the Beast lives. & yes Huffy those are Bar End shifters(8spd old school!) 

CC dreaming

Blew off yet another ride today. Decided instead to go for a run(yes scot I know) & start building up my interim TT Bike. Over to Sunshine to pick up some bullhorns & bar end brakes from my man Emory(2 for 2 on things I need). Then a quick trip to Sam's for monthly supplies. While @ Sam's the sky's opened up & a deluge ensued. Kind of glad I blew off that ride. The power actually went out. But Walmart/Sam's had that covered, the cash registers stayed powered up via generator so not to loose a single penny. Gotta love big business.

The following pic shows where I got on the bike. Almost done except came up one cable short in my parts scrounging. Actually have enough parts/frames to build up 3 bikes! All old school of course.

Since I'm not racing Sunday I've decided to do the Hot Lap after the Road Race as punishment/training for State TT. So I'll be able to see if the Beast experiment as with my time. Should be a fun RR since Skippy & Emory are racing in the 3/4's. I'm thinking they need to go off on an early break while the boys & I sit back & block.

Anyway to the run. It was nice & cool(80 deg) by the time I got around. Being late I figured a little golf course poaching would be fun. Actually got to run 4 holes before the sprinklers kicked on. Running up & down the fairways got me waxing nostalgic for my cross country days. This fall I think a trip to the Chili Pepper Cross Country Festival in Fayetteville, AR might be in order no spikes though. Its been a long time since I've raced cross country & I'd almost forgot how much fun/suffering it was. Running so fast you pass out(which I did once in high school). Running in cold, mud, blood, snot, & puke; man what fun. Though collegiate cc kind of sucks the fun out of it since they turn it into a job. I'm no where near as fast now in my old age but I can appreciate a good sufferfest still. I got so excited thinking about the "good ole days" the pace got a little out of control & had to back it down a notch. So I'll admit it running's not so bad.

Change of pace

A little change of ride time was in store to try & beat the hottest day of the year to date. Even @ 8am though it was already 80 deg. ICC, Greg G, & I took off to do the Boaz Wed night loop. Nothing super hard but did get in some good efforts. Next season we'll have to get Greg G in some kit, he's going to make a fine racer once he gets used to riding in a pack.

Did manage to take a 3+ min pull @ close to 35mph today. I'm starting to get excited about MO State Crit. People are going to crap themselves when the Big Red Train (minus 1, Scot you'll be missed) comes to the front @ the end to deliver Gunga to a State Title. Since I have NO sprint I'll be up front burying myself with 35 mph pulls to discourage potential escapees. So look for me to be not so popular again (ie Tri Peaks). I can be pretty intimidating when I throw around my 155 lbs. Not really but it sounds tuff though.

Congrats to my former roomate in Gunnison, CO Brian Smith. He was a member of the 4 person male winning team of this year's RAAM. Team Beaver Creek/Vail.

Is that a jet chasing me?

Decided I'd better get back on the bike if I was going to keep any semblance of fitness. As a little motivator today I gave the disc its inaugural spin. According to all the data I've read a disc wheel will save you 60 sec in a 40K TT. Cool @ $400 a min I need to spend $1600 to get in the 55min club. In theory. We'll find out @ MO state TT later this month.

The disc surprised me a little. Having never ridden one in all my years of riding & racing I thought it would give a harsh unresponsive ride. Actually it accelerates nicely & is fairly smooth. Plus it makes the coolest noise: Like a jet off in the distance behind you.

To get the most out of the hour I had allotted for sweating in the heat today I figured a little Fartlek workout(speed play for you non runners) would do. In college this was my favorite type of interval, since it didn't involve me running around the track. 45 min later my legs felt a little heavy from the effort but all in all not a bad workout for being so short.

I'm having some serious motivation problems right now so going to have to come up with some entertaining workouts to keep me motivated. I'm sure thay won't be VanAsten approved but if nothing else they will be a guide of what not to do.

$420 minute? 

Orienteering....AKA Wandering around in the woods lost

As part of my training now John B & I have added what will be regular Orienteering workouts. My AR team is fast of foot & wheel, but that damn nav always gets us. So to help our chances @ Nationals we're going to train @ it like every other discipline. Sounds good? Well how does one go about that? You get famous Rogaine course setter Brad Bledsoe to flail around in the woods setting impossible to find markers for you to go out & find. Easy enough.

