Time flies when you're having fun (and working hard)! It's been months since I've written anything meaningful here, but a lot has been happening. 2013 was a wonderful year in my life! My faith, family, and friends really make me a happy man. And every day Cameron has more personality and is do something new. Overall my health, riding, and work have been going well too. I'm so thankful for these things, but balancing them has been harder than ever and there are still plenty of daily challenges along the way.
Looking back on my racing this year leaves me a little frustrated. I trained better than ever but ran into some bad luck and several off peak rides on race days. I truly had what I felt were a couple breakthroughs on training rides, but definitely not at any of my races. It was mentally frustrating at times since I've almost always been able to race above my training limits in the past and feel I did very little of that this year. Definitely something to get back on track for 2014.
Coming into the Fall I was really happy to take a break and spend more time just hanging out with Beth and Cameron. We had a lot of fun but it did go by pretty fast with work keeping us busy. Up until a couple weeks ago there were plenty of days where I questioned whether or not I would be racing next year... I want to race, but I also want to spend enough quality time with my family. There's no need to prove anything on the bike, like I was so motivated by 10 years ago. Sure I want to race better than I did this year and there are a couple races that I really want to win, but to me the results alone aren't reason enough for me to spend all that time training anymore. It takes more for me to fully commit the next 9 months to a tough daily routine balancing work, time with Cameron, and hours of training. Ultimately I want to race because God has done so much in my life through riding. There are so many blessings I will have to write about it another time. For now my goal for 2014 is to ride my heart out and see what else the Lord has in store for me!
- live, work and race to your full potential
