I'm ready

Warning. Sappy ramblings ahead. Mostly for me as therapy.

Lot's of thought over the past couple of days. Hey, I know I'm not making my living at this. But I have always been a competitive person. Primarily competitive with myself.

A timeline

First three races of season

No expectations. Rode as hard as I possibly could. Left it all out on the course. Didn't care if I crashed. Didn't care if I blew apart. Things were good.

Gloucester

Quote from yours truly - "Everything from here is icing on the cake"

What a dumb thing to think or say 5 weeks into the season. I was basically setting myself up for accepting lower results.

Middle of season

Complacency began to set in. I started having expectations. High expectations for 3/4 races and low expectations for 2/3 races. Began looking around more than forward in the races. Became conservative in the first laps. Interestingly, Southington stands out as a race I dug really deep in. I rode as hard as I could for the full 60 minutes. It was a 1/2/3 race. I had no expectations. Just gave it my all. See a pattern developing here?

Trenton

What a learning experience. For the first 5 minutes of each race, I didn't want to risk anything. If someone wanted the line and was prepared to push me for it, I backed off. After there was some sorting out, I started riding and running hard. Hard enough that the top 20 was in reach both days after coming from the mid 40s. The legs were good, but I didn't give them a remote chance of showing it.

Conclusion

So what does all of this mean? What the hell are you getting at zank?

Occam's Razor approach. Take out as many variables as possible. I think it boils down to this.
Good legs + Good mind = Good results
Good legs + Bad mind = Less than Good results

Big surprise, right? Sure, hindsight is 20/20. But it's tought to figure out what's going on at the time.

I'm ready to have some fun again this weekend. A couple of days ago, I thought I peaked at Amesbury. The truth is I think my legs are better now than they were then. My brain just needed a taper. Insert cone head joke here_________________

Happy Thanksgiving to all! And to all a good night.