In Your Travels

Coach Adam & Evo's Elite Team

One of the things I'm excited about for the coming year is that Adam Coon is coaching me. As Robb Hampton has pointed out to me (when he wasn't calling me out for being a tool) I'm one of those guys that is tough to deal with if I can make it to the end of a race, but particularly on some courses, that is a big ask for me. For instance, I soloed across to the break in the 3/4 race at the Poolesville RR this year, but when there was an attack on the final 'climb' (more of a longish hill), I was dropped. I won Bunny hop the next day so if I had any abilility to climb at all, I would surely have been placed better than the 13th place that I did earn there.

As our national sage Donald Rumsfeld has pointed out, there are known knowns, and unknown knowns, etc. In this vein, Adam Coon (no relation to Mr. Rumsfeld) has agreed to help me work out my blind spots. It isn't so much that I don't know what they are, rather Adam's particular talent is giving me a plan to address them. Then it is up to me to follow the plan and make the gains. So far it seems like it is starting to work. I'm not about to predict a win in next year's Giro di Coppi, but I do think his plan will help me make my transition to cat 2 as successful as my move from 4 to 3 was. That is my goal for 2007.

What would that look like? I had a fistful of podiums including a win last year. I'm going to hold an intention (any Wayne Dyer fans out there?) that I can achieve that kind of success again in 2007. I don't 'expect' this to happen. I'm not saying this from a place of either pride or hope, but I know that I have to set goals to motivate myself to make the sacrifices I need to make to make that possible. If I'm not dangling a race win out in front of myself as a carrot, then I neet to take up competitive chess. There are some local race courses out there that I'm well suited to, and it is possible I could take one of them out. It is up to me to do a great off-season so I can make that happen.

One of my other primary goals is to become an indespensible member of Evolution Cycling's Elite Racing Team. We really really do have one of the best teams in the region. We deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Rockville Harley/M Street, (maybe) Snow Valley, NCVC, and DC Velo. We've got sprinters like Nima, Todd Hipp, and Nigel. We have breakaway artists Warno and Fuentes. Experienced stalwarts Hijar, O'Malley, McGill and Dickason. I want to learn from these guys and become one of them!

posted by Mark @ 11:34 AM