I'm not quite dead yet...

Well, I guess I have become what everyone said I would become - a deadbeat blogger. I set up my blog, I posted for a while, I disappeared. Just like 39,995 of the 40,000 other people who start blogs every day (I read that somewhere). I won't make excuses...I suck.

Racing is sort of on hiatus for most of the Summer. I raced in the Aqua Terra River Adventure Race last month (took 2nd in the Male Category with Garrett) and then I started sucking wind during training, so I took a couple of weeks off, missed the Spread Your Wings 18-hr race at Camp Eagle, and have been sitting on my tiny arse for the better part of a month. The next big race isn't until the end of August (End of August?? In Texas?? Really??!?!!) so I guess I have sufficient time to recover from whatever ails me.

The family is doing well. The kids are loving their summer activities, and Alicia hasn't killed any of them yet though I think she has pulled out quite a bit of her lovely, thick hair along the way. We took them to Orlando for a few days and Houston for a day, and will head to the Coast for a week later this Summer. Maybe they will wear out and start to sleep through the night someday. For anyone interested, my wife and daughter each have blogs that are linked over there to the right.

OK, so I have finally posted a new entry. I can stop feeling guilty...for a while.

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail

So I'm sitting here the night before the final Sprint Race of the season by Too Cool Racing and I am stoked! First, because Too Cool puts on a great race (If you ever have the opportunity to race in one of their many Texas races, make sure you grab that opportunity with both hands!). Second, I get to race with my little sister!! This will be her first "official" adventure race and I am happy that I get to be there to witness it (read: watch her back and make sure she comes home). She went through the 6 week AR training program that Austin Adventure Racers put on, and finished the practice race/graduation in second place, so I know she will be a strong racer. After this she says she is going to tri triathlon (ha! - get it?!). I don't know why she would want to do that, but to each their own. So this is the one opportunity I may have to race with her. She's going to suffer. I'm also racing with Carolyn, with whom I have raced before, so maybe Carolyn will keep me from accidentally killing her.

In prep for the race I have loaded the car with all my miscellaneous gear (probably more than I need), some food and water (probably less than I need), two boats, our bikes and the Inks Lake State Park parking permit we need. I'll stop on the way for the most important of all pre-race gear...coffee :D

I will post a race report after the recovery beer tomorrow.

Back in the saddle again

Well, after several months of technical difficulties, I'm back! I have a new bike and a rebuilt laptop. look forward to regular posting in the future.

If it weren't for bad luck...

Training and racing suffered a majorly expensive, if not catastrophic setback this evening. I was coming home from the Team meeting and my beautiful new bike, with the freshly rebuilt fork and still sporting that "new bike smell"...(pause for dramatic effect)...fell off of my truck driving down the highway!! AAAAAHHHHAHH!!!!!!!!

I know (I think) that I had strapped it down to the rack but either I am wrong or the rubber strappy-things didn't hold because it flopped off and then disappeared under the front of a very large, very rapidly moving Dodge pickup with a terrible carbon-fiber-meets-American-steel-and-asphalt crunching sound and a scream. OK, well maybe it was me screaming. I don't know. It was traumatic.

What I do know is that the frame, fork, cranks, bars, seat, stem, brakes and at least one wheel are F.U.B.A.R., and that's only what I can tell in the dark. It may get worse in the morning when I can actually *see* the damage. My picture at top right of this blog was the last ride of a great bike.

R.I.P.

Possibly the most painful part of this story: this bike was bought to replace the one I drove into the parking garage at work a few months ago. I give up.

If I didn't have race fees to pay...

Have you ever had one of those days at work that makes you wonder why you didn't listen to your friends and get a degree in 'something cool'? From the minute I walked into the office it was one of those days...and the beautiful weather didn't help. I had broken Excel links, bad data, servers that wouldn't respond - all the joys of financial applications. The whole time I was watching the temps rise into the high 60's and the sun peek out from behind the clouds. Damn. Now I really hate my cube. And not in the way most people hate their cube. This is the kind of hate that makes you tune into some really, really nasty death metal on iTunes so you don't have to hear the breathing of your coworkers (Really, it's in their best interest that I not recognize their existence right now) because you realize that pretty much every day for the next 20 years will be some variation of this day. God I need to go run.

Maybe in my next life I will be a spy, or a firefighter, or a space commander, or...

The Revolution will be televised...

This is the maiden voyage of a rookie blogger, with an unhealthy fascination with Adventure Racing. If I'm not racing, I'm thinking about racing...or gear...or training. Which would all be fine if I had any real talent or physical aptitude for AR. I have some genetic predisposition towards endurance events (I'm skinny) and the addictive nature required of multi-sport training, but most of all I live in the middle of Texas. This affords me year-around exposure to paddling, mountain biking, rock climbing and running. While Minneapolis is hovering somewhere around zero today, we here in Austin were treated to a relatively balmy 52. So I have no excuse.

This blog will be a place for me to babble incoherently about my training and AR in general, with a side trip or two about crappy jobs, great TexMex, and family.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the Revolution.