Sport or Expert, that is the question?

I am really struggling with which category I should be racing in this year. Last year I raced Sport Clydesdale and did very well.  Even though I still qualify to race Clydesdale (current weight is about 205 pounds), I really wanted to see how I measured against riders in my own age group.  Well I got my answer this weekend at the Yankee. Springs Time Trial.  I placed 7th out of about 35 riders and was 2 minutes behind first.

This was not the determining factor for me though, when I looked at the times for the expert category I would have raced I would have been totally out of my league. Those boys where turning in lap times 7 to 9 minutes faster than me and did 2 laps instead of 1.  I really like the feeling of being competitive in a group and coming in 50th in Expert is not where I want to be right now.  All that would do for me is leave me with a lack luster feeling about racing which may bleed over to my training.

I think it's good I stay in Sport, work on losing some more weight, and still get beat by those 165 pound guys in my age group...  it will motivate me to become faster in shorter events while I still train for the longer 100's.  This will also give me one more year to get ready to move to Expert.

As the year proceeds I will probably re-visit this same discussion and re-evaluate what to do, after all I will be entering the open division for my 100 mile races and get my ass kicked by guys like Christian Tanguy, Mike Simonson, and Tinker Juarez!

2012 Yankee Springs TT