Well, things have been going bonkers at the shop.  I think there is more work to do this week then I have ever seen on our work board.  I was telling Claire yesterday that I don’t think it will be physically possible to finish all the work this week.  We have been going in early to try to catch up, but it is not working.   It is great to be this busy, and we are having one of our best months ever.  

Well, it is Sunday morning and I am up having some coffee before work.  It has been a long week, but we are being rewarded with a trip up to Northstar tonight to do some demoing and downhilling tomorrow.  Giant has arranged for us to get free lift tickets and demo bikes for everyone in the shop to test out some of the Giant mountain bikes.  We will be leaving right after work this evening and taking the gang up there.  A1 is returning from fighting fires in Southern CA, and this will be a great chance to celebrate his return.  

I had a GREAT run yesterday afternoon.  I decided to do something different, so I crossed the Hacienda Bridge and did some running over in those neighborhoods.  I then came back over and ran down through Summerhome Park and up into the hills above our house.  I hadn’t been up in those hills for quite a while.  It is easy to get lost up there.  At one point I headed up a new trail I had never been on, but when I realized I had no idea where I was at, I turned around and came back.  My run ended up being about 1 hour and 20 minutes.  I felt like I could easily have kept going, but I wanted to get back for some lunch and pool time.

We had a great ride last Monday.  We had our smartest employee, Jimmy Neutron out with his girlfriend, Vanessa for the Chalk Hill Loop.  I rode from home while Claire drove the Hub Bus to Healdsburg to meet me.  I went over Sweetwater Road first and then cruised in on Westside Road.  It was a terrific ride, not too hot, and almost no wind.  We stopped at the Jim Town Store for some water and chocolate pudding.  Afterwards we enjoyed some beer and pasta salad by the pool.

Claire and I are in Park City, Utah for a couple of days checking out the 2009 Giant Bicycle lineup.  We had the chance Wednesday evening to take the Gondola up to the top of the mountain and ride a couple of their ’09 full suspension mountain bikes.  I rode a Reign X, while Claire rode an Anthem X.  We did some great single track around the top before riding a long single track back down to our hotel.  Today we sat through some interesting presentations of their whole ’09 lineup.  The Giant road bikes look super cool.  There are about a 120 other Giant dealers here checking things out, and it has been interesting talking shop with some of the other dealers.  

As the title might suggest, I chose to drop out of the Vineman this year.  I had a feeling that I would end up doing this, I even mentioned to Claire in the morning that I would be seeing her after the bike ride.  This is one of those times that I can feel my age.  I remember when I was 19, I went out and ran a marathon after only running 7 miles before hand, but those days are over.  This summer I hadn’t done any training rides over 66 miles, and it showed.  I really hit the wall at that point.  I felt like I could have ridden through it, but I would have suffered miserably for the next 5 or 6 hours, which I did not want to do.  By dropping out, I accomplished my main goal of being able to go to the Bear Republic afterwards and have a black & blue burger and some Racer 5 IPA.  I did end up riding a 100 miles since I turned around at the Dry Creek store and rode home.  Oh yea, the swim went great.  I guess that is still something that I can fake since I had only swum twice all summer.  I am real excited about getting the aerobars off my bike and riding with Claire.  We went out yesterday and rode 43 km and even stopped by Andy’s Market and picked up snacks for enjoying by the pool.  As far as hydration went during the race, I weighed myself when I woke up, and I weighed 12.86 stone, and when I got home afterwards I weighed 12.43 stone.