Racing Season 2012: Breaking the Seal

So, a month deep into racing season 2012, I'm just popping the cork on blogging up my experiences.  So hang on, people:  I'm claiming my fifteen minutes of (self-published) fame.

So this is my forum for posting up some race reports, process the lessons and experiences of training and racing, playing with online graphic design (bear with me) and getting the writing juices flowing (i.e., distract myself) from my academic work...which has to happen on deadline at least some of the time.

So it's a little late to post my first race reports from 2012, but I can do a retrospective roundup.  It's been a good winter training (not Tommeke good, but pretty good, I'd say, for a cat 3 in his first offseason).  But it's also my first spring racing in the Dirty South, so I had very little idea of what to expect down here.

What I did know:

• There's not many racers in The Velvet Ditch.
• There's only one local race, and it's on a weekend that I would like to reserve for (what I hope to be) my annual humiliation.
• There are a lot of driving miles between southeastern races.
• My car gets 25mpg at best.
• You can only cancel classes so many times before your students start taking the initiative and canceling on their own.

So far, I've ridden a fairly slack offseason, used my residual fitness to pedal hard and eat dirt in a few local mountain bike races, and finally, at New Year's, put myself on a training plan aimed at Battenkill...perhaps my one cast-in-concrete season goal.  I've done some tune-up racing, tried to relearn the lessons of last season, and have followed the plan religiously so far--bringing me to the last week before The Big Race.

Bate your breath:  race reports and musings to follow...