Disaster Averted

The freezing rain stayed away for the most part, there was some ice accumulation but the power stayed on. As of right now the snow is falling, hard. About 3 inches so far with another three or more inches to come.

2010 Schedule

Been working on my 2010 schedule, it's pretty well dialed. 12 races so far with a few local 5k's thrown in for July. July looks really light having only one mtb race, I plan to supplement with road running races as they are abundant in the month of July.

Here are the MTB races I plan on racing, all in the AMBCS series:

May 30th Womble Classic
July 18th Eureka Springs Fat Tire Festival
Sept 19th Northwest Arkansas Championship
Nov. 7th Slaughter Pen
Nov. 21 Attila the Hun

One race from the Arkansas Marathon Series:

April 18 The Rock Epic 50 Miler

Side note: I would love to do more of the Marathon Series but the other two races sold out within hours of the opening registration time. You may have heard of them, The Ouachita Challenge and Syllamo's Revenge. Maybe a spot will open up. However, I doubt it.

One off-road duathlon:

Feb. 28th Du it in the Dirt

One on-road duathlon:

Apr 3rd Iron Pig Duathlon

Last but not least, at least four Xterra events:

May 1st Xterra Epic

June 12 Eureka Springs

June 26th Xterra Dawg Dayz

Aug 8th Xterra Iron Will

I hope for more Xterra races, my results will be the deciding factor.

That's all for now. Training picks up intensity late this week, just in time for a crazy winter storm to hit the area. Warnings are already being issued and the storm isn't supposed to hit until Thursday morning. Forecasts are calling for anything from 6-10 inches of snow to 3/4 of an inch of ice. Anything but ice, please! Last year's ice storm was devastating and NWA still shows signs of the damage. I've got my fingers crossed for snow, more the better if it keeps the ice away.

Will have links to races soon.

It's cold

Like most of the Nation, it is cold here in NWA. The coldest air of the season and close to breaking the records. I haven't been on a bike exactly a week. Today would have been good temp wise, but with ambient temps at 36-38 the trails were a brief sloppy mess before tonight's uber freeze. If I can stand the single digit temps on Friday, I plan to hit up some frozen singletrack at Lake Fayetteville.
Southern California is calling. Screw this uninhabitable weather, it's just not right.
Call it ironic, but I love snow. Most of all I love the crunch it makes under your shoe while running. I love being the first to lay tracks down a trail, like a pioneer discovering a new route. On the flip side, tracks in the snow reveal multiple biographies of previous adventures endured. I always try to be the first to lay tracks down after every snow, sometimes I succeed, but usually someone gets to the pristine, snow covered trail before me. I don't mind though, it makes me happy thinking how he or she had a blast cutting the first track through the trail.
New Responsibilities, I passed the RCIS test. The day I passed had to be close to the best day of my life. I'm grateful for my job and for the people who gave me the opportunity to advance to the position that I have today. I'm learning so much, every day I'm learning something new.
Should have some pics up by Sun.

Slacking

Boy have I been slacking on my posts. I don't have much of an excuse other than a lack of training. I just haven't had a lot to say.

Christmas was great, thanks Mom and Dad. It was a small Christmas as most of my family couldn't make the trip down to LA. Yesterday when we left LA it was sunny and about 52 deg, today in Fayetteville it is overcast, snow is on the ground, and the wind chill is in the teens. I need a warmer climate. I got a Suunto X6HR for Christmas, I have been wanting this watch for quite some time now. As soon as I get the software figured out, I will be able to post hr/elevation graphs. I like to get all geeky with graphs and w/o data.

Here are a few pics from today's ride. I made it for 2 cold hours. How many more days till Spring?

Fresh Paint

I'm still in the process of fixing up my mountain bike. I talked to a local auto body shop a couple weeks ago and they agreed to paint my frame but are booked until after the first of the year, So, I decided to paint the frame myself just for fun. I still plan to have it painted by the pros, but I wanted to see what kind of paint job I could produce with spray paint from a can. I'll tell you that the prep work took twice as long as the actual painting. I sanded and sanded the frame to get rid of all the chips in the paint, all manual no machines here. Below is a pic of the frame during the prep. I didn't take it all the way down to bare Al, that would have taken me forever and with the frame going to the auto body shop soon I decided to sand, prime and then paint. I'll let them sand blast the frame.

To be honest, the paint job turned out a lot better than I thought. I have logged many hours spray painting and I am better than average with the rattle can, but this is by far the best paint job I have done. The indoor pics don't do it justice, there's a lot of flake in the paint and it sparkles in the sunlight. Not bad for $22 and about 8 hours of labor.
On the training front things are going as planned. A few rides and a few runs per week, nothing major planned until late January and the first race is the last weekend in February

Thanksgiving Week

I had a great Thanksgiving.

Solid Miles and Deer Hunting

Solid miles- got in just at 100 miles on the mountain bike for the week. Some of that was spent commuting, but it was still a 100 mile week on the mtb. Had a solid ride at Lake Leatherwood today, my technical skills are coming back. I'm back on a 26" mountain bike after a brief venture into the 29er culture. I really do think(so far) that I prefer the regular size wheels, more on this subject as I get more time on the current rig.

It's opening weekend for deer hunting, needless to say I saw an unusually high number of deer as I made my way to the trail. Some seemed in a huge hurry, like they had been shot at, others seemed like all was well. Like this one I saw at the very end of my ride today, I popped out into a field to see this big doe. We sat there staring at each other for about five minutes. I snapped a few pics and if I would have had a gun it would have been no problem bagging this deer. Deer(especially does) are overpopulated in NWA, I could use some extra protein in the freezer, good reasons for me to get my hunting license. I'll probablyly need to purchase a gun as well.