inauspicio.us

Where have you been, young man?

Following gentle reminders from my friends and family, I am posting a mass update or training and racing news. In order to confuse the reverse-chronological nature of these postings, I will proceed in chronological order.

• 
  note the drool

  Powerman Ohio saw me get well and truly clobbered on the bike while putting up some middling run splits. Don’t be taken in by the alleged 25:00 opening five mile run, as I was 22:10 at the four mile mark. The bike course was two loops of steep rolling hills, which is a very difficult sort of terrain for me. I try and try, but there is only so much you can do when your skills are crappy and your accelleration is nonexistant.

  I did manage to salvage a respectable second run, which surprised me. It was very hilly and I felt like butt, so I was pleasantly shocked to find out, after the race, that I had posted the day’s fourth-fastest closing run split. You have to take these small victories where you can get them, you know.

  After the race I packed up, shipped my bike to Boulder, and flew directly to Florida to do some on site work for a company I’m doing intranet and database development work for. By the time I finally got back home I was ready to give up permanently on all forms of travel.

• So a little over a week later, I flew to Boston with Stephanie. Memorial Day weekend is a great time to be in Massachusetts. Steph came with me to a race in Falmouth, and proved herself again to be the soul of patience while I fretted about everything from tire pressure to shoelaces. It was an exciting race, with four of us coming off the bike within twenty seconds of each other (me last of the four, naturally, I don’t know how I got so much weaker on the bike this spring). I managed to run the other three down though, the last one only in the last 500 meters or so, to win by a handful of seconds. It was nice to race back at home again, and of course it was a huge confidence boost to win after my mediocre showing in Ohio.Steph and I proceeded to Truro where we met up with the youth group, who had taken the morning ferry to Provincetown. She hadn’t really ridden a bike since early childhood, but took to the 30 or so miles with relative ease, being a) good at pretty much anything and b) willing to put up with ideas that are based more in enthusiasm than good sense. After the bike trip it rained for most of the weekend, although it did eventually clear enough for us to have a campfire and toast marshmallows. After getting back to Boston, we even managed to sneak in a brief sailing excursion in a small boat one of Amy’s friends had left on her back porch.

• 
  my new nephew!

  While we were biking along the beaches of Cape Cod, my sister Tracy had one of the most adorable babies ever. His name is Sebastian, and he says hi.

  This picture is part of a powerpoint amalgamation of his first few weeks. Cute, huh?

• Finally, I got back into training in June. It’s been a rough month of riding my bike in the hills to attempt to build at least a little strength, but hopefully it will pay off with a decent finish at the boulder peak triathlon, coming up this Sunday.