Prologue

Well I decided to start a blog to record the events of my first year in bike racing.

I tend to write a lot but I think it's important for me to be able to look back a year from now and see if I've managed to improve my cycling ability, fitness and confidence level. I think documenting my races and experiences is part of training because you then have a way to reflect on what you've accomplished and what you can change.

I'll give a short run down of how it all happened...in case you ever wanted to try your hand at racing.

Where this started:

Last year after I purchased my cyclocross bike, I took it with me to Penticton where I went on a short road ride with Cyrus literally hours before he was to be married. During the ride he gave me a ton of tips, encouragement and made me hammer 2 giant hills (one of them super steep...even for cars). It was during this ride that he told me that I should try racing.

Upon returning to Calgry, my Garmin Edge had arrived...this is when I decided to start training semi-seriously. I didn't really have a training plan...I just did whatever...sometimes I just did random programs in the Garmin and rode on random days. Usually when I rode...I just wanted to go faster.

In September, partly due to my change in employment, I finally decided to join a gym. I told the trainers what my goal for the next year was and they said I should try the Crossfit program. Crossfit worked really well for as it worked on my strength, agility and endurance. Every day it was something different and they were extremely high intensity workouts. I started doing Yoga regularly to improve my flexibility and core strength.

In October, I came across the Dark Knight cyclocross race that allowed citizen racers and I was considering just trying it out for kicks but I ended going away to Vegas for a wedding. I vowed that I would do this race for sure in 2009.

In December I decided to look into joining a bike club. I talked to Cyrus and the first club he mentioned was the Deadgoats. I e-mailed them and started talking to a couple of the main guys (Pat and Tim) on the phone and then had a meeting with Tim in person. They had a spot open and let me on the team. For me, this was really exciting news...I had just completed one of my personal goals for the year.

As the winter months passed...I upped my gym frequency and got out for a few rides despite the poor weather. I could feel improvements...possibly because I had never truly "worked out" in my entire life. I was starting to get better at Crossfit and started looking forward to going to the gym. As soon as the weather was even remotely nice I would go out on my mountain bike and just ride around on the pathways.

In April, I went on my first mountain bike ride was with a few guys from the team in April in which we rode from Edworthy, all the way around Nose Hill Park and back. I could barely keep up with them and my legs felt like jelly at the end of the ride. At this point I started to wonder what I had just signed myself up for...it surely was a far cry from that casual road ride in Pentiction.