Racing this season

Ok, I've officially spent too much time on my road bike by myself now. Well, that and coming off of this cold has my lungs all screwed up. I've just about decided I'm skipping the first race of the MBBA series the end of the month. I've gone out and done half of the Expert loop twice now (both times with a bit of a cold), and both times I've been sucking wind on it. I know I'm not up to doing the whole thing right now. What's weird is that I'm spending less than an hour out on the bike and feeling dead. I can hop on my road bike for three hours and feel fine. I've determined my aerobic capacity is ok, I just need to work on my anaerobic threshold a bit.

So to do that, I'm going to try to get a crit/circuit ride tonight in Fountain Hills. I talked with the local shop, CG Bikes, over the weekend and one of the owners seems to think there'd be a few people in for a ride like this. The course I've got picked out to try goes around the fountain park and through one of the neighborhoods by the park. According to the Gmaps Pedometer it's just over two miles - too long to be a crit course, too short to be a circuit course. Anyhow, if I can get a half dozen hammerheads to come out and play once a week on this course for an hour or so, I'll be happy. Nothing like guys faster than you to push you to go harder. The course lends itself to a lot of short bursts, especially since we'll have to be slowing down to get back on one of the main roads and turn off of that road. Should be loads of fun... :-)

In the meantime, that means no Travis racing at races (at least as of tonight) in the first few months of the year. So all the other Experts in the 19 - 25/29 age brackets throughout the southwest can breath harder now knowing that they aren't guaranteed to stay out of last place now.