So John, Anna A, & myself load up & head off to Rocky Barnes CC area. We hadn't been there 15 min before we are in the middle of a downpour/lightning storm. A few close booms of thunder will wake even me up in the afternoon.

2.5 hrs later we finally stumble onto a marker completely by accident. So John & I start really studying the map. Well it looks like we weren't lost after all. Bledsoe had used a GPS to get the coordinates for the markers. Usually not a problem but the Willard Topo is so old it uses the 1929 Datum & the GPS was set for WGS 84. Not to get technical but the Earth moves & maps are adjusted accordingly. Oops we've been off by 200-300 meters on all our points. So we're not the crappy navigators we were beginning to think we were, whewww!

So I'm sure future Nav workouts will have some entertaining stories especially when we do some night nav. Some of the funniest AR stories involve tricks of the compass. Just ask Bradley how all our compasses were broke & South had to be North; actually that's more of a sleep deprivation story.

Lax

After Wednesday's overheat I've been a little lax in my training & my upkeep of my blog. Thursday was spent mowing & vegetating followed by a brief visit from the Pettus' so Julie could get a massage from Amber to help heal her ailing quad.

Friday was another scorcher so decided not to ride again. On tap though was walking in the Relay for Life on the Ava High School track with my parents & their neighbors. It was actually pretty fun. I ended up walking about 8 or 9 miles so actually not a bad workout. One guy was going to walk the whole time(7pm-7am) & another was using it as training for a 100 miler & running the whole time. Maybe something for me to shoot for next year.

Saturday was yard work. Ick! I can think of @ least billion other things I'd rather do. But today none of them seemed appealing(riding included) so I covered myself in sunscreen & mustered on. Got quite a bit done & finished in time to watch a little of Firefall from the deck.

Later that evening Amber & I ventured downtown to Ernie Bigg's Piano bar. One of my favorite places to go have a few downtown. The other being Patton Alley Pub(they have a beer menu, enough said). Ernie's has an interesting group of people. Everytime I've been there is always a bacheralette party so you get a lot of comic relief from that. Then you have various drunks & people looking for a good time. So everyone mingles together & sings along with the piano players & its a great time. After last call we went over to Ziggie's for the mandatory after hours breakfast, yummy.

Jim & Cale, glad to hear someone's training is going well. Good luck tonight on the track. Post some picks of the OCC colors going around in a circle. Keep the rubber on the track boys!

Melt Down

Well it finally heated up here in Springtown. 90+ today hotter tomorrow. I knew it was going to be a rough one when day 3 of my current semi annual bout of insomnia struck. 3 days of 4 hours of sleep wears on a guy. I had prepared for the heat by freezing 2 bottles of water to help keep me cool. I'd put a fan in my pocket for Skippy to ride along side me & fan me with, but alas he no showed on me(something about rockets & a possible job with NASA tracking them).

I guess the heat scared most everyone off since only senor carbon, Stoker, ICC, John Jones, & myself showed up @ McBride. I was struggling from the get go. My ride over I felt like I was maxed out riding @ 14mph. I've never been great in the heat but I can usually deal with it. Not today. With the increased training load & lack of sleep I melted today. We'd be climbing the smallest hill & I'd be hanging on for dear life spinning my smallest gear. So the Boaz shortcut was in order today, followed by another shortcut/more direct route home. 2.5 hr ride time saw me drink 5 bottles of water! Plus non stop drinking when I got home.

I'm thinking tomorrow will have to be a rest & recoup day since I have in 6.5 hrs this week already(almost the same # of hours I have in sleep in the same time period). Hopefully the insomnia will go by by & I can get one of those epic 14 hour sleep days.

Summer Solstice

First & foremost its about damn time the News Leader gave Huff some recognition Springfield Misleader

Well the Tues night ride has quickly made me forget about my need to motor pace. As more & more people show up to display there summertime form the pace gets quicker & quicker. I'm currently getting in almost 4 hrs on Tues by riding over & back from the hacienda. Most of that is @ 20+mph. This week was a PR up the Turner Bend hill with Stokes ramping up the pace as usual. But guess who was tucked in tightly behind Stokes & me? Mr. I Can't Climb(ICC) himself. You want to feel fast ride up that hill @ over 22 mph!

