good work all around, early am ride without too much work and then a good solid block towards copper and home again. real strong effort the legs feel it now, plenty loaded to throw myself at the hills tonight. then a wonderful drive with my honey to edwards to see dusty! one of my oldest most cherished friends. sushi for dinner with the four of us (his sweetie georgia too) that rocked! sato's does it right. we got to hear about idaho and their recent road trip and how life goes when too many celebrities invade your town and make lines at the coffee shop intolerable b/c so-and-so needs something special that their rich, white entitled you-know-what thinks they deserve from the rest of us. too long between visits with him, sitting there at dinner finishing each others thoughts made shaubie remark how she had forgotten how similar the two of us were. when life throws you a good friend it's worth keeping up the effort to stay in touch with them. soon we will go to idaho and visit and in the meantime maybe they can make it here for the firecracker in july, i encourage everybody to make it out for that one! life is too short to not do the things you want and challenge yourself in whatever forum you need challenging in.

after last nights world championships i may take a pass on the whole thing for a while. i guess i have become spoiled on the whole group thing riding with roadies as opposed to riding with people who don't know how to ride well. getting up out of the saddle when in a group that is keeping a pretty tight line is bad. your bike sways too much to really be safe and goes backwards a touch as well. so i may try to get in my work in other ways, a group can be so helpful to build fitness but perhaps i just need a structured day instead of tuesday night worlds. two amazing days with b, monday was a ton of fun as we had a few good walks in the woods saw lots of squirrels and birds and number one chased them all. he is so amazing, he watches jackson look at the animals and howling whenever jackson was more animated and thrilled the whole time yelling his "words" at number one. great to see such a happy one. tuesday was cool we hung out at the park in the morning for coffee time and let number one play in the water and be free for a bit. no hassles from the man for him being off leash. he layed down in the ice cold river and just smiled, little b got a special kick out his dog sitting in the water and periodically chasing sticks. a pm walk in the woods to cap off the day before i went and did my work on the bike. i think the hammer gel i had on the ride was bad as i got home with a nasty upset stomach, no fireworks just rot-gut. good dinner to settle the stomach, pasta with garlic and olive oil. a good night. the other night i made a little snack of horizon yogurt with granola and banana, amazing! i want to eat this everyday. hug someone you love today.

i saw something wierd to start off my day; a woman walking a giant saint bernard through town dressed as though she were going to a preppy dress-up party. this wasn't too odd until i began to tie it into my old idea for a sitcom. a group of little people who run a dogwalking business in a big city. just think of the visual; small people walking giant and not-so-giant dogs and the troubles that befall them. oh well, old story idea. warm thoughts to all who get the time to waste reading my drivel. thanks for tuning in.

taking the plunge to admit my age wasn't as hard as i thought it would be. we got to the race pretty early and the rain and fog reminded me of east coast mtb races. showing up and the moist air and fog conceal a lot of the surrounding hillsides and scenery. not really knowing what you were in for that day. yesterday was a lot like that, my first race with the old guys, it wasn't as hard as i thought, but it was fast. good course to try out the 35+ field, nice long hill for about half of each lap. long in that it took up half the lap, not that the hill itself was long. as a team we had a plan to just watch the first 15 minutes and cover any moves of consequence. then later on we were to try to make a move stick. 6 of us got away with two of us in the break. going for a prime that i won we split the break into three. and that was about it. we stayed away the whole race from there, 30 minutes off the front. i pulled really well on the hill, that was where i decided to make my contribution to the break. each time up it i went to the front and did my work. the guy has won every 35+ race this season was with me in the break and he started to take shorter pulls with about 10 minutes left, not much i could do, he attacked at the start of the final lap and went after him and that was about it, i caught him but was too winded to do anything. i made a mess of the last lap, didn't let the other guy chase him and sat on. i think my mistake was to show how well i went up the hill, where the finish line was. oh well, it was fun to be in a break, and third place isn't too bad for a spring race where i was questioning whether or not i'd get dropped!

