Yesterday I announced to the West Bend Cyclocross group on Facebook that I won’t be hosting a practice series this summer. The series ran at Royal Oaks Park from 2012 through 2019, then got wiped out by the pandemic in 2020 along with the entire WCA season. There will be cyclocross in Wisconsin this fall and I intended to bring the practice series back, but my priorities have changed.
In late September my oldest child will return to the nest to enjoy rent-free living and, I presume, accelerated student loan repayment! I couldn’t be more delighted; the house has been empty without my kids. But now there are household projects that just won’t wait any longer, and many of them can be done only with fair weather. None of this stuff was unexpected, but I had a longer timeline in mind when I was building my project list. Fresh paint, new carpet, various other decorating touches … it’s going to feel like a new house, not like the one I have occupied for 20 years. And there will be no shortage of work outside, where the trees are dying but the bushes and weeds are overgrown. Can’t forget about that September 18 block party on my street. I don’t want my house to be that house.
Also, it looks like there will be an East Coast vacation for me in October, which serves as an additional incentive to finish the household projects by the end of September. But as that trip will coincide with one or two WCA cyclocross races, it’s an additional disincentive to commit to the season. I’m still knocking out 12- to 15-hour weeks on the bike, typically surpassing 200 miles per week. My commitment to ride has not changed. But racing is a bad fit at the moment. It wants time, energy, and money when all three are needed elsewhere.
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