Racing season begins

Well, at least for me it has. Like Armstrong, I'm a one-event rider, though rather than prioritizing the winning of the Tour de France, I choose to focus simply on not killing myself in the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo.

I've known I'd be racing the 2007 event since about 3 seconds after the 2006 event ended, but nevertheless, I let the last seven months more or less slip away. Spring was taken up by birding, summer sucked on a couple of counts, and only now, with the autumnal equinox nearly upon me and a mileage base made up primarily of 5-mile trips back and forth to work, am I trying to piece things back together in earnest.

And who knew that GnomeBrew would be reforming with the same roster and that I'd have to get back into this type of shape again? Yes, the shape is properly characterized as "lumpy", but don't laugh - it was 20 pounds lighter and worth double the laps compared to 2005 when, mercifully, it was too rainy for any photographers, professional or otherwise, to catch me stuffed all sausage-like into my QQQQ jersey.

At any rate, I've been back on the road bike every weekend for a month or so now, with whatever hill work and all-outs on the flats as I can find on Tucson's Left Side. The next phase of my training will involve a late-September visit to the GnomeBrew High Altitude Training Camp in Flagstaff. If the 7,000-foot altitude and beer-induced dehydration don't bump up my hematocrit, I may have to do something drastic, like traveling the following month to the GnomeBrew Sonoran Desert Training Facility in Tempe for additional PIDs (perfomance-inhibiting drugs).

And if I accomplish nothing else prior to the race, I need to at least do something about the full-custom zip-tie brake repair I implemented just before my first lap last year. Its inventive, but grim.