Birkie Trail

Christmas has come and gone, and may have taken the good skiing with it.  It's currently misting in Northfield and the snow pack is becoming very dense and wet.  With the expected rain and temp drop things could get very icy very fast down here, a situation the groomers have not been able to deal with in years past with the equiptment availiable.  At least things around the cities should shape up quickly, since there is very little a Pisten Bully can't groom if there is enough snow to work with.

I got a Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS for Christmas with a HR monitor and everything, so it should provide a wealth of new info about my workouts.  Since I don't really have a training strategy at the moment and am not nearly as serious about my sports as I am just dedicated to doing them it probably won't make me faster, but it will extend my enjoyment of the activities into tracking what I've done.  The ski season has been by far my worst for tracking milage or hours put in because I enjoy skiing more than other sports like running or biking, so I'm often not out there just to put in the miles, but rather because I want to be out enjoying the snow and defiance of friction that comes with it.  That should change now that tracking time/distance of workouts has become much easier.  The ability to easily track pace and HR should show at least some benefit for my training I think, since I will have more than percieved effort to base things on (In the past I've also used splits, which is much more effective in running than skiing I think).

I got some good skiing in over the holiday, although not as much as I maybe should have our would have liked too, but spending time with family and friends was the main goal of the weekend and I set my priorities accordingly.  I did get a good evening of sledding in and a broomball game that I still have a couple of bruises from.  On Christmas day I put in a good 2 hr ski (27km according to the garmin) on the now lit trails at the Garfield trail system near my parents.  I brought a headlight and skied the unlighted portions of the trails system as well, since thats where the best hills are.  I also got a 6x5 min interval session in there on the 26th.  Then the 27th it was up to the Birkie trails for some great skiing in nearly perfect conditions.  My brother and sister came up to ski, and my friends Jeff, Mike, and Jim all skied too.  The four of us stuck together for about half of the ski (my brother and sister did not ski with us, they did a shorter ski and went to hang out at the sawmill, a local bar, for a while).  About halfway through I spotted my friend Allie at one of the trail intersections so Jeff and I skied with her for a while.  Mike and Jim didn't see us take the cutoff so we lost them, probably for the best since Jim was on a schedule to get out of there anyway.  We skied with Jallie for a couple km then headed back towards OO where we started and hit almost all of the best hills on the Birkie trail along the way.  Ended up with 40km on the day, so I think I'll be ready for the Seeley Hills Classic in a few weeks now that I know I have handled the distance and the hills I'll see during the race.

It feels strange having such good snow and not racing, but it isn't even January yet, so there's plenty of time left.  No racing this weekend with New Years and family christmas, but the weekend after that things will kick off, then there's pretty much no break until after the Birkie.

Another Friday Night

What's the best cure for a lonely frustrating Friday?  Pulling out the RCS skates for their first run of the season and sailing along through 50k at Hyland in the dark.  It was nice to push off all excuses and just do a long workout, probably my last one in a while with christmas stuff piling up pretty quickly now.  I had to go to the cities anyway, and after wandering around looking for the FedEx building for a while I was sick of being in the car and just wanted to ski.  After a couple laps I really wanted to quit and go home so I could eat supper and sleep, but knew workout time would be hard to come by with my brother's graduation the next day, and an evening of hanging out with his friends, so I kept at it and the 3rd lap breezed by.  The fourth lap I was starting to feel the hurt from pushing hard over some of the smaller hills, just to keep a little feel for a fast tempo, and so I decided to hit one lighted loop at a hard pace just to wrap up the evening.  Then home to crash into bed in what would be the first of a growing string of short nights.  I'll hopefully have time to catch up on sleep during the holidays, maybe even spend some time at my house, although that seems unlikely to happen.

I miss racing

It feels like it's been a slow start to the ski season.  Hoigaards relays is usually a good wake up call how hard I need to be training to really ski fast, and missing it this year has kind of left my season without a benchmark to work off of.  I did 3x10 min intervals yesterday at the arb.  Covered about 2.8k each interval, which is really slow, but considering it was cold, in the dark, and on soft and unreliable snow I am not too worried yet.  Hoping to get in a race soon, maybe I'll come to the cities for the Como championships on the 26th, or else I probably won't race until the Pre-loppet on Jan. 8 which seems really far away.  With the holidays and everything it is just hard to get a free weekend day for ski racing.  In the mean time I hope to start doing more speed work to jump into the racing season ready to put up good results.

