Life updates with pictures

Well.....it's been a long time. we will call this a fresh start. A month into cx season......the lil' one is doing great at almost 17 months old. Beautiful wife, heather and i are getting along great as well.

<>Brynn in the backpack. The family here is in Portland, OR at a weekend farmers' market.

I will be posting a bunch of pics over the next few days...instead of words, i will use the pics to show whats' been going on the last few months since my last blogging efforts.

Like i referred to before....Cross season is a few weeks old. 6 races down and 10 or so more to go. Won't be heading to Bend, OR for Cx Nats in december, so i will be racing as much as possible here in Kansas City and surrounding area to get my cx and racing fix. 4 podiums in the first 4 races of the year. Opening race of the KC area was held at Swope Park in conjunction with a mtb festival and a Grand Opening of the new Swope trail system in the inner KC area. I won the Cat 3 race with 19 racers toeing the start line. A week later saw the cx junkies in Lenexa, Ks. 34 racers started the Cat 3 race. A good start had me 2nd wheel in the before the first technical section of the course. That perfect position was wasted with a dropped chain before the first lap was done. next 2 laps had me working from 'DFL' to 5th place, but 1st and 2nd were already well up the road from me and 2 other racers. t took me midway thru the 3rd lap to leave that train and try to get to 2nd place on my own. Overtook the Colivita racer in 2nd with 2 laps to go. 1st place was about 30 seconds up the road. I may have closed to within 20 at the finish. 2nd place after giving everyone a head start isnt bad, but it would have been nice to make the winner at least work for it a little harder. would have been nice to mix it up with him.....oh well.

<>Brynn with Heather and I at her year 1 B-Day Party. She's naked for the impending cake monster and mess.

The first weekend in October were

races 3 and 4 were a were a round 1 and 2 Saturday/Sunday affair which saw racing in north KC along the Kansas River in Parkville, MO for the Boss Cross series. I lined up and finished 2nd on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday i had a dropped chain 500 meters into the damn race. worked my way up thru traffic a couple of laps later and joined 2nd, 3rd and 4th. left them a little bit later and finished 2nd. Sunday was actually the first clean race of the year for me, but i didnt have the legs to challenge the eventual winner Brendan Jenks.(he hadn't raced the day before...thats my excuse)

<> this is Brynn flying thru the air, courtesy of her father. Dont worry....she is landing on a bed full of pillows.....doesnt matter how hard she is crying or how cranky, i can alwasy get her to smile and say "WEEEEEEEEE" with this trick.

Races 5 and 6 were this past weekend. Saturday saw us visiting the state capital for the 2nd annual Capital CX Cup. I again lined up for the Masters race. Only the SERIES60 races seperate master in 40-50-and 60+ instead of 35-45-55+. amazing the different dynamic with age difference and a larger field. Lining up for Saturdays' race had 5 or more cat 2's...definately making this an 'A' race. A slow power course with no technical aspect to it proved my undoing....on top of bad legs. i finished 6th with 19 starters. THe 5 guys who finished ahead of me....4 are category 2 racers and no slouches.

Sunday saw the cx racers visiting the site of the 2007 U.S. Cyclocross Nationals in KC, Kansas. O felt a little better than previous days' race, but the course was not ideal for me......aagain, it was a fairly sublime non technical setup. Like Saturdays field, it was a solid group of guys lining up to race the Masters 40+ with 24 or 25 starters. i battled thruout the 40+ minutes, exchanged and lockedd horns for 4th thru 8th at various times. Ended up 7th at the end though. Like i said earlier....The masters' "A" class in in our region is plenty fast enough and a level faster than the Cat 3 racing.

<>My beautiful girls visited me at work at the fire station on Brynns' Birthday. Heather baked cake for the 'kid' and the my crewmates, but really we all just wanted to see Brynn make a 'mess' with it....she did.