Flower boxes?

This weekend we had Eric, Katie, and Hayden come and pay us a visit. We had a good time, watching movies, playing with little Hayden, checking out downtown, etc. Eric fixed a section on our living room wall that was messed up from previous water damage and hung up Heather's beloved flower boxes. It's amazing to see how much Hayden has grown since the last time we saw him. Heather's aunt Linda and Phil also swung by on Friday evening to check out the house and eat chicken tacos. They are riding their motorcycle to Montana and then going thru Canada near Banff. Fun fun.

Here is little Hayden driving me around in a jeep at the Children's Museum in downtown Madison.
On Sunday I took off for a few hours to race the WORS marathon mountain bike race in Suamico. The course was an 11.5 mile lap that we did 4 times for 46 miles. It was a very fast course, probably about 9 miles of big ring doubletrack/fire roads and 2.5 miles of smooth, winding singletrack. The race started very fast, with pacelines forming like a road race on the big ring sections. I latched onto the leading group of around 20 or so riders and settled into that pace for the next 2 laps. On the 3rd lap, the front of the pack started to get separated during the singletrack sections and I ended up in a group of 5 chasing to get back to the leaders. About halfway thru that lap, we were lapping a Sport racer in the singletrack. She got completely off the trail to let us pass, but then started to get back on the trail right when I was going by her. My front wheel plowed into her rear wheel and I crashed on my driveside. My bike was ok, but when I went to stand back up, my right leg started to cramp. I continued on and took it easy for awhile so that my leg wouldn't fully lock up on me. But that meant that I also lost contact with the group. By the start of the last lap, my leg was feeling better and I was pushing to try to catch some more riders. I crossed the finish line very dusty (any exposed part of me was covered in a film of dust) and tired after a very fast 46 miles. I ended up in 4th place (only 22 seconds behind 3rd) in my age group and 26th overall out of 130 starters...my first podium appearance while flying the TBB colors. :)

When I went up to the podium, the announcer said that I was on Team Brown Beer, but then corrected himself. :)