Bday Post

The week with Tonia just flew by. We got a buttload done around the house though -- she's a good little worker. :) ALL the moulding is up, painted, and finished...doors are painted...oven is clean...door thresholds are down...bathroom vanity is primed...got the colors all picked out for the guest bedroom...exterior doors are caulked and sealed, etc, etc. Like a whole new house. It feels great to have that damn moulding finally put down. Nice work Tonia!! Your help was greatly appreciated.

We also found time to take Tonia's new bike for a few spins, including a nice, longer ride on Thursday. We've all got to get ready for Vermont next year! On Wed night we moved all the living room furniture into the dining room to make way for the new carpet.
The doggies really like it, nice and soft evidently. They approve. Heather will be posting pics on her blog of the house stuff and, of course, her new car. :)

It was sad seeing Tonia go today though. Not sure when we will see her next, with them moving to AZ shortly. I miss her already!! You too, Trent.

This weekend the cyclocross season opens up with two races right here in Sun Prairie. We'll see how I feel...I'm not sure what to expect since they are also UCI races, so people will be coming from all over the place to race (including lots of pros!). I'm just hoping to get the feel of cross back and then hopefully do well in the overall series the rest of the way.

Racing, Bikes, and other Updates

Hello all. Before I go into my Chequamegon recap, here are some pics from the Warrior of the North race a few weekends ago, courtesy of Rick Mangan.

The start. You can see my head.

Here we come for the finish!
Here's my sprint for the win.

Accepting my trophy. I like the guy with the bibs over his shirt. :D

So anyway, Chequamegon was last weekend, and TBB was out in force. Dave was an excellent Director Sportiff, as he did water bottle handups and put our bikes on the line at 5am. Thanks Dave! It was much warmer than last year, but wet and rainy, which was interesting with the massive puddles covering the trail. Just splash right through them! My legs felt a bit slow at the beginning of the race, but they came around by the last 15 miles or so. I think I started too hard on the paved start, which led to me feeling sluggish. I was able to power over Firetower climb and keep the pace high on the rolling hills in the last 10 miles, and I finished with a new personal best time...by a whopping 1 second! Not bad, considering the wet conditions. I ended up 207th out of the 1700 or so racers.

The rest of TBB: Greg crashed in the first 10 miles and suffered an AC separation, Trent started cramping after 25 miles and ran out of food, and Rick had to ride the last hour of his race in a downpour. Ouch. Heal up quickly, Greg!

Here's the only pic of myself that I could find online. More pictures of me from MarathonFoto can be found here.

Random news: Tonia is visiting for the week and helping out around the house with various projects. Will be fun to have her here for a few days! Heather got a new car today!! The Forester has over 140k miles, and we needed something bigger with a little one coming soon. We pick it up on Thurs, and she'll post pics on her blog shortly after. Cyclocross season starts next Saturday, right here in lovely Sun Prairie. Good times. We are getting new carpeting installed in our living room, also on Thurs. That will look much better.

For those that actually read the entire post, here is a bonus for you. A video that Dave "5 Ears" Sears took of the sprint finish from Warrior of the North. Better slow it down, we go by pretty quickly. :)

WotN RR & New P1 Bike

I had a good time back in GF visiting everyone. As usual, the time went by quickly and before you know it, I was back in WI at work on Monday.

On Saturday morning, I decided to do the Warrior of the North road race just outside of GF. It's been three years since the last time I was in town to do it, so it was fun doing it again. Saw a bunch of the old gang...Pat, Sears, UND guys, etc. It is a 32mi, out and back course. It started out pretty mellow for the first 5 miles or so until John from Fargo started trying to attack to break it up a bit. Each time it was brought back and everyone regrouped. A couple UND/SBS guys, Andrew and Nathan, were at the front most of the time riding tempo. It wasn't until after the turnaround that more serious attacks were made...usually by Mario from the UND team. He attacked twice and got a gap. Both times I bridged up to him, thinking we might be able to make it stick, but the group would catch back on. The group made the turn for the last 5 miles and the pace slowed down...everyone was just waiting it out for the sprint I guess. With maybe 2 miles to go, Mark Harmon (blast from the past!) threw in an attack that was soon reeled in, but kicked the speed up nicely. The group was starting to break apart as we approached the finish, and I could see Mario and John just up the road trying to get away. I moved around a couple riders and caught on to them just as Mario started his sprint. I got on his wheel for a bit, looked back and saw that John was catching up, so I got around Mario and started to sprint. I ended up holding them both off and taking the win! Fun times. Evidently they are going to post pics of the race, so if I find some, I will post them.

A few weeks ago I mentioned getting another P1 frame painted up. Here are the results:

My very own UND Fighting Sioux bike! The arrow on the top tube is on both sides.