Filter Away

A non-training related post for those readers who thought this was just going to be a training blog.  Ok, so I don't think I actually have readers, but if I did I'm sure thats what they'd be thinking.

We have an engineer here who is very talented at working with access databases.  When I started at this job nearly all process records were still in paper logs, so if you wanted data you had to go out to the process floor, get the log, and type the data into a spreadsheet yourself if you wanted to work with it.  Now everything is in a database; great for data security, and super great for lazy engineers like me who like to look stuff up without having to wander all over the place.  I asked for a filter to be added to the already great records searching page the database has, and I got far more than expected.  I got a "Free Form Criteria" option that lets me choose what I want to filter by, what criteria to apply, and over what range.  This is super cool in a really geeky kind of way.  Here is a picture of some of the great data filtering options now available to me.

As long as I'm posting pictures, here are couple more great ones.  The "team" of co-workers I ski with decided to get ski uniforms this year, since a couple of them don't have any and it ain't ski racing if you aren't in flashy spandex.  We worked up a logo to go on the uniforms based on our team name (Equipe Multek Cross Country or EMXC) and here is how they turned out.

Snowmapacolypsegedden

Quite a bit of snow fell this weekend.  Too much for some of my friends who got stuck in Minneapolis when the buses stopped running and they pulled the plows off the road, but I loved every minute of it, except maybe shoveling out my mailbox at 11:00 Sunday night.  Saturday morning I wandered out to shovel and saw a yellow sign with only an arrow on it sitting on my corner.  I couldn't figure out what it was for, but didn't much mind it being there. 
Then just as I was finishing shoveling I saw a couple runners go by.  I thought it a bit odd people were out running in this snow storm, but seeing as how I planned to go ski in it not really all that strange.  Then a few more trickled by and turned where that arrow on the sign was pointing and I quickly figured out it was the Reindeer run going by.  I went in and quickly strapped on some old Fischer touring skis I have around and went double poling down the road along with the runners that were still streaming by.  These were slower runners obviously, and I'm getting to be not a horrible double poler finally (I averaged 237 watts for 2 minutes on the ski erg after 5 hours of skiing, so wherever that puts me on the double poling spectrum I guess).  Anyway, I was cruising past these racers and I'm sure they were jealous of my superior mode of transportation.  I was on the race course for about a mile cruising along and cheering on runners as I went before dropping into the arb where I broke trail or followed the single set of tracks that had been skied in before me. 
I went for about an hour and a half and would have gone further but I had no water with me and the NNN boots that I have start to rip the skin off my heels after about an hour of skiing, so I didn't want to do any more damage to my feet than I had too.
It continued to snow all day Saturday; I'm guessing about 16" all told, although it was so windy it was hard to gauge accurately.  I started to shovel my way out Saturday night, and finished Sunday morning just in time to get to church.  It was well over 2 hours of shoveling, and when I was done some of the piles were close to 6' tall and hard to toss snow over the top of.  When I got back Sunday night the plow had been through again and I had to excavate my mailbox out of a snow bank and shovel my way to the curb so the mailman could reach the mailbox.  I don't have pictures right now, but I'll take some this evening and post them.
I skied at Hyland on Sunday, about 2 -1/2 hours of very easy classic.  I ran into a guy named Steve Carmazan (sp?) and chatted with him for a good portion of the ski.  Then it was off to Emily's tree decorating party which involved much eating of good food and shooting a tinsel cannon in the name of gaudy tree decorations. 
The Hyland trails were in decent shape, and I found out today that the arb trails are OK too, much better than I expected considering the equiptment available here.  The downhill along Hwy 19 had some good snow drifts that the groomer went right over leaving some cool moguls that I was able to get a bit of air jumping off of.

What happened to winter?

I got back to no snow in MN, so it was a rough week of running until the snow came, then back onto the skis.  I skied about 5 hours at 3 different venues on the first day the snow fell.  Hyland downhill for hill repeats on good snow in the morning, Hyland nordic trails for some slow going in very soft snow after that, and a couple easy loops at Como in the afternoon with Annie and Andrea.  Then I went to visit Allie at Finn Sisu and try out my skis on the CXC super flex tester.  Turns out my red cheetahs are a bit soft for me, which means they will drag in cold snow and also not be very stable when snow is hard packed.  This matches exactly with what I've observed about the skis, so now that I know they are warm soft snow skis I should be much happier with them.

