Things Come to an End.

The end of August is clearly the time for endings. The Beijing Olympics just came to a close, the Lake Washington Velo circuit race series wrapped up yesterday, and with it -- my cycling season for 2008. I'm not saying that I won't race a bike again this year (you all know how much I love cyclocross -- my month of October pretty much summed it up), but I will say that I'm doing with my "serious" season. From now on, bikes are to be ridden for the purposes of pleasure or transportation only. No serious racing. None.

It's a tough thing, realizing that one's season is over. For the most part, I feel great -- much better than I did in '07. Now I had a great season. I got faster than I've ever been, I did my fair share of winning, and I strengthened my weaknesses -- but, to quote Will Frischkorn "I wouldn't be an athlete if I didn't want to be one step higher." To be a successful bike racer, one must work hard, sacrifice much, and STILL you've got to be really lucky. Doing well at big races is all about finding opportunities and capitalizing on them. For me, so much of my season seems to have been characterized by "oh-so-close" moments. Oh-so-close at the Glia. Oh-so-close at Walla Walla. Oh-so-close at Hood. Valley of the Sun aside, I never quite put it together at a stage race. All this means is I want to come back next year and do better. But that's for next year. For now, I've got bigger fish to fry:


I'm on my way to Burning Man. Yes. That's right. Burning Man. Yes, that crazy festival in the desert with all those naked hippies. This might mean I take a small hiatus from blogging. Then again, I hear they've somehow got WiFi at Burning Man (crazy times we live in, huh?), so if you're lucky, you just might get some blog updates from the belly of the beast itself. I've got my camera fully charged, and I'll do my best to keep up with the madness, but even I (powerhouse blogger than I am), don't expect to be able to keep up with everything.

You'll take what you get and like it, ok blog land?