Track and other notes to the Summer 2013 season

So I decided to give track another shot after sort of giving up on bike racing a bit a few years back and it ended up being one of the best decisions I've made recently.  Not just for the racing itself, but for the great community of people you naturally become involved with.

So, earlier in the year Kuikman had been really persistent about us hitting up the track and eventually convinced me that we should give it a go.  It made it a lot easier given that I'd always just gone up to the track alone in prior years; it would be fun to have someone to drive up with, cheer on during their races, and help through the high's and low's of the season.  So I said sure, why not, pulled the old Felt track bike out from under the bed, dusted it off (literally), and just hoped that all the pieces still fit together nicely.  I went over to YoJimbo's garage and got a bigger chainring, ordered a new sprocket online, put it all together and hoped that I still had some legs from training a bit this past offseason. By the time I stopped track cycling 2 years ago, I wasn't having much success at the Cat 3 level - the racing seemed way faster than at the Cat 4 level and I just didn't adapt well in the few races I did.  So going into this the expectations I had for myself weren't high and my only goals for this and the entire season was to have fun and be aggressive on the track.

The first night I'm there it all came back to me and more.  Not only was I fast, I was winning and took home the Omnium for the night.  The second night ended up being the highlight race of my season - a 100 lap Points race, one of the biggest races of the season and I ended up placing 5th in the 1/2/3 race, but far more importantly, with the help of fellow xXx'er Tom Briney we helped our team's coach Randy Warren take home 1st in the event in a really solid field.  The racing over the course of the season was outstanding. Several of my Cat 3 xXx teammates were incredible throughout the year, absolutely deserving credit for several of my results including one of the most well executed last lap blocks by Eric Didrickson that literally gave me an Omnium win in the last race of the night.  In total my final tally ended up being 7 individual and 3 Omnium wins for the year including near the end of the season an upgrade to Catagory 2.

It was a great season and as it came to a close last week, it was nice to be able to reflect upon a full season for the first time in awhile, this one feeling far more fulfilling than one's past.  Great results obviously were nice, but just being able to approach the season with the goal of having fun instead of just pressuring yourself to win every race.  It was nice as I still feel relatively fresh physically and definitely fresh mentally as I'm already looking forward to 2014.  It was great getting to know a lot of the people in the community - from other teams and officials, to members of my own team and the organizers at the track...it's just a great place to be.

As for next year, I'd love to win one big race or help a teammate win a really big race, whether that's a State Championship or otherwise, that would be the ultimate race goal - but I think again, the real goal is just to continue to approach it to have fun and everything else will follow.

I also ended up carrying that form into a short Time Trial stint a few weeks ago, placing in the open category 2nd in the State Time Trial Championships and in the P/1/2's 1st in the TTT ABR Championships (which was an incredible event).

Racing for 2013 is far from over though as I'm going to go after Cyclocross which is huge in Chicago.  I did a few races really early this year and they were a blast - looking forward to having fun doing those as I'm definitely not going have a quarter of the success that I did at Track, if because of nothing else that I'm staged a mile behind the leaders.  Really looking forward to the challenge though.

Until next time...