Sunday I met up with Jim and Mike at Cleary and put in a solid classic ski.  I took a saw and modified the bindings on my Fischer SCS classics so they will work with my pilot classic boots.  These skis are surprisingly fast, although quite heavy compared to my Atomic World Cups, so they might make good Mora skis, since the Atomics are kind of soft for double pole heavy races.

The rest of the week it was skiing at the Carleton Arboretum (aka the arb).  The upper arb was all rolled and groomed, and in decent shape, but the real gem was the lower arb.  The trails had been groomed and a track set, and then it got cold and the track was rock solid.  The kick wax was working great and it was a few days of great skiing before the snow came again.

Weeks in and weeks out

So the Yellowstone trip came and went with no posts I realize.  If I were to get serious about this blogging thing I think I would need a laptop or at least a pad or something so I can type on the go.  Thats actually when I would probably have the most time for posting anyhow.  When I'm at home there is usually no shortage of other things I have to work on.  Anyway, I'm back now and here is a brief (relatively) sysnopsis of what's been going on.

Yellowstone -  Conditions were far from ideal for training, but when is skiing ever in ideal conditions.  I think the great days are that much better for knowing they are few in number.  After about the 10th wonderful 70 degree fall day this year I started to get sick of feeling guilty for not making use of all the wonderful weather when I just couldn't drag myself out for another run or rollerski, but I never have trouble passing up a ski on a 20 degree day with beautiful courdory or a 10 degree evening with a rock solid track and bomber kick.  Yellowstone got a lot of snow, several feet, while we were there, and the groomers had trouble keeping up with it there was so much.  This made for slow skiing, probably good for the first week on snow, plans for 5 hours of skiing a day, and at an altitude of 6600 feet too.  Then when the snow finally slowed it got cold.  Thanksgiving day the high hit about -10 F, brrr.  Slow classic skiing felt great, but when I tried to skate it was just dismal, the red cheetahs felt like they were waxed with velcro (more on that later).  Friday things turned around, the weather started to warm, and my sister showed up with her two dogs to visit and ski for a day.  The dogs were fun to have around, and much less of a problem than I expected having in the hotel room.  All in all I skied about 350k in 25 hours over the course of the week, not a bad way to kick off the season.

I also watched some racing while I was out there, the supertour sprint and part of the biathlon race.  It is fun to be out amidst some of the best skiers in the US, and I got to see a lot of people I usually only read about, and meet fasterskier reporter Nat Herz.

West Yellowstone

Taking off tomorrow for the big West Yellowstone ski festival.  Not looking forward to the drive, but the skiing should be great.  They have enough snow for groomed trails already with more on the way.  I've been out crust skiing nearly every day since the snow fell, but goofing around for an hour at a time is a far cry from 5-6 hours of training every day for a week, so we'll see how the fitness is when the P-tex hits the snow.

I'm traveling out with 3 other former or current U of M skiers so the ride should be entertaining, and I'll have people to ski with throughout the week, not that that is a problem with the teeming masses of skiers that descend on the sleepy town for this week every year.  I'm also hoping to get to spend a day or two with my sister who lives a few hours south in Logan, UT and is planning to come up and ski too.

Tonight I'm heading up to Midwest Mountaineering for their big winter expo and to help several people pick out skis.  Should be a good time, plenty of exhibits of interest to me, and I always love ski shopping, even if it isn't me getting the skis.  I'll have pictures and training info from West Yellowstone next time I post.

Oh Well

So I already broke the first rule of any internet content source, set a schedule for posting updates and stick to it.  A lot has been happening, so in theory that should generate blog posts, so this might turn in to a bit of a long one so I can catch up.  I'll hop back to my training log so I can remember what has gone on over the last week and a half since I posted last.  I can usually remember days pretty well once I remember what I did for excercise or why I didn't manage to excercise that day.

11/5/10
Made it to frisbee for a few minutes, had a pretty good time.  8 people there, all skiers except James.  Game broke up early due to running out of daylight and people leaving early.  Gave Annie a ride home and had a bit of a chance to chat.  Worth the trip through the cities just for the frisbee and conversation.  Then it was home to the folks.

11/6/10
Trail work at DD Kennedy trails.  There are going to be 4k of lighted trails at the park, and my dad and I went to help put up poles.  We stood the poles up, leveled them, and filled in around them so they would stay up.  By the end of the project (we got all the poles up) I had gained quite a bit of knowlege and skill from when we started and was almost directing things.  We ran from post to post and so made very good time, the weather was great, a good day to be outside in the woods for sure.

