It’s the off-season!  Back to some running, bodyweight workouts, and I think I’ll be joining a gym for the next couple months.  Time to keep the metabolism and aerobic capacity high while building some leg muscle and toning core/arms.

It’s also cyclocross season.  I had a bit of a rough introduction to cross – crashing out in the second lap of my first ever cross race.  I raced in the Bs and found the pace and intensity in the first lap about right – aka insanity.  People crashing all over the place, sliding around in corners, bumping and grinding over grass, dirt, gravel and pavement.  I missed getting a good hole shot, but still managed to slot into about 20th position when the race singled out.  The major run-up on the course followed a downhill dismount and a run down a very steep hill across a bridge.

The crash came on arguably the most straightforward part of the course, and ironically, on pavement.  I was headed towards a curb and barrier leading to a grass section and began my dismount.  I swung the leg over, had a hand on the top tube, and all was going as normal when I went to turn my second foot out of its clip to go into a run.  The shoe wouldn’t come out, and my balance was thrown off.  I ended up hopping along before finally falling, winding up going just about face-first into the curb.  My reaction time was quick and I got a hand out to catch myself, but I was rather surprised to suddenly find my faces stopped inches away from a curb.  The hand took the brunt of the impact, and as I went to get back on my bike and keep going my hand hurt rather badly.  I couldn’t put much weight on the handlebars, and decided to call it a race.  15 minutes later, I was rather worried I might have broken my hand.  Luckily, that turned out not to be the case – just a pulled muscle and some nice bone bruising.

So now the plan is to cut the tread on my shoes down further to ensure that doesn’t happen again.  And then I’ll get out there and try again.

That’s mostly it.

I’m also currently coordinating the OBRA Meet the Team rides, which are a number of rides for different teams that encourage new riders interested in joining a team to come out and ride.

The rest of life consists of my morning routine, working on a variety of fairly interesting projects at the office, coming home, spending some time on the computer, eating dinner, and then usually one or more of the following: a) working on side projects, b) an evening workout, c) dishes, food shopping, cleaning, etc., d) hanging out with friends.

I’ve got no complaints. That said, I still regularly think back to the exciting adventure that was my life this time a year ago.

I’m formulating plans to begin riding my bike to work 3 days/week coming up in the next week or two (now that I’m aware of the showers and lockers hidden in the basement of our building).  The other two days I’ll spend in the gym doing weights.  Then as the winter base miles season comes around, I’ll drop the gym in favor of riding to work 5 days a week.  That’ll end up being a minimum of 110 miles per week during the weekdays, not including any weekend riding.  This will also come with a necessary  sleep schedule change (hello waking up at 6am).  I’ll let you know how that goes.