mattm

What were you goals going into the season?

And did you accomplish them?

waterrockets 

I wanted to start racing again, and I did. Low bar.

Ygduf

written goals to my team's coach were

1) <17min OLH
2) 1 point from 3->2
3) a top 3 placing.

I aimed low.
did 16:45
28 points
and 3 wins

Andy STi

5th at Mt Hood 40+ 1/2
1st Cascade Classic 40+ 1/2
3rd state road race
1st in a couple of MTB races
1st in my first 3 cross races so far

Not bad but I really wanted to win the state road race again.

Next year's big goal is to improve in the TTs.

uncreative

as posted in this thread https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...Goals-for-2013 about a year ago, my goals were:

1. upgrade to 3 as quickly as possible
2. learn how to sprint effectively
3. be strong and savvy enough to affect the outcome of the masters 1/2/3 races in my area

I accomplished goal 1. goals 2 and 3 are going to take some more time.

UmneyDurak

Nope. Season has been a complete disaster.

caloso

I am Terminal 3 and have no incentive to upgrade so I mostly rode for teammates. Helped a teammate get a season-long omnium win and another upgrade to 2 and get picked up by a team that can take him even farther. I picked up a couple of points and a bunch of primes for myself.

All in all I'm pretty satisfied and looking forward to a mellow fall, a hard winter, and a glorious spring.

jsutkeepspining

poopy. I got 4 upgrade points.


Non cycling season rocked. Perspective yo

gsteinb

I wasn't able to upgrade this season.

wanders

My 2013 season ended in 2012.

save10

16:45 OLH? i'm fat

hack

Hmm...hard to say. I wanted to start racing in 2013 and I did in late May. I bought a bike in March, started actually logging miles in April, and raced for the first time in May. I completed 15 races, moved from 5 to 4 and had a couple of awful races (Giro SF and Oakland Grand Prix). I "competed" in a few races and was just present in several others.

I've learned a lot about racing, but not nearly enough. Due to having no base, like none, I need some offseason training and am looking forward to 2014.

spectastic

I got one last chance to win a cat 5 race before season's over. Got a couple of podiums, and happy about it, but raising the bar a little bit before going to a 4. I want to see if I can become a 3 next season.

hack, same here. sort of. I started to get a little more serious in March, and improved throughout the year, until finally signing up for a race in August. 2014 is going to be great.

rbart4506

Results wise there really is not much to report, but I did make some gains for sure.

Started the season basically at square one coming off a disaster 2012 where training was severely hampered by stuff...

Didn't have substantial goals, since I had no clue how the body would do. Definitely started off slowly with some OTB results, but I knew I had to get past my late season crash in 2012 (BTW that really does screw with your mind). The real issue, this year in Ontario, was that the O-Cup season basically ended the first week of June. I didn't really get my legs until then and my head was finally back in the game. At this point I brought out the TT bike for the first time ever and started surprising myself in the local club 15km TT's. Set a whole bunch of PB's and came within a whisker of the 40kmh benchmark I was hoping for.

Ended the season with a 3rd in the 25km Sportif category at the Provincial TT and finish nicely within the pack at the Windsor crit the next day.

The last few weeks have been good, been riding nicely with the team and hanging with the lead pack for most of the ride. Tomorrow is the last event of the year then it's time to prepare for California and then focusing on next season. Hopefully I can make a bit of noise and get that elusive upgrade point or two.

topflightpro

I did two races this year.

The first, in February, I DNF'd due to substantial pain in my knee and ended up back in physical therapy for the second time.

The second, in April, I finished in the field, which was my goal. But I woke up the next morning and found a swollen mass where my knee was supposed to be. I was back in physical therapy for a third time.

After that, I concluded my race season.

Things are going better now. My knee still aches on and off, but I am getting some good miles in and am jumping in on some of the local hammer rides. And on Wednesday evening, I had my strongest two hour solo ride in about a year. There was some aching on Thursday, but nothing significant and no swelling. So that was good.

gsteinb

everyone should be aware that I'm archiving posts from this thread to work with the admins on establishing minimum posting requirements for the 33.

rkwaki

Jeeesusss you finally found a workaround to get me out, spiteful, very spiteful...

GeoNLR

Having never raced, I came into the season with a goal to be a competitive 4. Ended up hitting mandatory points and became a 3 at the end of my season. 2013 was a success, only thing I would change is to not have such a narrow 'all or nothing' window for my season and make more later season events with friends.

JohnKScott

I got fatter and slower reading all of your race reports.

Number400

Poorly. Only made 4 road races this year. Collarbone break after my 2nd race. Raced hurt in the third race, then was fighting something for a few weeks but managed a decent stage race performance. Then just after I started to feel good again, upgraded to CAT4, then got hit while training on the road. Still recovering and no road races allowed until next season but am doing a non-sanctioned cyclocross race tomorrow. So much looking forward to my first time in the dirt!

