New Year's: a look back and looking ahead

As day 1 of the New Year wraps up (along with my hangover), I’m left thinking about this past year. The New Year offers us a chance to reflect on our accomplishments and failures of the past year, and also allows us to look ahead and set new goals and dreams for the year to come.

I'd like to think that I've come a long way (in cycling terms, anyway) in the past year. A year ago, my biggest goal was to do another century. It was a big project for me at the time, and it's what pushed me to join Team in training. It was a pretty standard goal, and I'm very happy to say that I exceeded my goals for this past year. some personal accomplishments in the past year included:

-completing two centuries (Tahoe and North fork)
-Joining the CRCA and getting into road racing
-taking up cyclocross and competing
-going to cross 'nats and having a blast
-not getting dropped at my first club road race
-making the decision to join NYVelocity

My desire to take up racing emerged after the Tahoe experience. I wanted to taste competition in the sport I love and see how I do. It would be a larger commitment than training for a measly century, but I knew that it could also be more exciting, rewarding, and fun.

Taking up cyclocross was definitely the most entertaining of the accomplishments for this year. The sport is the perfect combination of fun, masochism, beer, mud, and cowbell. Doing it this season was more of an afterthought, but I'm looking forward to attacking the next season with more preparation and vigor.

Looking ahead, I’ve started forming new goals for myself. These will probably change over the next few months, but it's good to have them written down so that I can commit to them:

-Place in a C road race (Top 3)
-Place top 10 in a Cat 5 Criterium
-Place in a C 'cross race (top 3)
-Lose 8-10 more lbs to get down to 10-12% body fat

On top of these general goals, I'm also trying to outline what major races I would like to get in on for the next season:

-Grant's tomb Criterium
-Harlem Criterium
-US Grand Prix of cyclocross in Trenton, NJ
-US grand prix of cyclocross in Oregon (maybe)
-'Cross Nats in Kansas City, MO (another maybe)
-Battenkill-Roubaix (the hell of the northeast) (maybe)

I was also toying with the idea of doing the Tour de Louisiane (if they still do it). I'm not sure if it's still around, but I think it'd be a fun-as-hell stage race. Maybe I can get a few people to go with me...

That's right; kids- introspection is the name of the game on New Year’s Day.

What do I want out of this?

I want to push myself. I want the suffering I inflict on myself to have meaning and purpose. I want to feel the thrill of victory and more importantly (and probably more often), the humility of defeat. I want to have fun in the process. I want to make new friends and relish in the collective self-induced suffering we all engage in as competitive cyclists.

I'm looking forward to this.

It's on like Donkey Kong.

What are YOUR cycling goals for 2007?