The all hand-painted headtube has both the standard UND logo and the Sioux logo. The headtube alone took 8 hours for the painter to complete.
The painter used a couple different metallic green colors...the bottom of each tube is really dark green, and as you turn the bike over, it gradually fades into a light green. He called it "bass boat metallic" because once the sun hits it, it just sparkles.

Profile shot.

It turned out really well! I'll post some pics after I get it built up as well.

Chequamegon is this weekend. We should have a good-sized TBB crew there with Rick, Greg, Trent, Vino, and myself making the journey to Hayward, WI for the race. Will be fun seeing everyone and riding that 40miles of rolling hills/gravel roads/sandy doubletrack/2500 racers once again.

2 Day Work Weeks

Labor Day weekend was a busy one here at the Abraham household. The parentals came to visit and help us put in some new doors. Dad and I got three doors installed in 1.5 days...a new pimpy fiberglass front door, storm door for the front, and a new door in our sunroom (from the garage). Should be much better than the old ones that were in there. Now we just have to do the finish work on them, the caulking, painting, moulding, etc. Heather should be posting pics on her blog once all that is accomplished.

What a difference a day makes. Tuesday was the hottest day all summer here in Madison...it hit 94 degrees or something. Then today it was 72 degrees. Tomorrow 64 and rainy. Snow will be here before you know it.

As my title states, I worked Tues & Wed this week, but now I have off Thurs & Fri as I am heading back to ND to visit. Have to get in some Tonia/Trent time before they move down south. Maybe head to Union Lake for some fun there. Saturday is the Warrior of the North road race in Grand Forks, so I'll plan on bringing the road bike and maybe doing that for old-times sake.

Racin'

Had a fun weekend in Minneapolis this past weekend. With Heather in Chicago with the Johnson family for their annual triathlon fun, we boarded the dogs up at a local kennel, and I took off Friday after work. Got to Brandon and Gillian's house late and looked at their newly finished remodeled kitchen. Looks good!

Saturday morning I made the hour drive to Avon, MN for the MN State Road Championships. The race was supposed to be 68 miles and start at 1:30pm, but there was an hour delay as the other races were still going on, and it turns out the race was actually 74 miles (the longest road race I've ever done). Double ouch. So I hung around for an hour in my lycra and waited. The course was pretty fun...an 18 mile loop on smooth roads with a couple decent climbs and descents. The race ended on a curvy 1km long climb. There were around 40-50 riders in the field, so I just wanted to stay out of the wind and conserve energy. On the first lap, 3 riders got away and the field let them escape. The pace for the first couple laps was consistent and not too fast. The last two laps people would try to attack, but the field would ramp up the speed a bit to bring them back each time. By the time the last lap started, we were told that the 3 leaders had over a 3min lead on us, so we knew that we were racing for 4th place. My legs still felt very good, which surprised me because of the distance. As we approached the final climb, the pace picked up, and I moved closer to the front to avoid the mayhem. When the climb started, one rider started to pull away, so I got on his wheel. We rode for about half the climb, when I looked back and saw that only one rider was with us...the rest of the pack was way off the back. The rider behind me attacked as we got close to the finish line, but me and the other guy both caught up to him and started our sprints. He nipped me at the line, so I got 2nd in the field sprint and 5th overall in the Cat 3 race, by far my best finish since I upgraded. Sweet. I was encouraged with how strong my legs felt. I wish we wouldn't have let the 3 riders get away...I could have been sprinting for the win instead. ;)

That night B&G broke in their new kitchen by preparing a glorious meal of a hunk of meat, grilled potatoes/carrots, and some corn. We then watched some Olympic action.

Sunday morning I took off for the WORS mtb race just across the MN/WI border in River Falls, WI. It was a 5 mile course...not much climbing and a few sections of really rutted doubletrack, but some fun singletrack and wooden bridges. We had to do 4 laps. I wasn't sure how I would feel after the long race the day before, but the first two laps went pretty well. I felt ok, despite not having a very good start after getting caught behind a bunch of riders on the opening climb. At the beginning of the 3rd lap, I could feel my legs start to fade. They didn't cramp or anything, just lost power. So I just went normal pace for the final two laps and didn't try to kill myself. I ended up in 6th place age group, about 4min behind the winner. Not bad, considering.

It's a bird, it's a plane...no, it's a flying Brown Bear!

I took off for home after the race, and enjoyed some Taco John's along the way. I got home and zonked out. Weekend of racing over. Thanks to B&G for letting me crash at their place and for feeding me.

This weekend we are getting a visit from the Abraham parents. They are dropping off a crib, and I believe we have plans for putting some new doors (front entry with screen door and garage entry) in. Should be a good time!