Difficult decision

I think most people make decisions and then rationalize why they made them even if they know in the back of their minds that they made the wrong choice. I'm no different. I've been thinking about doing the rest of the national endurance series yet that little voice kept telling me it's too expensive, maybe some other time.

After talking it over with my wife I've decided not to go to Colorado or the other national races even though I'm currently in second place. I hate it when she's right, which is probably most of the time but don't tell her that. It's just not something in the budget for now. If they hadn't had the western race requirement I would have been able to continue.

I will do the Michigan endurance series again this year and maybe next year look at doing some of the national races again. I will have a hard time finishing in the top three in my class for the local series since I didn't do the double points race and the points difference is hard to overcome. I won my class last year which is why I was going to do other races.

My team contract calls for me to do two series and I had originally planned on doing the Michigan series again anyway since the national series hadn't been announced. Then I thought I would see how I did in the first two races of the national series before deciding to continue. Next year I shouldn't have the same stipulation so I will be more open to choosing what races to do.

I'm glad I did the two I did, I found that I like the longer loop format of the 100 milers a lot better than the round and round of the multi-hour formats. For instance this weekend's 8 hour race is on a course a little over 4 miles in length. It gets kind of boring after a while. The 100 milers will take anywhere from 8-12 hours but you rarely see the same section twice. I don't really plan on contesting much this weekend, more of a long training ride since my legs aren't 100% recovered from Lumberjack.