This week my ass kicking started in the parking lot from fellow blogger & white shoe aficionado Skippy, literally with a ride by kicking(who plays dirty?). I knew all hell was going to break loose when the Hammer rolls up & within 5 min I catch him tightening my barrel adjuster on my rear brake. I guess it was pick on Scoot week. I think it was because I had decided to go Virenque style to stay cool(jersey zipped behind back) & all I was doing was paying homage to Skip for his feeling euro days.

After a slowwwww roll out the pace quickly got hot like the temperature. With a group consisting of the Hammer, Stoker, ICC, Skippy, Scot Davis, & the ever improving Mr. Bradley(he's getting fast & threatening to start bike racing), oh yeah & the old man me. Davis has got a motor when he decides to turn & burn & a tight paceline soon formed. Toward the Rogersville High School I saw the pace was starting to wear on people so I yell @ICC to ease up. Well he later said he thought I said pick it up so he did, dropping everyone but a struggle Stoker & me, struggling even more. Actually I think he was making me pay for Sun but he wouldn't admit to it.

Well with the temp predicted to be even hotter tonight I have bottles in the freezer. It's going to be a rough one tonight, so hopefully cooler minds will prevail & the pace won't get to crazzzzy. Till tonight.

Me right after the finish of the AR state TT 

1 Down 51 to go

Yea I know 50 states but the USCF recognizes the District of Columbia & Puerto Rico. What the title means is I'm now the AR 30-34 TT champ (if I lived in AR that is) unfortunately I don't so some guy who rode a 1:10 is.

I'll take this as a gift though since there is no way I should be able to beat Pettus in a 40K if he's having a good day. I think the wind going out played the key role. I was struggling to maintain 22.5-23 mph. I hit the 20K turn around in 32:00 just behind Pettus. On the return I was able to punch it up to 28mph & really feel the burn.

I caught Pettus, my 30 sec man, with about 8k to go. I stayed ahead of him for about a min & a half when he decided to make me suffer for my faux pas of passing him. I was starting to have some serious ass problems but realizing that I had a shot at a sub hour(my first) finished strong passing Pettus for the win @ the line. Finish time 59:33(talk about negative splits!) Pettus came in 2nd in 30-34 in a respectable 1:00:05. Given the wind & knee pain he was having earlier in the week I'll call myself lucky & get ready for him to beat me unmercifully @ MO State TT. After the race I got to experience my first ass cramp, no wonder no one wants to do 40k's. They really screw up your body.

So a pretty good showing for the OCC boys 1-2 in our old man division. Everybody else stayed @ home scared of the TT (Like I now am).

Fast? Hopefully 

Shake down ride & lessons learned

Well went out to today & bought a set of aero bars for Sundays TT. Let me say my faith in Springmo retailers might be turning. I actually walked into a store & bought something without being told "We don't have it but we can order it." Sound familiar? Well it seems to happen to me every time I need something regardless of the store. But not today walked into Sunshine & Emory hooked me up. I even got to watch him patiently explain to a customer why he couldn't superglue a visor to his helmet. After about 5 minutes of this discussion I would have told the guy to glue it to his forehead because that would be all the protection his helmet would offer after being exposed to superglue. I guess that's why I'm not in retail. My hats off to all those in the retail trenches fighting stupidity on the front lines.

Got home and no Disc @ the door(oh well). So I went ahead and installed the bars on the non recommended FSA handlebars. Hey I may not be super bright but Pettus is doing it too & no I wouldn't jump in front of a train if everyone else was. Now without having access to a wind tunnel I did my best guess on what should be a good position. A quick 25 miles later I learned a few things about aero bars.

1) They're fast
b) If you blow snot you'll swerve
3) If you look left or right you'll swerve
d) If you move a muscle you'll swerve
5) If you look @ a chic's ass you'll swerve(wait that happens without aero bars too)
f) If you peddle you'll swerve ( see my dilemma?)

So I'm guessing if nothing else I'll be swerving a few extra miles on Sunday. Sir Phil Ligget says the TT is the race of truth. I guess I'll tell a little lie then because I'm old & slowwwww.

Later got to go drink a few cold Guinesses.

UMMM Steak!

According to the Veal episode of South Park if you don't eat meat you will grow tiny little vaginas all over your body until you turn into a pussy. So after 2 hard days of training followed by no sleep & an even harder night @ hell, Amber talked me into a rest day(she only yelled a little). After a nice 8 hours of sleep we went for some FAT steaks @ her parents house. Nothing like a medium rare Jumbo hunk of beef to stock up on leg rebuilding protein. Yummy!

