rights 40+.

Overall it was a nice cyclocross season. I've got goals for improving my handling and fitness for next year, and I'm working out a plan. Now I just need the rest of my life to cooperate.

Now I get to concentrate on work for a while. Yes, emphasize the "GET TO", it's not really "HAVE TO". I'm having fun with this now, though I'm really ready to finish. All eyes are on an April 1st deadline, with a good deal of work to do before then. So it may be quiet, which is normal when I'm not racing anyway.

In the meantime, I can procrastinate every once in a while. So I picked up a small side project that my readers may be interested in. Check out the workout analysis software GoldenCheetah. OpenSource power/HR analysis (that means it's free to you). GoldenCheetah.org. Documentation can be found at the GC wiki site.

What else am I going to do during the winter... but play with technology.