11/7/10
Another great day to be outside.  Got in a super gravel ride with Jim, Mike, and Ben Witt of Milltown Cycles.  Great weather, fun roads, and I even remembered to put pedals on my bike this time, unlike the last big gravel ride in Henderson where I ended up buying platform pedals at a hardware store and riding in my sandals.  As a last burst of West Yellowstone training I also put in a rollerski that afternoon.  I was gased by the end of it for sure, but it went pretty well besides a bit of a shoulder trouble.

11/9/10
Hill repeats at ? mark.  I did them with no breaks, about a 4.5 minute cycle for 8 reps.  All was pretty good until the 6th when my shoulder started to hurt.  The 7th I tried to favor my other side and it went fine, but on the 8th it was bad, so I did no pole skate.  That hurt, but a good hurt.  Then the easy ski back home the shoulder seemed ok.

11/13/10
Here's a day for the books!  Friday night snowed a good 2", so when I woke up I dug out the Peltonon Astra combi skis I had laying around and went exploring.  The snow was wet and slow, but coverage was good so I got a half hour of skiing around in.  Super weather, snowing the whole time but quite warm, especially in the sweat shirt I was wearing.  I remember when that was standard training gear for me, and when it got cold I would wear 2 sweat shirts.  Then since it was nice out I threw in some laundry and went out to build a snowman.  He is a hefty fellow, and is still standing strong this morning, so he might be around for a while.  Then I got some baking done to help keep the house warm, it hovered around 53 most of the day, but was down to a balmy 51F when I left this morning.  I'm hoping to make it until December before turning the heat on, we'll see if that happens or not.  Then I got another ski in that afternoon, still slow and choppy going, but too much fun to pass up.  One of the most productive days I've had in a long time.  It's something how much can be done in a full day when I'm actually home.  One last accomplishment, I am now ranked in the bronze league in Starcraft II after losing 4 of my 5 1v1 placement matches.  I have had a couple great League of Legends games recently however.  I play much better when I'm not 10 levels below all the other players in the game it turns out.

11/14/10
No skiing today.  Covenant brunch at church, then church, then Dim Sum at a great chinese place in the cities with Dean N, and Rick and Denise Hucke.  At brunch I was introduced to Tim Mahr, band director at St. Olaf and my neighbor a couple houses down it turns out.  Good to be getting to know a couple of the neighbors a bit; turns out my block is very musical.  Maybe I better learn to use that piano in my basement.

11/15/10
Finally caught up to today.  Great skiing over lunch at St Olaf.  The soccer fields are really well covered, and firm enough to make good crust skiing.  Put in a good 50 min of skiing and the muscles seemed to do pretty well.  The cardio system took a beating, but that's the goal for this part of the season.  Made one last change to my fantasy world cup team, might still make one more change and put Marthe K. back on.  I've stuck with her for 3 years and I know she's gonna bust out a good year one of these times.  I have Johag as my outlaw skier, can't hardly go wrong with that choice I feel.  On the work side of things they ran all weekend shutting down only once per day on the plater, and had very little maintainance to do even then.  The machine is running like a champion right now and everyone is in a pretty good mood about it.

There, that catches up most stuff.  The snow is a good reminder that I need to keep the nose to the grindstone for a bit longer on dryland training, then let the fun begin in earnest.  Less than a week until West Yellowstone, and with CXC, Supertour racers, and Nat Hertz there I'll have a chance to see in person a lot of the skiers I follow vicariously through the internet.  No groomed trails there yet, but there is a winter storm warning there today and tomorrow, so hopefully by the weekend everything will firm up.

The yardwork training conundrum

This has been a pretty busy week, and while I don't feel like training has really taken the back seat it has, but I had a couple gems for workouts when I did get some training in.  Monday we did the Dennison ride and I put on a big burst over the top of Dog hill.  When I saw that I had broken up the pack I put my head down and hammered most of the 2 miles from the crest of the hill to the sprint line, effectively turning it in to a time trial.  I like these short duration high effort bursts, they let you push way past your comfort zone knowing the end is quickly approaching.  Then it was off to the Orchestra that evening.  It was a fun night, the music was good, and I haven't been to Applebees for appetizers in a long time.  All in all a great time hanging out with Annie, Kesh, and Mike.  Then yesterday we did a pole run, 1 hr where I pushed the pace as hard as Jim could handle and hit every hill I could find in the lower arb.  I really worked on transitions as the terrain changed, hopefully I can carry this into my classic skiing this winter.  Then a couple hours of raking leaves until it was too dark to see.  I also got a new modem and voted, so a pretty full day yesterday.  Today the ride was pretty low key, and I have church photo this afternoon then dining out, so I don't know if I'll get another workout in today.  Have to hit intervals or double pole tomorrow I think or the rollerskiing will start to slip again.

