End of the Year Address

Wow a lot of shit has happened, and I have been remiss in writing about it here. Another great mountain bike season has ended (sniff), with many epic rides and experiences. I'm not going to bother putting any of it down here - it will remain in the deep recesses of my mind - and maybe on my deathbed you will hear me babbling about some rock that pinched my tire and launched me over the bars, or the butterfly I was observing when I rammed into a tree. In any case, here's a few random observations :

Racing : I was thinking about getting hardcore about racing this year : increase training time, maybe hire a coach, etc. Since I was often only 5-10 minutes behind the fastest guys in a 2 hour+ race, I figured I could be contending for top spot with an increased training regimen. But sometime this year I decided this would be too much work and a waste of that precious resource called 'time', and that just assuming that I could be the fastest if I did all that extra crap was good enough. So after the initial spring/early summer races, I just rode for fun the rest of the year. And that's what I plan to do next year. Of course if my ass gets kicked frequently and hard, I will be rather pissed, and probably my race participation will dwindle. But now I feel like doing longer endurance races anyways, rather than the 2-2.5 hour typical XC race. Yeah, 100-milers might be fun. Maybe some multi-day stage races.

I had several more insightful observations, but can't remember any of them at this point. Anyways, biking season has been over for a while - time to talk about snow!