Sunday, March 29, 2009

Good Bye Old Friend

Day’s spent chasing tennis balls
Sniffing brush piles to see what creatures lurked within
Digging holes in the woods
Going swimming on the coldest days
Laying by the truck hoping to go off and explore
Never complaining of D-Dub's miss directions on the trail
Looking for lizards along the block wall behind the house
Sneaking a banana off the counter, or an apple out of my bag
Greeting me with a bark when I got home
Sniffing my hand for a pat on the head.........

These are the memories I have of my chocolate lab Abigail.Abigail passed away Tuesday March 23 2009.
I miss Abigail.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

snake creek gap grand finale and 6 hours duo

The last Snake Creek Gap TT of the 2009 series was held March 7. I carpooled with Andy and Cara and we arrived Friday evening at Dalton Ga. We were all looking forward to the final TT of the series. I enjoyed doing the series but was glad this was the last race of 2009 for this event.
We woke Saturday morning and made our way to registration to sign in and then to drop Andy off at the start of the 32 mile TT. After dropping Andy off Cara and I made our way to the start of the 17 mile event. We arrived 30 mins before the official start time and was quite surprised to see people starting and a line at the start line.I was a bit irritated knowing I would have to pass a lot of people on the course and expend a lot of energy taking lines that were not ideal.
I started,went as hard as I could and as i had thought i had to pass a lot of people taking the slower line and expended a lot of energy. I ran a lot of places that i had ridden the previous month because of traffic.
I crossed the finish line looked at me my computer and could not believe my time 1hr 52 mins. A pleasant surprise. It turns out almost everyone had personal best times that day. After my race I waited on Andy and Cara to finish, then we rode back to the start of the 17 mile ride to fetch the car. Another great weekend!

Friday March 13 Nate and I drove to Madison to hook up with Andy and Cara to do the 6hour Dirty Spokes race on Saturday March 14. Nate and Andy were doing the solo while Cara and I decided to do the 6 hr coed. I did not tell Cara but I was not looking forward to racing in the rain.I thought about backing out but could not come up with a good excuse.
Nate and I arrived late Friday at the hotel and immediately hit the hay. We were up the next morning for a quick shower, breakfast then it was off to the races.Once at the venue we began the prerace ritual, me rummaging through my bags, setting up the table then a quick strategy session with Cara on how we were going to exchange the timing chip. We decided I would to the first lap she would do the 2nd lap then I would do 2 laps with Cara doing the final lap.
I did not have a good race as I had not ridden for 1 week due to work and could not find a rhythm. We finished 2nd in the coed. Nate won the overall Andy finished 4th which I thought was pretty amazing after being clothes lined by a brier. The wounds looked more like a lynching gone bad, the wounds kind of reminded me of the Spaghetti Western "The Good The Bad and The Ugly" in which Clint Eastwood escaped a lynching and had some rather significant scars around his neck.
Overall a great 2 weekends of racing and hanging out with some awesome friends!!!!