Catching up

A lot has happened since my last post. Quit my job at the bike shop, attended my brother's wedding, went on a cool camping/hiking trip up the Appalachian Trail, Olivia lost another tooth, did my first mountain bike race of the year, blah, blah, blah.

I'm sitting at work, with an unusually small amount of actual work to do today, which is odd considering it has been very busy lately. My knee is throbbing from a foolish ride yesterday. I really haven't recovered from what was a pretty unspectacular race this past weekend.

I was really hoping to use this past weekend's race as a primer for a 12 hour race in a few weeks, but I knew going in that something is just off. It has been for a few weeks. I know my body well enough to know when it is not running on all cylinders. I really can't pinpoint what it is - possibly stress. I just feel like I'm operating at about 80%. I didn't ride poorly - as a matter of fact, my lap times were very consistent over the 5 1/2 hours, but when I wanted to pick it up, I just couldn't. My bike handling skills had gone the way of the Dodo bird. I wasn't smooth and I wasn't as focused as I wanted to be. It's made me re-evaluate my next race. I think I'm going to try the 6 again, instead of 12. It's a good, familiar course for me. If I ride shitty, I'll know that something is wrong.

Got to see my sister's house, and meet her extended family for Easter. It was a really good time. My brother and his new wife appear to be doing great. Their wedding was a really neat, low-key affair. Olivia was thrilled to be the flower girl. My parents just go back from a NC/SC coastal trip, and are busy planning being hosts for a big motorhome rally in Oshkosh, WI in July.

We had a little party for my sister's birthday, my parents' anniversary, and me and my brother's birthday. I got a Jack Lalane Juicer. That will be a whole blog post in itself. The juice is good, but the act of getting it and cleaning up is quite interesting.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Jay and I hiked from Amicolola Falls to the lower end of the Applachian Trail. It was my first backpacking trip in a while. I hurt for several days afterwards! We camped on Springer Mountain, and it was cold as balls! We considered packing up at around 10pm and hiking out in the dark, but were just too chicken to get out of our sleeping bags. Jay lost his job recently, and we had hours of discussion on the meaning of life...PS - we didn't figure it out.

Olivia has about a month of school left. She has a front tooth that is about to come out. She is growing up so fast, but also reminds me that she is still a little girl; the other day she was with me at the grocery store, talking to her mom on the phone as we were walking the aisles. She was in the middle of a conversation, and realized that she had put on some new lip balm, so she asked her mom if she could smell over the phone. It was priceless.