2013 Ride Season Goals

Wow. 2012 was such an awesome year, it seems a little anti-climactic to talk about the next season. How could it possibly get better from here?

When I sat down and prepared my personal ride calendar for the year, I came up with a little over 2000 miles on the "wish list." Hmmmm. Didn't I say something about slowing down this year? I am such an addict. I think I need to start a group, Endurance Addicts Out Loud.

At the end of the 2012 ride season, I felt pretty burned out. After Desert Gold, I was feeling like Death Valley, a month later, was going to be too soon. I decided to skip the Death Valley Warmup ride, two weeks before Death Valley. And I found myself, the week of the ride, thinking, I could make it to the ride.... I had to play in the bell choir at church that Sunday, though, so we didn't go.

In the midst of all this riding, I need to take care of some things. One is my asthma. I have got to get it under control. My sister had a similar problem some years ago. The scary part is, she very nearly died. I'm headed for much the same problem if I don't get things going my way here. The other thing that must happen is, my hip has got to improve. Lately it's been getting worse, so far as to interfere with getting a good night's sleep (the asthma doesn't help on that score, either).

With that in mind, I've once again come up with somewhat scaled back goals. I'm hopeful something can be done for my hip, but it's likely to require surgery. If I do need surgery, I'm planning to hold off on it until after Tevis. I'm also aiming to have my year goals attainable between now and Tevis, so if it turns out to be ugly, I can lay off the rest of the year and not feel like I've failed.

Here are the goals:

1000 total season miles

2 100 mile rides

Tevis!

It's pretty simple, but considering the potential challenges, it feels reasonable. The way I have my ride calendar set up, if I can just plug along, we may very well end up high in the standings again at the end of this year, too.