It's 23 days too late to start a New Year's resolution?

Well, it may be but I am still giving it a try. One of those resolutions was to give this old blog a face lift and keep it somewhat up to date. I kept putting off last year because I felt I had to recap everything I had missed earlier in the year which was a lot, but I'll try to cover that later.
For now I'll focus on 2011.
Three weekend into it and I have already a lot to recap.

We kicked-off the year with a night out with friends a Kokopelli Winery in Chandler. Great wine, great food and great people to start the year with.

Since "New" was the themed, I figure I'd start with some of the new things for year:

• New Team Names - Although a lot of my team mates are still the same we are all trying to get used to what our teams are called. On the dirt side of things last year's HammerHeadBikes.com crew added a few new names and change the title sponsor to BicycleWorld.TV. Look for us at any mountain bike race or trail near you. On the road the old Procon crew merged with Tribe to form the new Carlos O'Briens Racing P/B Tribe. Expect us an any road race, crit or TT near you.
• New Kits - Out are the worned out blue, green and white colors of Procon and grey, red and white of HammerHead. Green it's the new black...at least that's what every other team decided to do this year.
• New Bikes - Probably the part I am the most excited about. I finally caught up to the rest of the world and upgraded to the big wheels for off-road racing with a Niner Air 9 carbon made possible by Mike and Dave at IndustryBike.com. On the skinny wheels, I'll be rolling on an Cannondale Super Six courtesy of Kevin and folks at Tribe. Stay tuned for another post on set up details and pictures of each machine.

Ok, enough with new stuff for now.The first race of the season was just around the corner. 12 Hours of Papago would become the first test for the hours of training I've put under the close guidance of Coach Art. BicycleWorld.TV came out with first and second place in the 4-man competition. I felt good during my laps and ended up logging the fastest lap of the event.

A week later my wife completed one of her long time goals by completing a full marathon. I rode alonside of her for about 2/3 of the course and even on the bike it felt like a long way. I am very proud of my running lady and the time and effort she put into making it happen. Her time was 5 hours and 13 min. Her next goal is to run at least one marathon per year.

Then this past weekend was the first event of the Mountain Bike Association of Arizona (MBAA) as well as the first event on the AZ Cycling (road) calendar.

The mountain bike race took place at McDowell which is the traditional season opener. I ended up winning the pro race, my first at an MBAA event if you don't count the points Championship from last year. I'll write a complete recap of that. Here is the podium picture with Zack Keller (3rd) fellow teammate Tom O'Brien and I.

On the road things didn't start so well. I have been fighting a cold for a few days and although I was able to get through it the day before at McDowell, during the Avondale crit my lungs refused to work. I skipped the 30+ race and lined up for the Cat 2/3 race. I felt OK at the beginning and even chased a break early on the race, however about 25 minutes into the race my breathing became really labored then I started coughing. After a lap of so of this I decided it wasn't going away and better pull off the race.

For the next few weeks the plan is to get rid of this illness and continue training smart. However one of the weekends includes a non-cycling trip to Durango for some fun in the snow.

I hope to continue updating on a regular basis. I guess Facebook has taken away a lot of my time and effort to post, but I like the idea of keeping the rolling journal to look back at how things went.

Until next post...keep the rubber side down!