In case you couldn't tell I'm the goober with the beard.
I will do my best to provide a race report each week that I race, but more than likely I won't do one for each. If I said I read all the details of the meet reports of people who lift on reddit I would be lying. I usually pay attention to a few posts really carefully though. There are things to be learned from strangers on the internet.
I will take a picture of my uniform tomorrow and edit my post. I'm just wearing my Hawaii jersey in the above pic. Hopefully I'll get some road pics up for the few people that read this. In order to do that I have to take the micro-sd card out of my phone, and put it into the computer, which can get to be a bit of a hassle. I have to say I am really excited about the whole season though. I have been way more consistent than ever before with my exercise. Last Saturday we did a 50 mile ride, and I actually felt like I could do more at the end. That hasn't really happened before. Usually I get to 50 and I want to collapse and have a beer. I was able to best a few of the new guys thoroughly which makes me feel much more confident.
Normally I am looking pretty out of it by that point. I also am dropping a bit of body fat.
It's weird looking back at the last several years of my life. This is the first year where I can say I haven't been a huge fuck-up since middle school. Don't get me wrong I was a better student than most, but many people can relate to the fact that that isn't enough for most parents; especially parents like mine who are both engineers. My sisters have had better grades than me for years now, and it was time for me to stop being a lazy idiot with my studies. I knew I wasn't putting in the time, and if I changed that it would improve. The same thing happened with my fitness. I have been getting at least 2 quality workouts every week. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but remember that doing 2 workouts focused on a sport will give you more than 4 not focused on that sport. Things are just looking generally better in my life than they used to.
I have a plan for this season, and it involves going up into the C category relatively early on in the season with several of the D squad. We want to try to get a solid C team and a few guys in B's by the end of the season. We have 2 riders who are fully capable of racing in B's, and 3 others that could possibly make it there by the end of the season. They won't be winning races there, but they'll be gaining experience and bringing some notice to OU Cycling. Lord knows this state is behind in our sport, and we may just be able to promote it quite a bit this year. I see more people riding around on new road bikes than I did freshman year, which really makes me think that the sport can grow here. We aren't that far from the cycling center of the US, where I spend my summer and winter breaks.
I had a fun vacation, including a trip to Hawaii. I got to run on the Queen K Highway, and see the course for the Ironman World Championship. I was immediately reminded of my eventual Ironman goal. If I wait until I'm older than 24 it gets significantly harder, so I will be doing my best to improve all legs of the race over the summer. This means making my swimming better than laughable, improving my running significantly, and just adding a bit of distance for cycling. During my vacation I went para-sailing with my sister's fiance, dad, and my little sister. I was feeling a bit uneasy on the boat ride, and when I went up the harness was jerking back and forth. It was really choppy out, and this wouldn't normally happen. I threw up down into the ocean while I was about 600 feet above it. Watching my vomit fall 600 feet was awesome even if I felt terrible. When we got back to the pier I noticed something. We were at the start/finish area for the Ironman swim. This means I threw up into the waters they use for their swim. That made me chuckle a bit.
That's just water, not vomit on my shirt I promise.
I felt awesome after this vacation. I still do, but things have definitely settled back into the dull steady effort that I am striving to keep. With any luck it will pay off. I'll get those new uniform pics posted tomorrow. I don't want to put on the uniform until I'm actually going to ride in it.
Until then you stay classy people who bothered to read all this.
