Good Bye 2011 - Hello 2012

It's that time of year again to do the self-evaluation and setting of goals for the new year.

First I need to talk about the last couple of rides.

Saturday, the last day of 2011, saw my son and I riding with the Firestone & Summit group doing the Perdido Key Route. It was a foggy day, the worst of it being on Lillian Hwy as we rode by Perdido Bay. We had a fairly strong group for this ride, but Dana did a lot of pulling and I had to work really hard just to stay on his wheel. When it was over I had an average speed of 19.2 mph which might be a record for me on a group ride.

On Sunday, the 1st day of 2012, I rode with my son and a friend of his from college; we rode the Spanish/UWF/Scenic route. I was really feeling tired from the previous day's effort. Needless to say I couldn't keep up. It was a very hard ride for me. The hills just killed me.

2011 Review

I did a mid-year review here. Not much changed since that review; I continued to go out of town a lot for business which set me back. I knew when I made the goals I was going out on a limb, but I really thought I would make those goals. I'll address some of the 2011 goals:

• I only raced 3 events, not the goal of 6. These 3 events were earlier in the year. I could have raced our local Pensacola Classic, but I just didn't believe I was anywhere close to competitive. I did go to the DLV track in Atlanta quite a bit during the summer.
• Mileage for the year was 3,342 miles, not anywhere close to the goal of 5,000. I find it interesting that for 2010 my mileage was 3,280. When I compare 2011 with 2010 I basically did one more long ride for 2011. Not much difference between 2011 and 2010.

2012 Goals

After the disappointment of not reaching goals for 2011 I am very hesitant to publicly state goals for 2012, but I'll give a try.

• Six events - This is the same as last year, but I'm going to put a twist on it. By events I'm not going to limit it to races. That means Ride Yellow and similar rides will count as events. I do want to do more races than last year, but I'm going to have to take into consideration time, fitness, and costs. I hate to admit it, but costs is a factor this year. By the way, I've already renewed my USAC racing license.
• Improve on the track - I really enjoyed riding on the velodrome. I'm still considered a beginner, so hopefully for 2012 I can move up. The problem is that it takes going to Atlanta quite a bit and that costs both time and money. Non-the-less, I want to ride track and improve.
• Be More Competitive - I don't want to keep finishing last in my races. I would actually like to win. I've already started working towards this goal by making some life-style changes. The effects will take time to realize. I do need to lose weight so that I can go up hills better. Right now hills really do me in. Loosing weight is not going to be easy. I also plan to push myself more so that I can be a factor/player in the outcome of races. This goal is hard to measure except by not finishing last anymore.
• Mileage - for 2012 I'm going to set a goal of 3,600 miles. That isn't the 5,000 of last year's goal and it's just a little over the actual miles for 2011, but it's a goal and looking over the history of the last few years is both more than I've been riding and obtainable.

That's it, four cycling goals for 2012. I really believe I can reach these goals. Happy New Year every one. I hope that 2012 will be a great year on the bike for all of us.

PS - I want to add another goal that is not really cycling related. I want to blog more and take more pictures. I want to add pictures to the routes that I map with MapMyRide, plus it would be nice if my blog posts also included pictures.