Taking Stock

It has been a little while I've taken a few minutes to take stock of where things are and where we are going in the near term.

The big news in our house is that Sullivan is 6 years old and let me tell you, that kid knows the significance of his birthday! His birthday desires change almost with each breath. What he will likely end up with as his bigger present is going to be an upgraded bike. He has borrowed his brother's bigger (geared and cable brakes) mountain bike and is clearly ready to upgrade. Both of the boys have outgrown their bikes and Grady is now riding his Specialized Hot Rock exclusively. Sully's new bike is a Giant MTX 125 and should suit him for a couple of years, I hope.

It hasn't all been joyous. Grady crashed pretty hard the other day while my wife was out with the boys riding. Yeah, I also got her bike back into running condition and she's been getting out and rolling with them. I'm going to start again soon, as soon as my legs are back into feeling decent.

I competed in my second Avia Wildflower Mountain Bike Triathlon this last weekend. The first time was in 2010 and involved both my wife and I racing and the whole family going on our first camping trip together at the same time. It was quite a bit to bite off on the first effort and, overall, went pretty damned well. This year's race ended up being a solo affair. It involved a butt-ass early wake up and roll, up at 4:30 and out the door by 5:05. Drove to Lake San Antonio to get in the park before the closed the road down for the day's races (no entry or exit between 8 and 3). The nice thing is that I got there in plenty of time. Got parked, had time to relax and unwind from the drive. Slowly got my gear together, coasted down Lynch Hill (a massive high speed bomber run) and got all checked in and marked up. The race itself was pretty good although I made an error on the swim which cost me some time and I ended up swallowing quite a bit of lake water in the choppy spot I got caught in. Oh well.

The rest of the race was pretty decent. I felt slower on my bike than expected and the hills were a little tougher. I could also feel my calves trying to cramp up on me on the second lap. I was able to hold off the cramps, finish the ride, stretch a little bit and then get out on the run and complete the race before the cramps really took hold and locked down my legs. I should have made the extra effort to get in for a sports massage last week during my final preparations for the race. A painful lesson that I'm still feeling the after-effects of today. My quads are still barking at me whenever I get up to walk around. Will get out of for a light bike ride today to start spinning them back into shape.

Overall, I shaved time on all three disciplines, most in the run and swim and a little bit on the bike. One transition was faster but the other was slower by the same amount so they were a wash. And the hardest part of the day was actually driving home with some torched legs. I really wished I'd had cruise control (or, more accurately, working cruise control) in my car. I actually had to stop and stretch out my legs so I could press down on the gas pedal.

It was a good race and I'm looking forward to going back again next year with my family to enjoy camping and racing together.

There are a number of other developments in the works these days but I'm not quite ready to pull the cover back just yet.

Things are not bad right now, that could change as soon as tomorrow but, for now, things are decent and looking up!