This weekend should be interesting. Going to scramble around Springtown to scrounge up enough stuff to cobble together a TT bike for Sundays AR State Time Trial. Hopefully my Disc will show before I leave tomorrow or I'm riding the Felt stock(old school style). Then I'm loading up my kayak for 2 days of cross training @ Rockport near Hot Springs, AR. If I can find some WiFi I'll upload some pics & maybe some video of my lame ass boating skills. Other wise you'll have to wait till I get home.

Has anyone besides me noticed VanAsten pushing running? I think he's trying to restart to jogging craze of the 70's.

Wed Night Death Match

What is it about the Death Match Ride that makes people not want to turn out for it? When I first started riding in Springtown everyone said don't do the Wed Night ride its fast, they won't wait for you, it sucks! Sounded like a challenge to me. So I started showing up getting dropped licking my wounds & coming back till I could hang with the Greeker & the Hoganator for the better portion of the ride. Of course this is where my sense of humor started working & I had people convinced I'd never ridden before & had just recently picked the bike up @ a yard sale. But still the Wed night ride is fun, all be it hard.

This Wed most of the usuals showed Stokes & Pettus("I can't climb"), Farasy brought his Louisville Slugger to beat us about the head & neck with. The Sandbagger Skip showed to do a little beating on old men, women, & children. Giving us a good group of 5, just enough to really heat things up.
This week the pace actually stayed reasonable without the constant attacking of EPO(currently #1 on the Sandbagger list). Lots of nice tempo being set. If I hear Pettus say he can't climb one more time I'm going to get off my bike & beat him with it. He set one of the hardest tempos up the Jamesville hill that I can remember in a long while. At the top Farasy broke out the Louisville & whacked us all but Stokes who just sneaked away from a beating. Farasy's another one of those classic "non-climbers" who's going to take a bike beating for complaining about not being able to climb. Supposable I'm a climber & these boys are taking it to me. Maybe I should start crying too.

At the top we meet up with John tri3sports who decides to pull us home @ 30+mph. WOW! Some serious hanging on for dear life there. Boaz sprint I actually felt frisky(mistake) took a beating from Skip(got his old man beating in on me) & Farasy(that ball bat hurts).

Limped on in my legs burning from 7 hours in 2 days of riding with lots of tempo. Hopefully I'll be able to find some speed to help Farasy take home a state jersey in the MO Crit this year. With the way he's swinging the bat right now I don't think anyone can touch him in 3's.

Later

Tues night ride

First & foremost read Van Asten's Bee story. I'm still laughing @ his handling skills & the whole description. A must read. Second Farasy must like unemployment because he's flying. I think he's trying to become a climber as well. He better get in some crits soon or all the local group rides will be filled with whiners complaining about how fast the pace is (me for one).
Tonight was a lovely day in the Ozarks, unlike last night’s almostornado. Little windy but great temp. Cruise over to the Tues night ride & in rolls Farasy & his faithful sandbagger sidekick looking for a rumble. Well I haven't ridden in a week but never one to back away from a good beating I could tell tonight was going to be fun! Oh & it was as soon as we drop down into Turners Farasy's winding it up to 35+ and I'm looking for more gear. Hit the climb & I'm all over the road trying to drop him. I think he's been in his evil workshop & built a tractor beam because he was all over my wheel.
After a quick regroup Faresy, Scot Dirt rider, & the sandbagging sidekick decide to open up a big ole can o whoop ass (redneck style). I'm hanging on for dear life & Faresy & sidekick are peeling people off one by one till its just 3 members of the Big Red Train left. Then just about when I thought I was going to have to put the sidekick on the Sandbagger List he pops & Faresy continues to beat me about the head & neck area. Now I'm just a little frail old man so this ass kicking is getting out of control so a truce is called till Wed when there are more victims to succumb to Faresy's peddle mashing.
So the moral of this story is learn to ride downhill with no hands Scot. Never play poker with someone named after a city. Be weary of riders in white shoes because if they can get away with wearing them because they can back it up. All in good fun. Peace.

Running

I can’t believe I used to like running so much. It’s such an inefficient mode of transportation. You do get the most bang for your buck fitness wise, but it’s so hard on your body. Your feet hurt, your legs hurt. Running to me has become a necessary evil. I’ve got to do it to stay competitive in Adventure Racing.

