Nothing major happening this past week. Little ride here, little ride there. Had a great ride Thursday night out at our beloved South trails, legs felt good and the SS felt even better. Have i mentioned that i LOVE SS? It's true, and I'm not ashamed. I took Saturday off and then Sunday morning did the 6:15 Wachovia ride with Jill, Kevin and myself continuing on to Gulf Shores...in a 20 mph headwind...the whole freaking way. No worries. Good times, easy pace and the feeling of riding hills for 65 glorious miles due to the wind(thanks Ashley for driving down and bringing all the goodies).

I'm not a beach person but it sure was nice sitting there in the gusty wind getting a little cat nap in. All was well until Sunday night when i discovered that I was deep fried burnt! Its amazing how when the sky is overcast and the wind is blowing that you forget to put on sunscreen cause everything just feels so good. I must admit that Monday I was completely useless at work, and that's a bad thing when your the only one there! I literally sat on a stool and watched reruns of the Office for 9 hours, not wanting to move for fear of my burnt nipples falling off(this lady knows what i mean!!! can you say AVON, SKIN SO SOFT!!!). Pain...all day. Pain i tell ya. Hopefully it will all improve before this weekends attempt at the 12hr Fort Yargo race.

Have to get a few rides in this week just to keep the legs loose and make sure the NINER is all tuned for this weekend. Since this is my first of three 100+ mile events this year, it will be a learning one. Still trying to set my nutrition/hydration for the race as well as hoping the gearing i choose will be the right one. I've posted on several forums questions about whether it's still considered SS racing if in the middle of the race you pull over and switch gears??? Thoughts? Personally i could go either way. I'm hoping that the gear i choose will be correct, well it will have to be cause I'm gonna "run what you brung". I'm not going to get the opportunity to change gears at Leadville, so why change now. I'm thinking 33x19 will be spot on??? Right or wrong there will be suffering going on. Love it.....mean it.

Hears some sexy new Chris King cogs I got in this week, i splurged...got a size run. 17,18,19, and 20, why not right? They just look so good!

ZONED!

Ever been in a race and absolutely 100% forgot you were racing??? This happened to me on Sunday. Gun goes off, great start, right were i wanted to be, 3rd in the woods and then slowly but surely it all just slipped away. Passed by this guy, passed by this guy and for some strange reason i was cool with it. Sure go on by, I'm just here riding my bicycle in the woods listening to the beeps from my heart rate monitor screaming at me. Don't mind me. This happened for about 3/4 of the first lap until finally the guy that i really wanted to beat, passed me. It then took about 10 more minutes to realize that, " hey dude, you might wanna start putting the power down!". By this time though the their lead had grown to about 6 minutes, aided of course by me spinning out on a long climb then having to gimp it all the way to the top. So for the next 1:30 minutes i play catch up, only i never caught up. Crazy thing is, they never gained any more time on me, i actually made time up when i decided to race, but it was way, way too late. Ended up 4th. Not a bad day, but i know i botched it.

There has to be a scapegoat so I'm blaming it on switching back to gears. I've decided that i hate gears. I can't put my finger on it, but i know that i ride faster/harder when I'm on my single speed. That has to be the problem. I find myself content to sit and spin when I'm on the geared bike where as i would be digging deep and suffering more on the SS. Who knows, but that's the story I'm going with. Chalk it up to another race and another lesson learned. More pics to come.

If you wanna see who my current man crush is on, then check out this video. UNBELIEVABLE!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o Sorry Bear Grylls, you've been replaced.

My current steed, switching back to SS ASAP!!!Two weeks till the Dirty Spokes 12 hour. Time to figure out gearing....better start emailing.

So for the longest time I've thought that people were crazy to have a blog, whats the point, and who in the world would spend time reading it. Who could possibly have that much free time. And then to my own amazement I have found myself for the past year actually following several peoples blogs, why? I dunno. For some reason I have found it interesting to know what all the "faster" riders that I see at races are doing/training/eating/riding etc.... Ironically though i don't read about anyone i really know, just different racers from across the country. Weird, obsessive? I know, but what can i say, I love this crazy sport of mtn biking. My wife will undoubtedly make fun of me, friends will join in and no doubt this blog will collect dust at an amazing rate due to lack of readership. All that to say, I'm now a blogger.

One of the main reasons for this is growing up i always remember my mom saying, "you should keep a journal to remember your life by, you'll want to look back one day!". Mom, you were right. I've lived all across the country, had countless jobs, ridden hundreds of trails, raced in hundreds of races and taken maybe three pictures of it all. I guess that needs to change. Back in the day you actually had to take your film, get it developed.....blah, blah, blah you remember the drill. But now it's easy. So I'm gonna give it the ole' college try.

Jill and I have a pretty hectic 6 weeks ahead with our move to Greenville, Sc. Throw in graduation from med-school (her not me, in case you were wondering), and our 2 week vacation out west, add mass amounts of cheese, bake at 375 for one hour....and you've got yourself a wonderfully tasty blog casserole. I'm sure at some point there will be some great blog material. Also of the next 8 weekends I have 6 races, as well as a Grand Canyon bottom to top hike in one day planned. One of these being a 12 hour race, and two are back to back days. All this while being the biggest dude on the starting line....it's gonna be interesting.