Pre-Turkey Day Post

Whoa, its been a while since I posted a real blog, huh? Well, figured I have some time during lunch to catch up on this, so here it goes. In reality, nothing much has gone on with regards to adventure racing with me, so thats partly the reason for the radio silence.

Last time I posted, I left off with the Race for the Cure, but didnt put up any pics, so here's a couple. Again, despite the cooler weather than last year, I had a crappier run. I of course blame it on external things like Hurricane Ike or my surgery...in reality I had dropped into shut-down mode. I've been trying to turn the switch back on, but without a big goal right now its been very hard.

So after the Race for the Cure, I attended HART training, off and on, then decided to enter the 24hrs of Rocky Hill on a whim. Boy, was that a mistake. I figured, hey, just do it for fun, but my back had different plans for me. Mo, Rock, and I drove up with all kinds of gear, planning for fun weekend outing. Rick and his team was there and Cynthia, Will, Nick, Jaunda, and Frank Arriola were there too. I'm so out of the loop that I only found out that they were racing when I got there and saw them setting up. Nice. So I got ready and Mo watched Rock while I trotted over to the start.

There's not much to say about my race, so I will be brief. My back acted up early in the first loop, so I knew this was going to be a horrible ride. That's what I get for slacking on the training mileage. I soldiered on for two more laps and took an extended break for my back. Wow, this was horrible. I now thought that I would just go lap by lap, seeing if I could go on. The next lap exacerbated things as one of my rear spokes popped and must have poked a small hole in my tube as I was slowly losing air. It was fine at first and so was my back, but it started to fall apart on the return. There was barely any air in my rear tire, but I still rode it, making sure not to make sharp turns. It was so bad that as I waved a guy to pass me because of my dilemna, he asked, "do you normally run your tires that low?!" I chuckled and said, no. I amazingly made it back to transition with air to spare, but my back was trashed again.

I luckily was able to get Nick to work on replacing the tube, but I was pretty wary about riding the bike with one spoke missing. With much contemplation, I figured I would try one more lap. It had turned dark by this time, so I put on Warship's MOAB and zoomed off into the moonlit trails. No real problems, except one skid out. Again, my back was fine for the first half, but was painful on the 2nd half. I told myself that this had ceased to be fun a long time ago, so I figured this would be my last lap. I came in and told Mo the news and she was fine with it. She actually wanted to head out right then, but I wanted to stay a bit, thinking I might feel a bit better in the morning and would be able to put in more laps. But Mo was driven and packed the car up in mere seconds...so I guess we're leaving, I thought. And that was it. Good training, but it was at the expense of my back.

I took a couple days off and then went to HART practice. My back seemed to be healed, so I of course tempted fate and drove over to Warda to do some laps. Again, I was having trouble rallying anyone to train with me, so I said to heck with it and went by myself. Apparently I'm persona non grata or something. Anyway, it was a great day to ride and hardly anyone was there--perfect...except that I think my bike has it in for me. Towards the end of my 2nd lap, I landed akwardly after a jump and noticed my front tire was a bit flat. Great. Thankfully I was able to limp back to the car. First, I tried pumping it up to see if it was just the akward landing that forced some air out of the tube and maybe it was still ok to ride on. Big mistake. As I was pumping and talking to a guy parked next to me, BANG! I thought I lost an eardrum! The tube must have been pooly seated because it just popped as I was pumping it up. We proceeded to laugh while we slowly regained our hearing.

One new tube later, I had time for one more lap. I said goodbye to the Houstonites as they were done for the day and finished my final lap with no incidents. I then quickly drove back because Tina and Lisa were having their Halloween party that night. It was an Asian theme, so I went as Sho Nuff from "The Last Dragon" (see photo). If you havent seen this awesome B film, you NEED to! Anyway, Mo wasnt feeling too well, so we didnt stay out too long. The best part of the party was the MMA action on the back lawn. Someone at the party had boxing gloves in his trunk, so of course, they had to be used. Hilarious! I just kept yelling, "punch her in the ovary!" Tastefully done.

Next week was more HART practice, then we headed into Spokane to attend Chad's wedding as well as do some wedding planning ourselves. The wedding was actually in Couer d' Alene at a quaint, small church. Nice and quick. It was good to see everyone again. Along the way, we looked at a couple candidate reception halls and visited the flower lady. To finish off the quick trip, we met up with Fr. Ken and BM, Danny. It was a quick brunch as Mo and I had to catch a flight early that day, but it was good for Mo to meet the padre. Other than spending some time with the fam, that was it.

Another week, another HART practice...except this time it was my birfday week! I had planned to do 35 miles at Rocky Hill to celebrate, but AGAIN, people were lame and didnt want to come with. So, instead I stayed in town and did my 35 miles solo through town. It actually turned out to be a great ride! I did all the Memorial trails, rode downtown and back to the Memorial Starbucks and got a free birthday mocha! Sweet! It was a great day again to be outside. Later that evening Mo planned a small dinner at Osaka. Warship said he was going to come, but then bailed because no HART people would be there. Wow, if he wasnt our wedding photographer I'd smack him. No worries. Whit, Aaron, Zain, and Lauren showed and then we were paid a suprise visit by the Hyperturtles. Take that, Warship. It was good eats, even if the waitress waited way too long to serve me a Saporro. To finish off the night, Mo bought us tickets to see Kathy Griffin. She was funny. Mo was still feeling under the weather, so we called it a night after that.

The following week I went to training on Tuesday, rode my bike on Thursday, and then played basketball on Saturday. We played a good 3 hours. Week after that, went to HART training bothe Tuesday and Thursday, played basketball on Saturday, and then rode Rocky Hill on Sunday with Dave P and Alex. The Dirty Du was going on at the same time, so we were able to cheer HART people on. Quite a bit more people that I expected were racing from HART. We got our big loop in and then I had to head out to meet up with a guy about a bike. Yes, I am sad. I haven't sold the Castellano yet and I'm already eyeing another bike...make that eyed. Yes, it is mine. A Trek Equinox 7. I figured if I planned to do more triathlons next year I need a proper bike. We'll see how that goes.

That should bring me up to date now. This week is T-day, so I'll be doing a Turkey Trot and then heading into Fredericksburg to do some stuff with the Mo. I guess I better bring my running shoes to run off the turducken--yes, last year was fried turkey and this year is my first turducken...you gotta love the south!