Livin' La Vida Fuerte

I don't know where I am going but I am making damn good time!

While I continue down that path that most athletes travel every winter (unless you are fortunate enough to follow summer around the globe or live in a place where it doesn't get cold and dark at 4:30), I am defiantly trying to hang on to the fitness I gained this year. After my first cyclocross race last week, I got a good look at just how much I suck after just a few weeks of reduced activity.

I have been here before and I know like the Swallows of Capistrano, my legs will return. Still, knowing that doesn't make it any easier to take. I am not the naturally fit kind of person. I have to dig and fight like hell for any kind of form and if I stop training for a week, it's all gone. Depressing, yes but it's the life of any single-parent, 40something, 40 hour a week working, weekend warrior athlete.

I am already looking at 2010 races and waiting for dates to be posted to start figuring out what I am going to do. The rough draft is 12-20 races with a mix of endurance, XC, Cyclocross and Road races. So far I am confirmed for the Snake Creek Gap TT series in North Georgia in Jan, Feb and March and the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek in April. On my short list are:

Knobscorcher, 12 Hours of Tsali and Dirt, Sweat and Gears, Discburner.

There will be more but for now that's where I am planning on going. I don't want to do the long trips that I have done in the past couple of years because driving sucks and I am trying to stay relatively close to home so I can have more time with my son and we have a few trips planned for funstuff too. We'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, I have about 6 cyclocross races to keep me mentally and physically on the right track (and Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners to blow it all to hell).