One more sleep until winter training begins!

Today I flipped my training planner from the ‘summer 2018’ tab to the ‘winter 2018/19’ tab and, oh sweet Nelly, it felt good.

I used to say I was so small-minded and short-sighted that whatever I was doing I loved, in a sort of inane, dog-wagging-its-tail kind of way. In the midst of a road season I’d be finding it so fun that — whether successful or not — I would worry I wouldn’t like being on the track when the season came back around. I would think: “This is the good life, anything different must be worse!”

Then winter would come. I’d get on the track. I’d feel overwhelmed with how much I loved it. How track cycling was simply the greatest sport, this fast, wild, confusing thing was all that I loved and all I would ever love. It wouldn’t be surprising if I got a tattoo on my bicep with ‘track’ written atop a cartoon love heart. Then the season would end, I would worry that maybe I didn’t like the road anymore, and then I would love the road.

This happened four years in a row. Until, sadly, today. I’m so very ready for this year’s track season. I’m even already having fantasies about the following track season. Let me have all the track. All the speed, all the tactics, all the hand slings, all the stadium screams, all the pain, all the glory.

I don’t even mind if I have to do some losing as well. I’ll be able to keep myself going with that dirty sporting egoism that Nike is so desperate to promote. The ‘believing you’re the best irrespective of current evidence to the contrary’ mantra.

Which is completely lunatic, by the way. I can’t stand it. Apart from, of course, I suffer from this ugly condition myself and suspect it would see me persevere through quite a few bad seasons.

This particular season I am, however, relieved to exit. So far I have signed no 2019 road contract. More of a passive non-decision than anything else but it nonetheless reflects my current mood. Only one more sleep until that ‘winter 2018/19’ training tab is active, and I can’t wait.