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it wasn't the nicest day of the year, sleet and snow. full raingear and my stuff was still soaked by the time i arrived. bummer when the roads are this warm, the snow hits and just makes sloppy thick water. i still can't believe it, one of my co workers who lives ACROSS THE STREET drives to work! literally a three minute walk but she chooses to drive. i bet it takes more time to get in the car and start it and drive one block than if she walked. i'm clueless. it doesn't bother me too much, after another afternoon riding in the snow/sleet i'm used to it. good bit of work to stay warm and make riding in the weather worthwhile. i got home put on my sweats and napped in a perfectly quiet house watching simoni kill it on the corno alle scale. cunego is worth his weight in gold!

wasted words

i know some who read this would think i run off a bit but at heart i am a minimalist and not too much of a slob, i think. when writing i think often of my second biggest critic, my college writing professor who was a big fan of "economy of language." i try to do this and not write to see words on the page but to write what should be said. tuesday worlds, silly in the crosswinds. not many know how to ride in that stuff, and not many know how to ride well anyway. calling somebody on their poor riding is wasted on most b/c they think they know better. i've been yelled at by the best to ride better so i guess on some plane i think i know. whatever it is i try to get my work done and go home. especially when the snow was falling and i was getting cold, long trip home into the wind. plowing my furrow...

we learned about trees today, we touched and looked closely at lodgepole pine and aspen trees. beckham had a blast giggling with delight at the rough bark of the lodgepole and the smooth paper-like feel of the aspen. touching the bark and sap coming through made the our little nature class better. i can't wait to take him to other eco-sysytems and show him the trees there. i really enjoy my whole days with b. we get into things that other days we don't. we build stuff and knock it down and then build it again. play games, hide and seek is especially popular. working on my mtb a bit over the weekend made me realize how much damage i did to it over the winter. commuting is tough on your stuff, little bits of riding on either side of the commute add up and it's not lack of maintenance but actual broken things. result of crashes and whatever other trauma the bike went through over the winter. now i get to raid the extra parts bin to replace and ready for the season.

rest

the last bits of a rest week, it feels good to watch the giro in the am without the guilt of not ridng in the pm. little b is napping so i may cut this short and nap too. the body is slowly coming back to life, i really overdid it, a big block without realizing what i was doing. it feels very good to relax, and know that my form will return. to race with enthusiasm but not pressure. i'm 35 now and pressure on the bike is behind me, being your own worst critic is a killer. no outside pressure to ride away from, just the pressure from myself to go better and be faster and win more. you can't hide from yourself! thankfully the love of the bike in all of it's forms never leaves, i still feel like that twelve year-old riding out of sight of the house with nowhere to go, getting lost and finding my way back by dinner. i still want to explore on whatever bike is closest. still love to pedal. what could be better, playing with a toy that takes you to such cool places under your own power.

maybe i will get less lazy and take more pics and load them on my page. today is one of those days, i hope. timmyp does a great job posting pics, i lack the motivation to get that done. today i'll take some photos and get them on here. yesteday was good, fun little co-ed group ride up to copper, i had b in the burley so i did a fair bit of work but we had fun and shaubie got in a great training ride, as she starts her program for the triathlon. now with my rest week waning i need another good easy day today and maybe the fire will return, the alternative isn't too appealing. the idea of re-evaluating my race goals is not exciting, maybe an age group commitment would be about it, compromise is key.

a great doctor visit for little b, she saw what she needed to see and not much else. no real red flags right now but perhaps a concern down the road. after the sugery he woke hungry as a hippo, four cups of juice and milk later they released us and we went to wahoo's for lunch, 85 degrees and sunny and we got to sit in the shade and enjoy an amazing lunch, life is good when the boy is good! he was eating black beans like they were jelly beans, and some rice too. all of this about an hour after waking up from anesthesia! we got home in time for shaubie to get a swim before dinner and a little spin for me. a day i was so worried about turned out to be great news! pseudo-fullmoon commute today, pretty amazing this 12 week block on either side of the solstice makes my ride to work so different form the other 40 weeks a year. not needing the lights is so liberating, i get to roll out in the predawn beauty and for a few weeks see the alpin glow on the peaks as the sun threatens to rise, all on my commute! have a good day

whenever i get a chance to look around, i mean really look around i get a chance to appreciate the string of decisions that brought me to this place and time. i make frequent mention of this here but just how lucky i feel to be here. it would have been so easy so many times to return to where i started, to pack it in because it was too much. lucky for me laziness overcame the need to be comfortable. an odd juxtapostion for sure. too lazy to move to be more comfortable, lucky me.

