Stock image of some dudes racing really hard. 

It's March 29th, and for better or for worse that means one thing:  it's time to really pencil in the races I want to do for the year! Do I sound excited?  I guess I have mixed feelings: I don't feel prepared because I'm still at least 25 pounds over the weight I wanted to be at this time of the season. 

Have a raced already?  It depends on who you ask.  I have raced on Zwift.  A lot.  Even though my Zwift racing score is abysmal, I've hit about 2 or 3 races a week.  

Today, I raced an "E" event, called a criterium but way more like a hard circuit race on the Volcano Circuit that is part of the Zwift racing club. I did this partly because it was windy out and temperature in the 40s and I'm a wuss. 

This race, by all accounts, was an awesome workout, and I finished.  Yet, my placing was not all that fantastic and my Zwift racing score dropped, to 124, which means I still can compete in the E races and compared to most people who race on Zwift I'm a lowly creature. An NPC perhaps. 

The good news is that my FTP has drastically improved since I started doing this in late January. I'm somewhere in the 220 range; but how will racing go on the road?  I will actually find this out on Tuesday, when I do my first Tight Pants Tuesday, one of the central Midwest's real hammer fests, and which an iteration has gone on since the mid 1990s in the Northeast part of Boone County.  I will almost certainly be dropped by the young Cat 1s and 2s there, but how badly dropped will indicate a whole lot to me! 

Another key part of this is that I'm just not shaped like a bike racer at this point.  I look like a typical recreational rider: nothing against them, I was one for 16 years, but I certainly don't have a build that screams anything other than Dad Bod. 

Stay tuned!  Two weeks from now may bring a 50 mile gravel race or a criterium. The beauty of living in this part of the Midwest is that there are still so many events to choose from.