I’ve put it off long enough and have started up my run training again. Inspired by the greats; Van Asten and both Pettus’. I’ve run 3 times in the last week. Now too most that doesn’t seem like much. Coming from a guy who ran 40 miles TOTAL in 2 months before running a 50K, it’s a ton. So 3 times is a pretty big deal.

Now I have to stay motivated to run and continue getting on the bike. No longer do I have the persistent coach of high school and college days to motivate me. Now if I don’t fell like it I can just blow it off. To stay motivated I’ve formulated a goal. It’s a simple goal, to run a complete lap around the Deer Lake Golf Course. Goal? Well kind of because it will involve speed, endurance, and the agility in being able to elude golfers and stray golf balls. Plus I’ll have to steer clear of pesky golf marshals who would like nothing better than give me the boot of their course. So I’ll get some navigation training in there as well (call it a brick workout). My goals aren’t normal but not much about me says normal now does it.

Rankings

List & numbers appeal to me for some reason. They put order to jumble of uncommon things & make them nice & neat. Those who have raced with me know about my need to have an 8 or something that adds up to 8 in my race # for me to "feel" like I'm going to do good @ the start line. Call it superstitious but that's me. I'll make list after list, call that OCD. Couple that with ADD & you got a good idea of who I am. Anyway the USCF has this lovely little mathematical equation we're they type in your race results, add a billion to it, divide it by your age, then add the # of friends you have(or something like that).

To see for yourself.

USCF Rankings

Here's a quick run down of how the OCC boys(yes I realize swap that C with a D yeah, yeah).

Road Race Cat 3 Men for the Whole Nation
56 Scot Van Asten , 86 me, 146 Jim Farasy

Crit Cat 3 Men for the Whole Nation
42 Jim, 200 Cale McAninch

Stage Race Cat 3 Men for the Whole Nation
11 Me, 125 Greg Pettus, 138 Scot, 148 Marc Stokes

Crit Cat 3 in Missouri
2 Jim(the Man!), 15 Cale, 28 Scot, 35 Greg, 39 Stokes

Road Race Cat 3 in Missouri
1 Scot(The Machine!), 3 Me, 5 Greg("I'm not fast"), 6 Jim, 17 Stokes, 22 Cale, 37 Jim Coker(laying it down for the Team)

Stage Race Cat 3 in Missouri
1 Me(guess what type of racing I like the Most?), 5 Greg, 6 Scot, 7 Stokes, 8 Jim

Wow we've had a Hell of a Spring campaign! Two first place rankings & One second in the State; Plus some pretty respectible rankings in the nation.

Fine WIne

Why should I get excited about getting old? It wasn’t too long ago I was agonizing over turning a ¼ century; then I turned 30. Now I’m on the verge of having my racing age be 35. Well it excites me for several reasons. 1) I can double my suffering by racing open & masters. 2) Master’s Cross Nationals enough said. 3) Experience (refer to Scot’s Blog on “The Move”). 4) The majority of OCC’s 3’s are 30+ can you imagine the Master’s team we’re going to have? 5) There is a Master’s Crit with a prize purse of 10K!!

Master's Crit

That’s only a partial list but the one that excites me the most is the Master’s team. Up until this year I had never raced on a true team. This year has been great training & racing with a bunch of guys who don’t care who wins, or who places. I think the moment of the season was when Jim & Greg caught back on during the Nebo stage of Tri Peaks. We were by far the 5 most excited guys in the group. But I diverge a little. In a few years we’ll be able to race as “old men” with the other elder statesmen of OCC, Kurt (sandbagger) & Ken. Then we’ll have some horse power for sure.

When I was reading about the Master’s crit with the huge purse it was saying how USCF # is growing older. Well that’s a good thing for us because we’re only going to get better with age, just like a fine wine.

Urban Boating

OK I haven't been in the boat since January. The lack of local water & the high price of gas has limited my East trips. Coupled with a new found focus on cycling & that makes not much time to get wet.
Well the drought has finally let up a bit & its rained. I've been eyeing this spot since we moved & finally driving home from Hell it looked like a GO! So I shot home gathered necassary gear including Amber & her AM margarita(Remember our AM is your PM). So off we go. Now its not much but what can you ask for 3 miles from home? Well a lot but this spot has potential & I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag; for now.