Quality's not a race

No age group award for me on Saturday.  The group I was with all ran together for the 5k, and came in at a blazing 29:57, which I'm pretty sure makes this the slowest race I have ever done, topped maybe only by the canoe sections of the Tri-loppet.  It was also super fun.  We spent most of the race throwing banana peels at each other, getting taken out by Kesh the blue shell, putting on mushroom powered bursts of speed (except without actual mushrooms, cuz they are gross) in general behaving like the Mario Kart characters we were representing.  The Luigi beard and overalls made me look more like a hillbilly than a plumber I think, good thing I had the big L on my head to set people straight.

After the easy day Saturday I decided to go tire myself out a bit.  I put in a solid 34 mile rollerski Sunday over my favorite course in the Northfield area.  The weather was perfect and I had just enough food and Heed to make the distance.  The muscles felt pretty good throughout, but the joints started to feel the distance by the end.  All in all I think I'm close to ready for West Yellowstone, just need to work on the double pole a bit more, and hope the snow arrives in time.

Rough Week - aka Yuckers

This has been a really rough week for doing anything but working really.  That big project to fix up rollers and prevent burning was a bust, when the machine started back up burning was the worst it has ever been.  Not just burning, which started right away at startup under conditions where we never see burning, but very unpredictable burning.  The machine would be running fine and then all of a sudden the material would just get torched.  This continued for almost a full day (Tuesday night to Wednesday afternoon) and more segments were pulled with heavy copper plating than I've ever seen.  The first shift operator working on removing these segments made a great discovery though, the contacts of the top and bottom set of rollers were not touching, meaning there is nothing to hold the material in contact with the rollers while plating.  A bit of brainstorming and a great idea from Dean, the engineer who installed this plater and knows it very well, and a project to create spacers was underway.  Our machine shop came through in a big way, staying late to get 130 of these spacers modified so we could get the machine back together and running, and not a spot of burning since then.  Plated up rollers is still an ongoing issue, but it is a pretty minor one now compared to what it is.  So hopefully this problem is solved for now (I'm sure in about 5-6 months if not sooner it will be back, and the contacts are now too thin to turn down again) and I'll have a quiet weekend on call.

Training has not happened at all this week, which is really bad since it is freezing at nigth and it seems like snow has to be just around the corner.  In fact, my sister out in UT called me to tell me about the beautiful white landscape she was looking out at, and West Yellowstone got 4-6 inches I think.  Rumor is it snowed here a bit, but it must have been during the 13 hours each day I have been at work.  My one ride yesterday is the first time I've been out in daylight all week, and a 5k tomorrow is my last running race of the year (for realz this time) and barely even a running race really, since I'll be dressed up as a Mario Kart character, kart and all.  Hopefully my kart is fast so I can still contend for an age group award.  Should be an interesting day; I'm not really sure where I fit in with this crew I'm hanging out with, lets just leave it at that.

Weekend Off

The motivation to train still is a bit on the low side, but there is snow out west now, so I better get my rear in gear or I'm going to be hurting on the West Yellowstone trip next month.  I did get out for 75 min or so in the rain on Saturday, and I'm going to go out and run or something tonight, skipping that is not an option.  I have a 5k race this weekend, so I'm thinking top end speed work might be in order.  I know it's kind of bogus to do one speed workout and expect it to make a difference in a race, but my conditioning is pretty good, just need to get in the game mentally to put up a fast time I think.  I did mile repeats a couple weeks ago and coasted through a couple 5:40's and finished with a 5:06, so I know the speed is there somewhere.  Just need to keep it up for 5k.  Work has been a few busy days now with a major machine PM happening on the copper plating line I'm in charge of.  We are removing all 150 odd contact rollers, cleaning them, checking them for shorts and opens, and turning down the contact surface, which sometimes means replacing contacts if there is too much corrosion, and then putting it all back together again.  Almost at the end of that project, just hope things run well once it's back together, or else it's back to the drawing board to try to deal with this persistent burning problem that has been troubling that machine.

