This is the time of the year when all the pros rehash the season and talk mostly about what went wrong. I already discussed one of the three outlaw races so I thought I'd summarize the other two from the perspective of a comfy chair on the last day in November. The Cote de Tolosa was the first competition of the year. It was in May and it was an open catagory mass start event of 50 miles with a mix of pavement dirt road and a mile or so of single track. I did it on the 'traut tourning rig fitted with cross tires. I had a real good day finishing in a group of three 11th-13th place out of about 30 riders. The winner was the collegiate road national champion and he finished almost an hour ahead of me. A real good day both fitness wise and bike handling wise. The second outlaw race was the Pozo la Pansa Pozo that I've already written about. The final out law race was the Black Mtn Hillclimb. Very few people turned out for this (I was both 3rd and last) An unusually hot day led to my usual miserable performance under hot conditions. I had to get off the bike for a few minutes near the top or I would have passed out. My time was several minutes slower than when I'd done it in training at a tempo pace a week or so beforehand. The last race of the season was the only official one. It was the Freemont Peak Hillclimb held outside of San Juan Bautista. I raced with the 55+ Cat 1-3 because the group was smaller (5 instead of the 10 or so in the Cat 4-5) and because I figured that the 1-3s wouldn't be going that much faster. I had a good day on the bike but still finished DFL - 5th out of 5 and by time slowest of all in my age catagory. I guess I could say that I'm one of the fasted 15 climbers in NorCal, but it's always discouraging to finish DFL. Most of my peripatetic racing life I've managed to be a mid pack finisher. Perhaps the only guys left racing at my age are the very serious atheletes. I thought that age based attrition would move me up and it had as the pack are smaller so my finishing places are better. Fifth is a good result after all, but the finishing order is getting worse. I hate being dead last. I guess my goal for next year which is what these reviews lead to is not to be DFL.

Yesterday was a typical nonriding day. It takes more than one thing to keep the fanatic away from the source of his mania. For me it takes at least three if not four factors to have me off the bike on a weekend day. Crappy weather almost always leads the bill and yesterday started grey and cold and turned wet and cold by noon. Sometimes the threat of rain is even worse than rain itself. Sort of a monster in the closet situation. You can't see it, but you know it's there. Lack of sleep is another prime mover. A course of super strong antibiotics that I'm taking at the moment have upset both my stomach and my always tennuous sleep patterns so I wasn't exactly chomping at the bit from an energy reserve point of view. Distractions from other hobbies also hinders, and there were two novels both within a hundred pages of my finishing that compelled me to spend the morning nailed to the couch with a book in front of my nose.

Back on the bike now after the annual harvest hiatus. Work pressures every September and October force me to take an extended break from serious cycling every year. This has been so since 1979 when I first began making wine. Since I didn't really start taking cycling that seriously until I began bike racing in 1985, I guess you could say that the annual break preceeded the organized training. It may be one of the reasons that cycling has stayed fresh for me. There's nothing like a long break to make you appreciate something. How does that old country song go? "How can I miss you when you won't go away?"
However, getting this somewhat creaky 60 year old body back in the groove after an eight week break is an art form. I've learned to take the first 6-8 weeks back on the bike very very easy. Even if I'm feeling good on a given day I don't give it the gas - no extended climbing, no hard efforts at all really. Just cruising with the intent of reawakening the muscles and reminding the connective tissue to toughen up. The hardest part is mental. I get off the bike at the end of summer in great shape normally. This year I did a hillclimb race just before harvest - so the form was there. When you get back on the bike the brain remembers being fit and fast, but the legs have forgotten what this even means. My quads for the first few weeks are going "WTF?" and my brain is saying back "Anyone home down there?" Oh, well it's the life I lead and also the life I love. It's a great time of year for fantasizing about the fitness to come and all the great days on the bike that springtime will bring.