Well we’re back home from Elite Track Nationals and both feel a little post-race depression. Heather is doing the “should’ve, would’ve, could’ve” thing, regarding her tactical mistakes during the Points race. Sure she’s happy with a silver medal, especially after such a long break from track racing, but you always do that post-race analysis where you pick apart all the things you did wrong, or could have done better.

Me, I’m a little down on not having the opportunity to try a race on either of our trips. It’s probably a good thing as I most likely would have embarrassed myself. I had a long break after I officially ended my season and only have two real weeks of training under my belt so far.

Track racing is a bit different, not just the races, but the whole experience. You end up living in the in-field, which you become intimately familiar with as you spend all your time there between events. At Nationals, we were there between 6-8 hours a day with Heather only racing maybe 20-30 minutes of that time. That’s a lot of “hanging out” time. Some of it’s spent warming up and cooling down and changing chainrings/cogs, but most of the time you’re just stretching, eating or trying to relax. You see lots of iPods and MP3 players being sported!

I’m excited to get a velodrome in Boise and have been re-thinking my training plan for next season. With the expected opening of next spring, I may focus on track racing next year. Even though the points race is alluring to me, I think I would do better in the Pursuit. I’ve always done well in time trials, and with proper training I think I could do well in a 4-5 minute event like that. Plus, I won’t have to put in such a high-training volume if I don’t have to worry about stage races or road races over 4 hours.