Plus as you can see I've almost grasped how to post pics. Yeah me!

My sweetie 

not much but enough for now 

H2O finally 

AM Margaritas yummy 

Scott's Spot SHHH! 

Oh My God Becky!

Holy crap I've gone to new levels of sore! I guess I should have put in some running miles before the Greenways. Write that up as another lessoned learned. I'm so sore I can't get a massage. WOW! Last night @ Hell almost dropped to my knees when my old legs locked up on me. Man I hate getting old. I used to be able to get away with things like that, not anymore. I guess it’s a good thing that this week is a planned recovery week so I can recoup the damage I've done to myself.

Well I have a couple of Macro cycles before my next AR race so I can log some good miles. Really there was a method to my madness in not trianing the run before now. I wanted to bring my form along slowly so I didn't burn out before November's all important date with AR Nationals. Plus I wanted to have a good spring campaign on the bike. Which I think I accomplished both. No super high placings, but I was consistently there @ the end & work well for my teammates on OCC.

Next up I'm going to figure out how to post pics on here so stay tuned.

I hate B

The Greenway's Adventure Race. It's become my personal nemesis. In three attempts I've had 2 near wins & one utter disaster. The first near win was my first attempt in 2002. We got DQ'd while in the lead for basically using a map instead of following the "marked" course. I say "marked" because it wasn't marked because the volunteer who's job it was to mark this section couldn't find the course to mark it. I'm only a little bitter about that. The utter disaster was mostly my fault in lack of respect for the nav; enough said about that. The 2nd near win was this years & probably the biggest disappointment.

I can honestly say if that if there was a favorite it had to be my team Dynamic Earth. Granted we were without are strongman Bradley, but Anna had supplied us with a tried & true vet in Greg. I was a little nervous(ok down right sick with worry) about racing with a new person let alone one I'd never met. But everyone spoke highly of him so I put doubts aside(turns out he was the biggest surprise, more later). So we had high expectations going in. Bradley gratiously opted to be our team driver/gopher/coach for the weekend so we were set to go.

After a few emails & phone calls a leave time was set. I finally got to meet Greg & we were on our way. A quick hour later we were @ the race site in search of our diesel member Doug. He had come earlier with his girlfriend Dana to snag a campsite & set up the big Dynamic Earth HQ/Basecamp tent. Kudos to them for getting it set up(I've done it & it's a bear). The others on the team had a fitful night of sleep supplied by our rowdy neighbors, but not I who was sleep deprived as usual & passed out in the team bus on a comfy crash pad.

AM always comes early on race day especially when you have to get up @ 5am to get race info. I start looking over the races instructions(no utm's here). Not to bad this year it is a bikers race instead of a runners race like in the past. I give a big sigh of relief since I haven't ran since the Ozark Challenge! It does start on the bike so we decide to stake out our start spot on the front early.

We get all lined up & Greg looks over & notices the team next to me has a member with a flat(luckily them & not me who I thought he was talking to). Anyway they loose their premo start spot to change a flat. The race director informs us of a surprise we'd get about 5min after the start of the race. OK this could be interesting. Since we're already going to be riding on dirt roads for a few miles hopefully its something to distance us a little.

Then out of the blue the start horn goes off. Crap here we go. We blaze off get in a pace line & immediately start distancing ourselves from the field. 2 minutes in I see 3 or 4 race volunteers standing in the road. Hmm what's going to happen here: Am I going to have to come to a stop or are they going to direct us off the road? At the last second they start waving for us to go off the road; ok into a clear cut under the powerlines. About half way is an unrideable section so off the bike. Well we come out still in first & start to gain more time as I pull the train full bore towards the first of 2 runs.

A quick transition & we run out the way we came for 2miles to the canoe. Now I made a little misjudgment here. I told everyone to drop everything since we'd be back to the bike & just carry a water bottle. Well I didn't factor in the 7 mile canoe. Luckily Anna had lost a bottle on the descent into the transition so we picked it up on the way out(only good luck of the day). We were shocked to see we had almost 5 minutes already.

Onto the canoe & we're flying. I can say this was by far the best canoe leg I've ever had in an AR race. I think we actually gained more time. So after a quick paddle we're back to the bikes & much needed fluid & food(or GU in my case).

