Proud Accomplishment

Look what Hannah hung up on her bathroom mirror. She is obviously proud of finishing the kids race of the Dirty Duathlon last weekend. Race number and finishing ribbon.

Ski season is around the corner

I'm getting jazzed up for ski season. 10day Christmas trip to Montana coming soon, plus an Olympic year, one or two trips to Colorado if I'm lucky (Andy, you have the floorspace, I have a sleeping bag).

Found this clip from Audi. Note the knoll jump at :40, the weights at :48 and the balance ball skilz at :55, great athletes.

No updates from the weekend yet. Hopefully soon with photos. I took 2nd in the 45+ state cross race. Beat several others that had gotten the best of me earlier in the year, just decided that I had to go harder from the gun. Stayed with Todd G. for the first lap, then watched him ride away from me. Then was a volly at the Dirty-Du on Sunday. The girls both did the kids race. Maddie won the girls and Hannah did well (I think she was surprised at the pace). Pics coming soon.

Morning Commute

Second day in a row with a beautiful sunrise. Red sky in morning, sailor take warning......must be for the strong winds from the south. Last night I rode a northern stretch of the commute at 30+mph. Lots of "YeeHaw" factor doing that in the dark and on the bike path.
State cross race this Saturday and then Dirty-Du (volunteer) on Sunday.

Madison's version of heaven

Maddie is our little vegetarian. She starts each meal by eating her salad first. She always has seconds of salad as well. Tonight she happily finished the remains of what was left of the Caesar salad. As the title says it was her version of heaven.

Mike McMuffins

Mike McMuffins are the breakfast staple of trailbuilding. My old college roomie made these. You can guess his name.

SpookyCross Race Report

Saturday the 31st and Sunday the 1st were the back to back dates of the SpookyCross cyclocross races in Des Moines. I participated in my first cross race at this venue last year and it was a blast, it was the same this year. Good courses and a good workout.

Saturdays racing was on the north side of Living History Farms. The course started by entering an easy looking field. However, once you entered the field, you find out that it had 4-6 inches of standing water. We are the 1st race of the day and by the end of the race, this section had 4-6" mud holes. The rest of the course alternated between fact MTB and fast roady conditions. Overall, I think this course favored a MTB rider and handling skills. I started near the back but quickly found myself in 4th or 5th position at the end of the mud. I decided to push ahead and wound my way through the field. I felt good during the race and actually worked my way up to 10th in the cat 3 field (they started 1min ahead of my group). I ended up 4th for the day in the 45+ category.
Sunday was at the main Living History Farm site. This course was longer than the previous days and appeared to favor a power rider. This time, they started the 35+ and the 45+ fields together. When the gun went off, I took advantage of the majority of the field fumbling for their pedals and took off. I quickly decided to throw caution to the wind and started sprinting. I figured, what the hell, I'll go out front and let the others chase me down. I was 4th going into the first field and only lost a few spots on that lap. I think that I finished the first lap in 6th and mostly held it there. I lost a few positions in near the 30 minute mark and ended up 9th out of the combined group. Another 4th in the 45+ group.

After these two races I ended up in 2nd overall in the series (45+). However, there were a few other fast guys that just didn't get the minimum number of races done. I'll remember their names for future races and try to pass them in the future to make my overall finish legit.

Cross is a lot of fun and I'll definitely continue to work on it. I need to work on increasing my pain threshold as my perceived pain is higher than the actual heart rate. Still a possibility of two more races. State Championships are 11/14 in Altoona and Jinglecross is the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Spookycross Video

This is a video from Nate. Start of the Sunday Cat3 race at Living History Farm. This shows the entire 1st lap, around 7:30 minutes, total race time was an hour, so repeat about 8 more times. Nate is experimenting with video from his Ipod as mounted from his handlebars.