the meeting yesterday was nonexistent. i went down there and it was no where to be found. i looked around quite extensively and found nothing, i later found out that it was at town hall, not county commons. oh well, i got in a bit of a ride and that's what i needed more than the class itself. the weather got worse as the day rolled on and i worried about another hypothermic day on the bike. i ogt lucky and escaped with a brief commute followed by an hour + on the rollers. good legs and a good ride for a rough week. sunday will be good, hopefully two races. 35+ and pro 1-2, double days, it's been a few years since i did that. summit county got the shaft last night. 12-20 inches, hah! we got maybe 1, i was all psyched to get on the mtb to go to work through a foot of fresh snow, but at 5am the roads were barely wet and icy, fixy was the call, all night i had dreams of borken collarbones, i even got the phantom pains. timmy you are not alone! timmyp.typepad.com the dreams can haunt even as an adult. the control with the fixy was amazing, no slippage at all, icy bridges and slick iced over hills were no trouble. i barely used the sissy brake! arriving at work as intact as i left home was a welcome surprise, the dreams were wrong for one more day. i'm trying to change brian's diet a little bit. he was enjoying the frequent treats of last week with much enthusiasm but this week it's been all good stuff, as the acne on a 35 year old man's face would show maybe i was going a bit overboard on the donuts, this week it's clearing up and i feel better, no rot-gut, no new zits, a cleaner system. great dinner last night to go along with eating better just more good food is key. leftover sauce from the other day with really good parm sliced and melted on top. same dinner as the night before but really tasty, kind of a staple i think from now on. just make the sauce and leave it in the fridge a few days and finish off the week with baked ziti. what could be better? pasta, sauce and cheese every night of the week. mmmmmm dairy. ride your bike today

yesterday was supposed to be good work but it instead was a few intervals followed by a cold, wet ride home. no sympathy though, it was snowing as we left, i didn't get caught out, but it just snowed more and more. i got most of the work done but i still needed a bit more time just not hypothermic. maybe today the stars will align and allow me to get it done. even my shoes were loaded with water, all sloshy. i felt dedicated and a bit stupid while riding, thankfully tim was with me, without company it would have really sucked! it took a good bit of washing to get all the grime and ice off. now the brakes work. today is good, i have a meeting in frisco, i think. i may ride there (guilty pleasure) afterall it is earth day can't a brother ride his bike to a meeting 9 miles away. maybe i'll call it part of my lunch. that is if i really do have a meeting. which is yet to be determined.

no blog for a few days, not laziness as much as just plain exhaustion, we are supposed to recover on days off from the work week, i'm not so lucky, i know it's my own doing but it still sucks to return to work more tired than when you left three days before. sunday was really hard, carter lake is tough without bad conditions and the wind just made it ten times harder, i survived, but others were not as lucky. the wind wanted to pull the bike right out from under you. leaning into the gust and pushing the front end into the ground to keep from going off the road into the ditch. these weren't simple crosswinds or if you consider 50 mph winds simple we had them! we had a few really good walks, the woodpeckers were out and the squirrels were yelling at jackson. little b had a blast, he was happy to see all of the little greeneries showing up and his big brother running around with a stick.

the more you eat the better you should feel right? i eat well and i eat right, for the most part. no quadrupeds no fatty foods, well except the donuts i eat a few times a month. but i need the calories, and food is expensive! donuts are a good source of much-needed calories, right? well i'm about to give up, and go full on healthy. no more crap. i feel a bit lethargic after eating a lot and after a donut i get this empty feeling inside. maybe it makes brian happy, or maybe it's really brian who gives me the empty feeling, he's getting my donut and depriving me the satisfaction of eating it. yesterday, i had a wonderful donut and was very excited as it was still hot while i was eating it. the donut was pretty much a deep-fried apple pie. warm apple filling inside a light pastry crust with cinnamon sugar coating. not exactly high-culture but at 5.30 in the morning it sure is nice to get in the backdoor of daylight donuts and see the boys and have all of those wonderful treats before me. afterwards though i guess brian got a good meal and i got the shaft. well maybe i shouldn't eschew donuts just yet, perhaps a bimonthly visit, meet my caloric needs in the middle with my health-conscious needs. homer would go full throttle, a donut diet, interspersed with krusty burgers, and ham, and bacon, and hot dogs, and.......

i can't figure it out. i ride well and do the work and i feel less tired than when i don't ride. sunday i woke up fighting to open my eyes after no ride saturday, and then on the days since i wake and feel like a spring chicken. mmmmmm spring chicken. the equation just befuddles me. today i was on the bike before 5 to get in some miles before work. a bit cold today, i heard about 20 or so, but with the schedule this week if i want to get in my time i'll need to get up early. kind of fell off the wagon last night. big pizza, but i wasn't super hungry for it, i only had two pieces. the great salad didn't hurt either. shaubie is still a bit queasy on salad, after the flu/food poisoning we both got on my birthday she hasn't been too keen on salad. oil and vinegar dressing coming back up isn't too good. she puked it up pretty quick after eating it so stomach acid and vinegar together probably hurt a bit.

the blue bird laughed at me as i went by breathing too hard. he was just getting some dinner, i was doing something else entirely. the wind was pretty bad it made a medium to hard ride harder. with carter lake six days out i need to get more accustomed to work. too long since the last race. the squirrels were getting a kick out of me too, they figured another idiot human out trying to prove something instead of getting his dinner out of a tree. with the bike path clear all the way to copper i have a good stretch of path without much traffic at all. new tires on the road bike made for a smooth ride on the already good surface of the path. it feels good to train, following a pattern to get the most out of my old bones. this will be a good year, i can feel it.