Early New Year Goals

Instead of doing early Christmas shopping (Holliday shopping for the easily offended). I figured that I would set some goals for next year. Not many people know this about me, but I used to be an avid cyclist. I raced with a college club in Maryland, then raced when I moved to Oregon and raced a little when I moved here to Colorado. Last year I sort of mailed it in with a break up of a serious relationship. I just didn't have the drive to train as hard and as consistently as I needed to. I lost a lot of endurance and put on some wieght in that time so this is going to take some work.

Here are my three goals, I'm hoping that by posting them here it won't be so easy to bug out on them:

1. Lookout Mountain Hillclimb, (May) time to beat: 21:00 - Lookout Mountain is a local climb and this will be a big event, it's hosted by the Colorado School of Mines and is really close to my place.  It's a lead in to the bigger goals that follow. I think at it's elevation is right around 7,000ft. At the top is where Buffalo Bill is burried....so it is like a national treasure...of sorts.
2. Bob Cook Memorian Mt. Evans Hill Climb, (July) time to beat: 2:59:00 - Mt. Evans is has the highest paved road in the US and the peak is 14,264 ft. The road ends just below that. The total distance for the climb is right around 50 miles, most of it is up. What is cool is that there are usually some pro racers here and you get to really see the difference between cyclists at a professional level and the regular people.  Let my just tell you the difference is pretty disgusting. Tom Danielson, who raced with the Discovery Chanel team holds the record at 1:41:20, That is really fast.
3. Mt. Evans again, (August) but this time I just want to cover distance, I want to ride from my front door to the peak and back. Basically this is a personal century ride with the total distance covered being right around 116 miles and a lot of climbing as I will start at about 5,000 ft in elevation and turn around at 14,264 ft. This is one of those things I got into my head "You know don't think I can make it" So I'm going to try and do it. No crowds, no other cyclist...just me trying to make the trip.

Training has already started with some evening jogs to work on getting  some endurance back. I was thinking about getting a coach but I've had them before and they all tell me the same thing about training so I'm gonig to chart out my own calendar. I will be doing a lot of indoor bike work, that will start next month. Boring, but a good chance to catch up on movies. It's really hard to play video games on a trainer though.

Parting Financial Aid tips:

When you fill out your FAFSA, some schools will award based on the expected enrollment you give them. So always say you are going to be fulltime, even if you or your kid doesn't plan on it. I know it's stupid.

Oh, save for college...seems like a lot of families I counsel seem to think that college isn't going to cost money. I know my parents saved. And DON"T put the account into the kids name! No bonds, trusts or anything like that. Any asset in the student's name counts against any financial aid eligibility. Try to put it in the parents or grandparents name. It doesn't count so much in the parent's name and it doesn't count at all in the grandparents name.