You know what? I love track racing. It's so much fun! It takes all the b.s. riding around for 2 hours before anything good happens and condenses it in to a 5 minute race.

You know who else loves track racing now is Carol 'the blogstalker' Hutton. Well, maybe not so much as she loves time trialing, but at least I've found something where I can beat the force that is the Hurricane. Of course, this is like the second day Carol's been on the track and I've been racing track for like 10 years now, but whatever. I'll take what I can get.

***note Carol also seems to be empowered by divine intervention as observed by the gigantic halo that is always around her head.

You know who really loves track racing and is actually pretty dang good at it is Carmen. She beat me in 2 out of 3 races, but I was able to take revenge and won the final 5-mile race. I'd have to say it was one of my best nights of racing this season.

Know who else loves track racing is Mr. Dirk Friel. After a 20-year hiatus, Dirk came out to put the hurt on the A field tonight.

So Kate and I had the pleasure of racing with the women's development camp that is in town this week at the OTC. It was a blast. For most of the girls in the camp it was their first time on the track and they all did pretty well. It was really fun to race in such a competitive field.

***note how Kate is scrunching down so she doesn't tower over me. Her BFF is just as short as me so she knows how to pose for pictures. (note to all tall peeps that take pictures with me.)

Mom, this one's for you because you wanted to see a pic with new chair too.

So I got my last piece of living room furniture delivered today. I don't know why, but the delivery truck guys parked across the street. Needles to say, they had a little trouble navigating across Platte while carrying the chair.

Trying to cross Platte on foot in the afternoon is something like playing a game of Frogger, which reminded me of this.



Finally, they gave up and moved the truck to the other side of the street. It did provide for about 5 minutes of good entertainment watching them try to carry that big bulky chair across one of the main streets of Colorado Springs in late afternoon traffic.

That's hot.

I just bought this new vacuum, and let me tell you, it is one sexy piece of appliance. I definitely know I'm getting old now that I am getting more excited about household appliances than new bike parts.

But seriously, this thing sucks the crap out of dirt on the floor. It's way better than my old roommate's Dyson and half the price.

Kenmore Progressive Bagless 36932. You heard it here first.

Yesterday was Bannock. The single best criterium in Colorado. I'm happy to say we won again. Beth took the W for the second year in a row. It was a great team effort if I do say so myself. click here to read more.

I'm not sure what Lynn was doing before the race with her jersey around her legs. Some kind of weird mountain biker pinning process I think.

I'm not really sure what SyRae was doing with a beer in the baby stroller after the race.

And I'm really not sure what I was doing with my hand before the men's cat 3 race.

The guys await their start of the Federal Center Circuit race. Little did they know what a day of Vitamin domination there would be as the men and women both went 1-2. Click here to read more.
After the race, Amy shows me her new phone. Back when she gave me her new phone number I told her "Hey I have a new number too, here it is..." When she tried calling today she said "Hey you gave me the wrong number." I asked "What number did I give you?" She said "867-5309."



Oh, I totally forgot I did that! He, he, he.

Best time kill of the day.

Go Fug Yourself.

One step closer to being a grown up. I actually went out and bought a couch (cat not included). I'm still waiting for the chair on backorder, but I've almost got a living room now. Hopefully before I'm 40 I'll actually have a house to put around all this furniture too.

I can't believe we're down to the last week of the track program with the Front Rangers. Today, I was on my own because Clay went to Junior World's in Mexico.

I did have some help though, Jessica came out to give me a hand.

We had a lot of fun, since the track was pretty empty. We did a lot of races and played a lot of games. Here's a slow race around the infield. Slowest one wins.

Here's Ben checking the pavement. He says, it's doing ok, nice and firm.

So we finished up the Salida weekend pretty well. Beth won the crit and the overall omnium, so I'd say mission accomplished. Well, not quite because I guess the mission was the sweep the podium in the crit. I kind of failed on that part.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun.

We had some frothy beverages after the crit.

And Missy tried to molest Beth later that night.

As a little bonus, I ran in to an old friend today.

Yup, that's Ernie my high school sweetheart. I haven't seen him in a few years, but he's been living in Salida for a while now. What I find even scarier than the fact that we went to the prom 19 years ago is that we are totally old enough to be Amy D's parents.

(literally old enough.)

This morning we went out for a little spin in Salida.

Really, it's real purty here.

I did learn a new trick with the 2-bike-tripod stand.

Sea-Ray also spent some time cleaning her bike this morning. There's much more to come later about the race this afternoon....

Check out the sweet view from our rental house this weekend.

Seriously, it's awesome here.

This morning the guys are eager in anticipation for the road race.

Beth shows us her secret for keeping up on the climbs.


Katie Monahan also shows her secret, a 10lb necklace around her neck.

The race pretty well. A to the D Dombroski won, Beth was 4th and still in the lead for the omnium. I finished.

Today was day one of the Salida Omnium and I'd say things went pretty well. Beth won!

Later she contemplates what kind of milk she'll buy while still in her chamios. It's not everyone who'll go shopping in their skinsuit.

The Chicken is OUT! Rasmussenpoop got the boot from the Tour too. You know I actually liked Vino, but Rasmussen... I'm glad to see that guy go. He's a real douche.

Alexander Vinokourov, the biggest douche in the Tour de France.

You know what a chocolate power bar looks like on a hot ride when it gets all soft and gooey?

If you said poop, then you're right.

Taking a page out of VC's Deer Trail race tactic book, team Astana blew up the field in today's tour stage.

Later, Vino tries to perform a Jedi mind trick on the rest of the peloton... "You do not want to attack me. You feel weak as a kitten. You will lose massive amounts of time when I attack in the Pyrenees."

The other day we played bump and thump with the juniors while we were waiting for the track to clear.

We had a few tumbles, but everyone was ok. Unfortunately, today wasn't so good because one of the kids crashed and broke his collarbone. He broke rule #1 of the track... Don't Stop Pedaling. That's because when you stop pedaling at 30 mph your bike doesn't so much want to stop that quick, so it kicks you right off just to spite you.

One thing I did learn this week, is that 11-year old Ben and I have the same size foot.

So, another busy weekend with camp, but at least this time I got to ride my bike and actually coach. This was the last camp, so maybe now I can catch up on some work, sleep, and having an actual day off sometime.

But I didn't get to relish finishing camp for long. I had to leave immediately from CTS to drive up to Longmont for the state crit in the afternoon.

This kid was nervous in anticipation of the women's race starting.

He didn't need to be though because we had the race in control, and Beth ripped off a great sprint to take the win.

It was a great team effort and one of the few races that all 5 of us have been able to do all together.

What the ...??? I went to the velodrome to race and no one was home.

Apparently track racing had been canceled due to weather.... bright, sunny weather I guess.

I was really bummed because I didn't want to actually do an interval workout tonight. The most I could motivate myself for was some hot laps on the crit course in the park. Literally, it's a 1km course designed for the 1986 world's right in the middle of the park.