Intervals

 First day back on the rollerskis in a few weeks went surprisingly well.  I was feeling the plyometric workout from lunch, and the 4th interval I was losing focus pretty quick, so there is work to do for sure, but I was close to pace for a few of them.  5:17-5:14-5:16-5:33 for about a 1.1 mile loop.  This weekend I'll get a long skate in to start building the base back up before West Yellowstone.  Also, as promised here are a couple pictures my friend Jim took of the workout.

Looking at those pictures I wonder how many miles those shorts have on them.  They are the same pair I've had since I was a basketball player my freshman year of high school a long 12 years ago, and I ran every day in them the first summer I trained for cross country.

Travis's Wedding

Saturday afternoon was my friend and fellow skier Travis's wedding.  The ceremony was held at French park and officiated by another friend and skier Bjorn.  The homily compared marriage to sking the Birkie, an analogy that probably half the crowd or less could directly relate too, but there was good humor and gems of wisdom scattered throughout that everyone could relate to.  It was great catching up to some skiiers I hadn't seen in quite a while, but will hopefully see more of soon when the snow flies.  The food at the reception was good and I did a lot of dancing (which was fun but I can't really ever classify my dancing as good, with the possible exception of DDR).  I also had Bjorn put a burning candle in my lap then try to make me laugh so I end up with hot wax all over my pants.  It's a bit disconcerting at times that this guy is going to be a doctor and entrusted with peoples lives, but he knows when to be serious, as his ski racing can attest to.  Sunday we met at French park again for sub sandwiches (over 20 feet of them in fact) and some frisbee.  A good time was had by all, and I got along with Travis and his wife Amy's friends pretty well.  All in all a great weekend, and I even have left over wedding cake still waiting for me at home.  Yum!!

Race Weekend

This weekend was a busy one, starting with the big woods half marathon on Saturday morning.  I haven't done any runs over 6 or 7 miles since the marathon, but that didn't really worry me, and I figured 6 minute pace would feel pretty sustainable.  I was right, my race ended up being 1:20 which is about 6:06 miles.  I went out in a group of 5 off the front immediately and we stuck together until mile 3 and the 10k cutoff where 3 turned off and it was just a 2 person race after that, and even then not for long.  I hung with the eventual winner for another mile or so when he started to form a gap.  He had 40 seconds at mile 7 and was out of sight by then.  I ran the second half of the race all alone, something I'm getting oddly used to in races, but still haven't been able to push the pace on these long races when running solo.  I had a great 1/2 earlier in the year where I chased down Sam Pertz over the second half of the race to run a 1:17 PR, so to run alone to a 1:20 wasn't bad, not good enough for any kind of prize though unfortunately.  Several of my friends also ran it, and there was the 3rd win in a row for my coworker Mike over my friend Jeff.  With that race over running season is winding down.  I might have one 5k left in a couple weeks, otherwise it is time to buckle down and get in shape for the upcoming ski season, which means I need to get back going on the rollerskis, which I haven't touched since the weekend before the marathon (I did the first ever Birkie marathon +2 miles to get 28 miles for my 28th birthday this year).  I might try to jump right back into intervals on Tuesday, they keep me pretty exciting about rollerskiing since they are a way to mark progress.  Long skis are very effected by route and wind so they do not provide as good of an indicator.  Then Saturday evening I went to my friend and fellow skier Travis's wedding, but that's another post.  Soon I'm going to try to start taking pictures to spice up a huge boring wall of text, so be on the lookout for that one.

Last trail race

Big Woods 1/2 marathon tomorrow, so today was an easy training day.  4k at lunch and a bit of light leaf raking before making pasta, banana bread, and garlic cheese bread with day old hoagie rolls from Hogans.  Lots of friends running the race tomorrow, and I should be looking at one of the top spots depending on who shows up to race, so things could be exciting.

Radio Edit

I did have some rather sad and personal posts here that were the motivation behind me starting this blog actually, but since this is the Internet and there is the possibility that someone might read them they have since been removed.  If you really want to know come find me in person and ask me about them sometime.  So mostly this blog will be about racing, but I will throw other oblique references to the rest of my life in there.  Don't worry, you really aren't missing much.  My social skills are a bit on the deficient side, and sordid details are sorely lacking in all aspects of my existance, but I manage to muddle through life anyhow and mostly enjoy myself along the way.  Happy reading!