Now for a technical bike to a mystery event followed by a run section. Not too technical but it increased our lead. The first mystery event was a Frisbee throw @ a gun range target. Greg & I sucked @ this with numerous throws each while the clock was ticking on our lead. Anna the super woman she is hit it first try & Doug didn't take but a couple of tries(just long enough for Anna to drop her shorts to pee). Off on the run we go.

4.5 miles doesn't seem far but when you don't run much its a ways. I started lagging a little behind Anna & Doug's pace. Luckily Greg didn't want me to be lonely so he hung with me 30 meters being the Awesomachers. We hit the TA & Bradley is there freaking out with excitement. He says we're flying & no one is even close to use. So onto the bikes we go to another mystery event & the O course.

The mystery event was to carry a team member through some staggered tires. Easy; Anna hops on my back & we're done in 5 seconds. Now to get our O map. Of course the first thing I do is drip water from my hat on it. I get my bearings look at the order & off we go.

We had to go C-B-A. I hit C perfectly(& I mean perfectly). I then decided to take the path of least resistance & use the road to attack B. My thinking being the road offered me better land marks than bushwhacking would, since B was on a semi featureless flat. Well I found my attack point & dove in. We actually swept for 30+ min then retreated to C to shoot a bearing & bushwhack to B incase our attack point from the road was wrong. I know I didn't stray from my heading enough to be super far off the mark. But I guess with the foliage we walked right past it(again). Then some more random walking several reattacks from the road. Then we walked out to the road getting ready to go back to C again & I like what I saw on the map when we hit the road & decided to dive back in & walk down farther to compensate for the 20 foot intervals & the length off the road which I had scaled @ about 300 meters(Paced out close to 400-500meters when we found it). Bang straight to it! Then shot my bearing to A to bear off a little to the left of it since it looked to be marked directly in the creek. So hit the creek & turn right & walk to it, nope. Walked about 400 meters in the creek bed & I knew we had gone passed it. Saw several teams who had been looking for it for awhile. Looked @ one of their maps & saw that it was plotted ever so slightly on a 20' interval line. So we went up about 20-30 ft of L & back tracked straight to it. Then a beeline to the road & a desperate sprint to the finish line(out of the woods 11th).

We hop on the bikes & Doug starts lagging. He says he's not feeling good so we start pumping him full of all the GU we can find to get his energy levels back up. We start passing teams left & right in the "technical" bike section. Then Greg yells & we think he has a flat so I go back to help him & tell the others to drink & eat to get their energy back up. Well disaster has struck; its not a flat, its a busted pivot. What to do? Breakout the allens, pull the bolt, force the pivot back on, & lock out the shock. It works & Greg rides it all the way back in. By the time we hit the road section to return to the finish Doug is really hurting so I tie a couple of tubes together & fashion a tow. Now towing a guy Doug's size by a guy my size is not easy @ all. After a few attempts I figure out the best way to do it.

We struggle in to finish in a disappointing 4th especially after we find out that we @ one point led by an hour & fifteen minutes. Still we find the bright side, we did go from 11th to 4th. Oh well there is always more races. As usual I learned a lot from this race: Anna is probably the best female athlete I've ever met. I need backup on the Nav(gotta get Bradley healthy). When its hot water, water, water, & when your sick of it more water! Be prepared for the worst & make the best of it.

Tour De France predictions

I'll make an unpopular prediction for the Tour.

Salvodelli is going to pull of the Giro/Tour Double & win the Tour this year.

1. Salvodelli
2. Ullrich
3. Vinokourev
4. Armstrong
5. Basso
& my out on a limb prediction is Zabel is going to pull off a Jalabert like ride & get a top 15 finish.

Wednesday Night Big Ring Loop

Nobody wants to come out & suffer anymore. Even Stokes bailed this week. Luckily Kurt's always up for a punishing. For an old guy he can create some power. The needs to cat up & race with us already.

Well I was right legs were crap & felt it everytime I jammed up the hills. Its a good thing I had an excuse to bail @ Boaz because Jamesville would have hurt. So I skipped out & rode home solo for another quality 45+miles. That makes 120 in two days, better back off a little for Saturday I suppose.

Now for my excuse: McMillian called earlier saying I need to be @ the airport @ 10pm to pick up a box for work. All right no problem. Went & pickup up the part that got itself a plane ticket because work can't afford to stock parts for priority machines(but it can afford downtime & plane tickets, go figure).