Thorns

Had a minor surgery weds to remove the thorn from my hand once and for all. It was a pretty huge thorn after getting it out. Its about a half inch long and a good 1/8th inch in diameter with some barbs to keep it from coming out. The surgeon thought it was so huge he had to go show it all around the office to the other doctors to see what I had been dealing with for over two weeks. My hand hurts pretty bad now, but from the cutting not the thorn being in there. The pics are posted so that everyone who thought I was just complaining about a little splinter can see why I couldnt hold onto the handlebars.

Its hard to belive I had been to the doctor twice since the initial E.R. visit and the doctor didnt really think there was anything still in there. Lesson is, dont do two races when you know there is a thorn in your hand, it only gets pushed deeper and deeper.

STOP

Got pulled over in mid interval the other day. Made a right turn going through the huge town of Lonestar without stopping at the stop sign. No cars around except the sherriff who was apparently following me. Got off with a warning as he had to feel ridiculous for pulling me over anyways.

Sol Vista

We just returned from a week tour in Colorado. Grand Lake, Sol Vista, Leadville, Red Cliff, Minturn, and Vail. After getting to Sol Vista and putting in two laps of the xc course it was obvious that racing was going to be pretty difficult with the hand injury every bit as bad as it was a week ago. Descending was almost impossible even with a custum padding to put inside the glove. Matt's race was Saturday morning. We left Matt's cabin in Grand Lake bright and early but just missed his start as he motored up the first, very steep climb. After watching most of his class come through the start/finish we got a little worried until he came walking down the mountain with a flat. Bad start to the weekend of racing.

I had a good call up in the mid twenties for the start. We started on a hill which almost required a granny. By the top of the first bit of climbing I found myself pretty easily inside the top 20. Perfect start. As we turned into the singletrack part of the course I fought through a bit of pain and got started climbing the rest of the way to the top. I tried to ease off, just to make sure I didnt overdo the intensity at high altitude and some guys started going by. By the top I was in a decent position and started the descent. The pain was pretty huge and I could barely hold the bars, guys were going by left and right. This sort of killed my motiviation and I struggled to the bottom and started a second lap. By the end of this lap I was ready to call it a day as I wasnt having much fun going up or down. At the end of the third lap I was going to pull off, but got pulled by the race official anyways. 54th, not what I was hoping for.

Sunday I got dressed and out to the short track course early to see if I had a chance to race. After a few laps it was obvious that the course didnt suit a one handed rider and I decided to be a spectator. Matt had a nice ride in the Cat. 1's in his first Short Track. Shortly after Matt finished my parents packed up and headed for home, after watching the rest of the races Katie and I headed for Vail.

We met up with Ryan & Jill at the Red Lion and went on to have a great couple of days relaxing in the village. The only bike riding was done on the bike path and after another visit to the doctor today Im hoping for a miraculous recovery so I can go out and ride.

Sac River

Ended up in the emergency room after racing in Springfield, Mo this weekend. We headed south in a downpour to get some racing intensity in even though it has been a week of long hard intervals to try and prepare for 20 minute high altitude climbs.

It all started when I did some crashing on the preride with Shad. I seemed to have landed on a thorn bush and a thorn went deep in my hand. After some self/Katie doctoring before the race it was obvious the thorn was too deep to get out so I put on some gloves and raced. The race started out pretty well, Chris Ploch took the lead with Cam on his wheel. I settled in behind them with Shad Schriener following. I couldnt really use my palm to ride, but that only mattered on any downhill sections. We were cruising through the woods sort of like a fun group ride and dropped the rest of the field. The trail was good and it was nice and tacky which made it plenty fast. After cruising through the woods we came to the top of a climb, turned to head back down, and my pedal fell off. I stopped, got it unhooked from my shoe, put it back on and started up again. Since the group wasnt pushing too hard I figured I could just bridge back up to them with a little increase in pace. At the end of the lap I finally saw them and realized the gap was larger than I thought. I started going a little harder thinking i could bridge up by the end of the lap without killing myself. Pedal came off again. At the end of lap two the 3 leaders were pretty far up there so I decided catching them was probably out of the picture. Halfway through the last lap I pass Cam who is fixing a flat, he doesnt look like he has been there too long, so I get inspired to pick back up the pace. At the finish Shad had dropped Ploch, who had raced in STL the day before and I was about 30 secs further behind. It was a good end to a week of long intervals and now its a few days of recovery before heading to Sol Vista later this week.

You never know what to expect at a MWFT race. Sometimes there are good sized fields with plenty of fast guys and the next time there are 2 expert men at the start. This was a good event, the promoter seemed like a good guy and gave away 3 redline monocogs in a free raffle.

After the race, my hand was pretty swolen and the pain was building. It was decided a trip to the ER would be best, so I could get the healing started before Nationals next weekend. After the Doctor dug around in my hand for the thorn we finally headed back to Lawrence about 8:00 pm and now my whole hand is sore, mostly from the digging in it with tweezers.

Water bottles

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Busy, Busy, Busy

This week/weekend was pretty full and it didnt even include any bike racing for me at all.

Weds Kate and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary with a nice night on the town for dinner. We are heading for Vail in a few weeks and riding to the wedding deck on mtb's for some more anniversary type celebration.

On Thursday, Andy, Shannon, Katie, and I headed out to the New "K" for the Royals game. The stadium is really awesome, much better than it used to be. It was a perfect night for a game, even though it wasn't Greinke night as I thought it would be. Royals lost.



Friday night we went to the Holtons for Kimberly's 30th Birthday bash. It included a party bus from their house to the Boulevard Brewery. We got a tour of the brewery, catered dinner at the brewery, and all the beer tasting we could want. It is a cool place and a neat success story of a carpenter who started making his own brewskis for his friends.

Saturday was the Fourth. We headed back to KC to the Knight Residence for Jace's 1st Birthday. We dont see the Knight's as much as we should so it was good to spend some time with them. After watching Jace eat as much cake as he could muster we loaded up and headed back to Lawrence. We caught the very ending of the Downtown Crit of the Tour of Lawrence and then stuck around downtown to watch the fireworks.

Sunday we got up early and headed out on a nice ride together, then I dropped Katie off at the house and went out for a bit more riding time as she wasnt interested in doing intervals. After that we got on the motorcycle and cruised up to campus to watch the Tour of Lawrence Campus Circuit race. It was a perfect day to relax in the shade and watch other people struggle up the hills of campus for a few hours.

All that, plus about 15 hours of bike riding time and about as much watching of the Tour de France. Lance had a pretty good ride in the TT and he is still my pick for the win, even if he is 4th fastest on his own team. Plus we had a flat tire in Katies car somewhere in there. After 90,000 miles on one set of tires, it was decided it might be time for some new ones. She is driving to work on a donut tomorrow, so hope she makes it.