Why no races?

I haven’t ridden any cycle races recently. When the new job started I stopped entering open events. I reckoned that I needed to devote attention to my new role. I did think, however, that I would keep training and riding club events in the evenings when I was free. This hasn’t happened so far. Why?

I think I was looking for an reason to kick back. This season has been disappointing. It’s taken me longer to get fit and, even when I did get the numbers up to the right level, the race performances were poor. When an excuse offered itself I jumped at it. The fact that a lot of people manage to work full time and race at a high level was neither here nor there. I couldn’t cut it.

I don’t like to quit. But I wasn’t getting anywhere. The reason I race is to get positive feedback. I’ve learnt to persevere through the lean times, but this season has – so far – been beyond lean.

I do hope to ride Ross‘s open events in Mid-July. They were my Dad’s club and the Sunday ’25’ is his memorial event. With this modest target in mind I have to start building up the mileage again and trying to get some race sharpness with the evening club tens.