When Did It Happen?

I was thinking about this just the other day. When I started racing mountain bikes it was strictly cross country. As a sport racer the course would be about 15-18 miles, and would take an hour and a half. Then I made the move to expert, now I was racing 24-27 miles and these races would take two and half hours. I had a lot of fun doing these races, always racing the same guys week in and week out and I got to meet a lot of cool people along the way.

Now I don't take a race seriously unless it is over 35 mile long. I remember when a 3 hour training ride was a long day, and I would be exhausted afterwords. If I don't get in at least one 5 hour ride a week it feels like I didn't do enough. Is this a natural progression? I'm not so sure. I have only seen a handful of guys make the jump to endurance racing. What is it that drives us? Is it that we want to know just how far we can push ourselves? Or is it the promoters always putting out a new challenge.

What ever the reason, it seems like I have found my niche. I may not be the fastest endurance guy, I may not see a whole lot of podiums, but I do enjoy seeing just how far I can go, and how hard I can push myself.

I did get in a couple of nice easy quality rides this weekend. Plus I picked up some reliable nutritional advice from Amazin' Andrew. I am looking forward to a couple of tough rides this week where I can experiment with my nutrition.

I am once again looking forward to the SM100, and I am hoping to knock an hour off of last year's time.

Cheers,
Buddy