Great Expectations

I've been feeling rather Dickensian today, between Christmas, the absolute shite weather, my 415am wakeup call to drive from NJ to work, the general interior grey that a few days off followed by a sudden return to work tends to impart... Referencing "A Christmas Carol" would have been too obvious, "A Tale of Two Cities" would have been contrived, "Oliver Twist" and "David Copperfield," irrelevant.

Anyhow, it is officially New Year's season so time for some Great Expectations next year. I'd like to get my Cat3 upgrade but how I do it is as important as that I do it - really quality races. I'm also looking for a win, and to help some team mates acheive their expectations of wins. Now that I've passed my first wattage progress goal (which was too low in the first place), I'd like to knock some of the others down. This will take some patience since going out and trying to set new pr's all the time would be counterproductive as all get out. This is more of a thing to just be checked off as progress, but having seen it happen once and also seeing the power numbers steadily creep up for any given perceived effort level, it's really encouraging and motivating.

One of my biggest goals is very subjective. Basically, I'd like to be more aggressive in races. As a Cat 5, I was pretty good with this, riding up at the front a lot and maybe not being smart all the time but definitely making a difference. The second half of the year was more of a "let's just hope the man lets me live through this one" kind of a deal. There were a couple of exceptions - the PA Dutch crit and one particular Greenbelt - when I started to feel like "okay, nobody's f-ing with me today, it's all on." But in general, well, the name of a boat that I used to race against says it best - "The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing!"

Over the long weekend I got some good riding in, in town on Saturday and then in NJ on Monday and Tuesday, which was solid. Monday was incredibly windy. There were times when a gust would push me to a dead stop. Kind of a d-bag move to go riding on Christmas day but the chance was staring me in the face.

Now I expect I'd better press through with tonight's workout so that my expectations are exactly that, instead of hopes and wishes.

Random thought for the day - who told triathletes that it's okay to wear armwarmers with a tank top jersey?

All right then.