Just another day

Its a good thing that today was just a two hour ride of choice, because due to the weather, my ride of choice was only an hour.
It never actually rained this morning, just looked like it was going to at any minute, but thats okay since I had to drive my car to Denver to the dealership and leave it to be worked on. The engine light came on and it was time for a scheduled check up anyway. I cleaned the apt the rest of the afternoon and now its beginning to rain. Hope tomorrow is okay for the TT.

Dead Dog

My first time to Dead Dog went okay, not spectacular but okay. My biggest mistake was not knowing the course and attacking thinking that the corner was the top, but that was far from it.

The road race was on Saturday and consisted of 90 miles of going up and over, then turning around and coming back up and over. You know you are climbing high when you look around and say "Hey, where did all the trees go, why is there snow everywhere?".
Sunday consisted of a hour crit in which I went all out in every attempt to be in the break. I planted myself in multiple early breaks that all got caught then in typical fashion I missed the move that stuck. I attempted a couple of times to bridge but the 30 second gap was too much for me to close on my own. Then round two on Sunday was a 10 mile TT which was very uneventful as I still search for that perfect TT position but I still turned in a very respectable time.

One way to look at it is that I walked away with some cash, enough to pay for gas, in my car, that's a lot.

Today I took it easy getting ready for another week and a half of intense training before heading off to Cascade.

Laramie, WY

Well today I made the drive up to Laramie, Wy for the Dead Dog race. Its a very boring drive, but once you cross the CO/WY line you hit the fireworks mega store. I am going to have to make a stop there on the way back to pick up some supplies.
This storm had me marked all the way from Boulder, and finally caught me in between Cheyenne and Laramie. It rained so hard pools of water collected on the interstate and all the cars had to resort to driving under 20 to keep from fishtailing.

Now I'm just hanging out in the hotel room till packet pick up then grab some dinner. The hotel isn't bad, they upgraded me to a king suite for no extra charge, which they should since they kill you on the price to begin with.

Just A Little Bored Tonight

I figured I would make the most I could out of my time and just whipped out my first batch of homemade protein bars. Notice the missing one, I have tried them, and so far I am still alive. Really they are pretty good.

Climin

Why do I love the Boulder area so much? Cause where else can you do a 5hr death march and only be an hour away from home. I started out with a ride up to the top of Super Flag, followed by 4 mile, Poorman, and finished with Sunshine to Gold Hill. It's fun going up the steep stuff when you feel great and the pavement just rolles by underneath you.


Super Flag
Sunshine
Tomorrow is an easy day then its time to see if I can one up my TT time from last week in the Boulder TT series.

Dirt

Well last night I did the weekly Boulder TT, I knew it wasn't going to be my best performance by far, but it when coming off a long rest period, you have to start somewhere.

Today was a great day, a couple of hours of easy recovery after yesterdays torture. There is nothing to me like a dirt road and being by yourself, its the best riding you can ever find.
The training has definitely picked back up and up on the block next is Dead Dog up in WY next weekend then back to the NRC.

Finally, A Few Pics

Well now that my parents are gone its back to normal, I do miss my dad's antics thought. Here he is trying on the modern thick clear framed reading glasses, he actually doesn't look bad in them.

Thankfully today was a testing day down at Carter's so I didn't have to ride into the mountains and into the black storms of death that were hovering just less than a thousand feet off the ground.
My results so that I am finally rested and am ready to hit the ground running again. Training is picking back up and so is the racing, well not this weekend, but the next I'm sure of it. I've gotta run to Boulder and Excel Sports this afternoon for my monthly replacement of lost tools that some how grow legs and walk away. I think I am on my 5th valve extender for a disc wheel this year.

Just curious who out there might have a mountain bike for sale and might be interested in selling it to a starving, struggling cyclist (I guess which is every cyclist) who is trying to make a comeback on the mtb scene. Post it in the comments.

For Blake

Well since it is "tomorrow" now and Blake has started to complain about nothing new to read, I guess I will post something.

My parents headed back down to Texas today and while it was good to see them again, a week of 24/7 time with them was about all I could handle. Tomorrow I head down to Carter's to see how the old power is holding up since I haven't raced in a couple of weeks now. I plan on taking this weekend off of racing again but picking it back up for Dead Dog, then Cascade and Toona.

These last few weeks I've really started to miss mountain bike racing. I always kind of missed it, but right now I really wish I hadn't sold the Scalpel. So I guess I am kind of throwing my name back out there right now to see whats there, I am going to talk to Carter more about it tomorrow but I think I might start submitting some resumes to see what might happen. I guess this has all come up since the road racing hasn't treated me so well this last month. Its not skill or power, its just bad luck thats been keeping me from getting anywhere. And with this year being my last year in trying to make it somewhere, I might as well see if my first true love is really where I should be.

Time for dinner and a nice quiet night of just me, the couch, and the TV.

Hi

I'm back. Just sitting here multitasking watching the basketball finals game and updating. The excuse for me not keeping up with the updates is that my parents have been in town for a week now but are heading out tomorrow. So to catch everyone up, I've been staying up on the training but have a knee thing going on that is hurting me pretty bad, I am going to have Carter take a look at me on Tuesday and see what is going on.

Other than that just very tired from running my parents around to see and do all of the Colorado tourist stuff. So this isn't a very good blog post since I am pretty distracted so I'll try and do a better job tomorrow.

My Thoughts

It feels only right that the weather outside is rather gloomy and rainy most of the days. Life has been tossing me wild pitches over the last month, both in my personal and professional life. I've already completely struck out in one and feels like I am on my way in the other.

People are who they are, you can't ask them to change just as much they shouldn't ask you to change. Why they think its not a two way street when it comes to things like this, I don't know.

Some time it feels that it doesn't matter what you want in life, there are too many outside factors that will keep you from them. Whether its someone else, the big guy upstairs, or the cosmos just has aliened against you, you can try all you want. That is what makes most people feel satisfied, they feel that at least they tried in life and say that fate has taken them where they were meant to be. I say, F that. Its your life. You only get one, so you better fight like hell against whatever it is cause its only going to happen and be yours if you want it bad enough and fight for it hard enough. I guess its time to just sit back, down another one, and from time to time, pour one out for your homies who do think they have no control over their lives and just say "if it was meant to be, it will be".