thinking about riding in circles

I keep pretending it's the off-season, but I know that those first races will be here before I know it. I think this was officially the longest I've gone between season's without structured workouts. Past tense, because it ended last week, when I found myself thinking often (and fondly) of riding my bike in circles. I knew I was ready to start working!

So I joined the gym, and started the gym workouts. I'll be adding some trainer workouts, and as long as it's not too cold, I'll try to get some time outside on the bike, too. This week's lesson is that when you are sore from lots of squats, doing more squats will not make it better.

In addition to re-building some fitness and preparing for the upcoming season, I am trying to figure out what I want to do for racing. Last summer, I decided that I really wanted to do Crank the Shield in 2011. I think the stage race format, as well as racing point-to-point, would really challenge me. That plan was kiboshed in the fall, when Chico announced that Crank would not be happening in 2011 as a three-day event. Fingers crossed it's on again in 2012, so I can give it a go. I am leaning towards adding a few marathon races to the mix this year, for mostly similar reasons - I have a ways to go with my technical skills, and testing myself with the longer distances and lack of pre-riding (and being able to read the trail/pick lines on the fly) are kind of appealing.

The other major decision, which I am nowhere near figuring out, is what category to race in. I got the requisite points to upgrade to Senior Expert, but from what I can tell, it's a small group, and not as competitive as the Masters category for mountain biking. After cross nationals, I was so down about my result, I really didn't think I wanted to race Elite there anymore, either. Now that I've had time and space to reflect, I have convinced myself that I can better that performance/result (though, honestly, it would be hard to make it much worse!), and I am contemplating staying in Elite to do just that, when Nationals returns to Toronto in November. Decisions, decisions!