Creatre

2013 Goals (Bolded = Actuality):

- Upgrade to Cat 2 Done.
- Top 5 in a Crit No. Lol. Only did 1 crit the whole year.
- Podium a RR Done.
- Get to at least one Stage Race and do well (Not an Omnium like they prefer here in the SE, ugh) No. Didn't make a stage race, only omniums.
- Get more comfortable and fine tune aero positon on the TT bike. No. Barely rode the TT bike.
- Win a TT No. Only did 2 TTs all year.
- Make the trip and finish Battenkill Done. Finished in lead group of cat2s, top 25.
- Make the trip and finish the Everest Challenge No. Was already burning out.
- Ride the mountain bike some, maybe do a few races, don't die No. Sold the mountain bike, kept crashing too much. Focused on road season.
- Get that FTP up (4.3w/kg is not going to get me to Cat2, or at least allow me to survive as a Cat2 if I did cat up) Done. Dangled between 4.7-4.9w/kg FTP. Big improvements.
- Race with a team, and enjoy hanging out and racing Done.
- Don't wreck! Rubber side down! Done, no wrecks this year.

Had a really good year overall. Had some killer results and was flying in the spring. Burnt out a little, got injured, and had trouble battling back the rest of the year as I wasn't fully motivated. Had trouble finding goals and figuring out how to keep going after getting cat2. Been rebooting the mind and body the last couple weeks. Gonna have some more time off, then start building to 2014. I posted a blog on this with some more details, link can be found in my sig.

pjcampbell

I think I did pretty well.

I did 5 hill climb races, finishing 15th , 7th,1st, 10th and 15th (overall).

I was 1 minute slower on a 30 minute and 45 minute climb race (31 and 46 ) than my best, which was 6 years ago, life has gotten a lot more crazy since then. Also done on 1/5th the hours. I have some ideas for next year , so I think I can PR in 2014 just by being smarter about my training and maybe hang with some of the stronger dudes.

grolby

Mixed, for sure. I was aiming for strong results at the big spring criteriums in the SE, Sunny King and Athens Twilight. Managed good form, but it came too early and I mismanaged it, so came up empty-handed at my biggest spring targets. Rebooted for the state championship RR at the end of June, and the criterium that followed it. That went better - I had a great RR working for the team, and an even better crit where I finished 4th and won a prime, the first money I've taken home in a while. But after that I was totally cooked and I've been unable to really manage much motivation or energy to train, partly because of more important things that are going on in my life right now (getting married in just over a week). Vague thoughts of building to another peak for cyclocross season are now clearly unrealistic, I just don't have the energy or motivation. So I'll be racing for fun. And of course I hit the deck a few times right in the middle of my build phases, which really beat me up just when I was trying to get fast.

So it's been a wild year, but overall signs are positive. I followed a training plan reasonably successfully and focusing on building my threshold power went a long way to helping me stay in races when I might have been dropped in seasons past. At the same time, it wasn't enough to make me truly competitive in a lot of races, so I need to mix in more specific training for shorter durations and recovery. Basically, I learned more about racing and training this year than in all my previous seasons, so that's going to be helpful down the road, I hope.

wktmeow

Upgraded to Cat 4 - done
Podium something - no such luck
Gain fitness - Sorta, raised FTP to 255 from 230, had too many illnesses/injuries to get it much higher
Get better at racing/pack riding - definitely, feel a lot more comfortable cruising in the pack and moving around
Do well at Foothill Circuit Race - nope, descended like a wimp and kept losing places on the downhills.

shovelhd

I dug myself a big hole after Nats last year when I spent three months riding my commuter bike because my race bike frame was broken. I had to take three weeks pretty much off the bike to rest. The new frame didn't fit like the old frame so there was some adjustment. I came out of winter training in decent shape but not anywhere near as good as previous years. We took the team trophy at the spring series and I helped my teammate win the overall. The next weekend after that series was over I was taken out by a Polish national champion who had no business racing on the pointy end of an American criterium and separated my shoulder. I was back on the trainer in a week and did a training race after six weeks, but it was like starting all over again mid-winter. I set my sights on the National Senior Games in July and busted my ass to get into national class shape. My Quarq started going wonky during this period, so coaching was really tough with the numbers all over the place. I won the gold and the bronze with no real form, on pure adrenaline and race craft, then followed it up with a podium the following weekend in NH. After that it was a battle to try and reach some kind of form which really didn't happen.

On one hand, only one win is a disappointment, since I had four wins the past two seasons. On the other hand, to win two national medals in the middle of a disaster is very special to me. I learned a lot about myself.

The one good thing is that the surgery question has been answered, and I have a really nice base to start building on for next year. I am feeling a lot like 2010, the year before I returned to racing. Super motivated. Axe to grind. Want to kick some ass.