The title is right.  I’ve ridden a little over 2000 miles per race this year.  I have 4000 miles and I’ve raced twice.  I raced the team aspect of the 24 Hours of Pueblo in February and then the Gravelleur’s Raid 100 mile gravel race last weekend.  At least 225 of those miles are race miles.

This isn’t normal for me.  Normal would be that I would have raced a ton by now.  Like the end of February, even weekend of March and now April.

I’m not making excuses, but this year hasn’t been going that smoothly this year so far.  Bromont being sick has been my main focus.  It takes a lot of energy, physical and mental, taking care of a dying dog.  At least this dog.  He is so emotional and needs, plus deserves,  a lot of attention all the time.  He hasn’t been sleeping much at night, thus I haven’t been sleeping much either.

I don’t really have a focus, bike racing.  But, the best thing about the sport is that there is always a race the next weekend.  Pretty much year round.

I’ve really been enjoying riding though.  Most of my miles, or at least a lot of them, have been alone.  Historically, I don’t ride that much alone, but for some reason, I seem to be fine with it.  It probably isn’t the best thing for speed, which I’m lacking big time, but it is good for my mind.

I got sick again last night.  I was screwing up cement board in a shower most of the afternoon and started feeling worse and worse.  Pretty soon I was dragging walking up and down stairs and started getting that sweaty sticky feeling of a fever.

I came home a little after 8 last night and that was it.  I took a hot bath and crawled into bed with Bromont.  He could tell I didn’t feel well either.  He has always been good at that.  So, we just layed in bed together, me sweating and he just being a friend.  We got up a couple times to go to the bathroom.  He was pretty good at just going outside to the backyard himself.  He hasn’t been doing that on his own recently, but like I said, he could tell I was feeling badly.

I feel a little better this morning, but am not normal.  I’m not sure what the issue is, I’m not really worried about it.  I have other things to worry about.

Hopefully, pretty soon, like within the next two months, the number isn’t 2000, it is something like 200 miles per race.  I think that a good number is really around 150 or less.  I think a couple seasons, when I was doing lots of long stage races, I had over 120 race days and was probably only riding 15000 miles.  That makes the number closer to 125.  I’ve never really thought of it that way, but it sort of makes sense.  And probably half those miles were race miles.  That is another way to figure it I guess.

Okay, I am probably laying around most of the day.  I’m watching the finish of De Brabantse Pijl right now.  There are 22 km to go.  A old friend, and team mate, Paul Biskup, from Bend, is driving through and staying tonight.  He is from Kansas City and is back in the midwest visiting his family.  Guess I’m just sending in an extension for taxes.