The park racing season is optimistically scheduled to begin tomorrow, and that means the end of my training log for the winter season. Every off-season has its own special challenges—the foremost among these challenges is to not lose one’s mind due to repetition and monotony—but this off-season has been especially challenging because we’ve been buried in piles and piles of soul-extinguishing snow. This winter’s cartoonish-ly high accumulations have driven me to my basement for what I can only assume is a new record for time spent panting underground on my trainer. The result of all this caged pedaling is an unknown level of fitness, because indoor bike riding is mostly only good training for indoor bike riding. The absence of friction, gravity, wind resistance and non-imaginary challenges makes for less than optimal conditions for harvesting mightiness.

Therefore I will again rely on the company of others in sub-freezing temperatures to pound the pig iron that is my fitness into the mighty sword of mediocrity that the world has come to know and love. I will be pounding my pig iron out with some new teammates this season, and it is always enjoyable to have new teammates—as they haven’t yet had the opportunity to find out how disappointing it is to race with me—right now they have me confused with a capable, non-crazy person; and and that’s fantastic. Those with any clue whatsoever will figure out my uselessness by April, but right now, I’m basking in the glow of their ignorance.

THE ABOVE IS ALL LIES

As I return to my keyboard from a brief sojourn into paying work, I have learned that both the Branch Brook and CRCA races have been cancelled. This means that the debut of my mightiness will be delayed by seven days. This also means that all the words written in the paragraphs above are (more) false. I realize that this is a very serious error on my part, and in the spirit of fairness, I will be issuing refunds to all the people who have been offended by my laxness.