An Update On Life And Finances

I've been torn as to what to write recently. I've had quite a few more personal posts than I was intending to have when I first started my blog, and then I realized something, I'm allowed to have personal posts, it's my blog, so here's another personal post about my plans for the 2018 race season. I'll have a more bike related post tomorrow too.

For the last year and a half (since I started cycling) I've had to train to get fit. If I don't train, I won't be competitive when I get to the races. This year has been a bit different. I spent the month of March training an average of 15 hours a week. I finished the month pretty roasted mentally. My legs hurt and I don't particularly want to ride my bike, however, I was putting out some pretty decent power numbers on Saturday, and I wasn't even feeling good, so this week I'm going to rest, and then I'm going into the race season. My plan right now is to stop training.

Hear me out a moment, not training doesn't sound like an incredible plan seeing as my goal is to be Cat 2 by Superweek (I'll cover race categories next week). If I just stopped riding my bike, you'd be right, but I'm not stopping riding, if anything I'm going to be riding more. Every day with an event is a race, and some days I'm even doing more than one race in a day.

So what exactly do I mean by racing to fitness? This schedule doesn't look like a very intense training plan. Well first off, I'm going to be doing a lot of group rides. In Victoria there are scheduled hard rides on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday every week (also one on Tuesday and Friday, but those are at 6am). Also this is a lot of race days. To date I have been on the start line of 11 races, and crossed the finish line of 10. Assuming I don't crash out, May 2nd I'll be finishing my 11th race of the season. Thats as many races in a month as I've done ever, and at a higher level.

To those of you asking yourself, isn't that really expensive? How will you pay for it all? Yes it is, and I've been asking myself the exact same thing. This race season is going to cost me $1500 in entry fees. That's before you account for ferrys, food, places to stay, and (hopefully) a training bike so I have gears on a bike that isn't carbon everything.

This is the point where I'd like to ask for some financial assistance, but I don't like just asking for money, so instead, I designed a T-shirt. For those who are curious, the bike is based off a Giant TCR, and it says "GO" if you look at the wheels/chainstay. If I can get 25 people to commit to buying one at $25, I'll place an order. If you would like to pay more for a T-shirt, I will gladly take that money to spend on race fees and post-race pizza. If you would like a cool T-shirt and/or to help fund my race season, either message me or send an email to kelseygoescycling@gmail.com

As for the races themselves, I'll be writing a race report for each of them as I go. I'm currently planning on starting 41 races this season, so there should be no shortage of reading opportunities.

That's it for this update, come back tomorrow for your regularly-scheduled blog post.

Stay Cool Internet ;)