tuesday night worlds or the group race as i call it. rolling out of frisco with a big group made me a bit more motivated to stay up front. not knowing how well most of the people could handle themselves in a bunch is reason enough to stay out of the mess at the middle or back of the pack. amazingly nobody crashed that i heard of, and a lot of people made it out to ute pass. full moon commute. i love when i roll out and don't need my lights because of the moonlight. if the trails were a little drier i would have done the singletrack ride to work but they are still a bit wet. maybe in a few weeks. right now most trails are pretty moist and fragile up here. no way to get in the time in good conscience on the dirt. there are some rideable trails in dillon but that would be a full afternoon's riding to get there. not feasible for me. that, and i refuse to drive within the county to ride my mtb. i heard through the grapevine that the elk habitat trail is dry but i'm doubtful, maybe this weekend i'll give it a look. eat well today, i am. brian is happy!

dog swim was amazing! jackson was so happy and as usual was one of the last dogs out of the pool. watching him swim is so much fun, he maintains this slow deliberate pace, not the hyper-active splashing of some dogs but the slow steady pace of a relaxed long distance swimmer. sometimes he would paddle out into the middle of pool and just do circles, not really worried about getting his ball but trying to get a few balls to return with. three was the most he could get. it's so cool to see all of the other kinds of dogs and how they interact, a few little fights but nothing serious, as usual number one stayed away from it all and swam his laps. little b was giggling and calling out to his brother the whole time. he wasn't quite sure how to react at first and then he was all about calling to jackson to play with him too. i was lucky i got to ride down there and get in some work on swan and three peaks. we had a good little group for the lake loop and then i was solo on three peaks. my tempo on the climbs feels a bit faster, changing my position has certainly improved my power. i wonder how much was lost in the old position? would i have won the race a week ago? does it really matter? no knee pain and good legs are what really matter here. i feel good and i haven't missed a day b/c of injury yet this year. monday was good, i got to ride with b and shaubie at lunch to frisco and then with tim in the later pm. great easy day. not a pedal turned in anger the whole time and today the legs feel amazing. tim and i did a great coffee ride, about two hours, staying very warm enjoying the sunshine on the warmest day in months! an amazing two days off, great salad for dinner with ciabatta bread. life is good. lets see if our good luck carries through thursday exam under anesthesia, just writing about it makes me get that knot in my stomach. not a good feeling.

i will get some new photos up soon, i never really get the chance to take any and post, time better spent riding and living. the weather is decidedly november-like. not the fading glory of ski season but the beginings of another long winter. thankfully it's not but it sure feels like it. another icy commute today. i arrived at work questioning my logic to have one car, that i don't drive. i got on the bike and made it in without the slipping of the tires on black ice. without skidding across the slick tarmac and ruining another set of shorts/legwarmers/shoes. i was reading about alberic "briek" schotte, a racer who died at age 84 about 40 minutes into the tour of flanders in hospital. aside from winning the tour of flanders twice and world championships twice he finished second to the great gino bartali in the tour de france in 1948, epic in that bartali won by over 26 minutes that year in a tour that was over 5000km and his time was almost 150 hours, double the norm of today. to put it lightly flandrian diesels. i love reading about how it was, today the athletes are faster but they don't go as long, a toss up, faster or longer, either way mentally it's tough. the wind is making me very strong, i never seem to get it at my back, i seem to plow a lonely furrow nearly everyday into the wind. i like it, i feel better after a windy ride. the new headphones do wonders for limiting wind noise and giving me motivation. i may ride alone but the music helps.