Lots o’ random stuff:

-Dinner is served: we met with the caterer and agreed upon some Pot Roast, Chicken Kiev and Mushroom Alfredo for our wedding.
-Jess got her wedding dress, she claims she loves it!
-Yesterday on the Gun Show ride a nameless rider who I spend half the ride trying not to ride near crashed on a fast, straight uphill. I was trying to pass the group on the right but all of a sudden he just fell and took out me and another guy. He broke most of his bike (fork, both wheels, pedals and who knows what else) and I broke my rear wheel (and burned a skid hole into my tire.) He was banged up pretty bad (lots of cuts and road rash) and I have my share of road rash (hand, hip mostly, the stuff on my knee and elbow are almost gone). The other guy was able to continue after adjusting his stem and he escaped most injury by landing on me. I actually rode over the fallen rider and his bike before going down and someone ran over my rear wheel and stayed up. It sucked!
-My streak of never laying down my road bike is over. I have probably done over 60 road races/crits in my life and ridden close to 20000 miles until that point without wrecking.
-Jelly Belly Pro Nick Reistad was on our ride yesterday too, he kept it upright though.
-Rode Quarry Ridge last night. My last 3 laps were clean, no dabs, even in that extremely difficult sandy uphill. 1.4 mile loops, really fun singletrack, but after about 30-45 minutes it starts to get old.
-Yesterday I ate no meat. Totally vegetarian! Mostly by chance. And certainly not in a nutritious salad and sprouts sort of way
-0-3 in volleyball last night but we played 2 games tough against what I think the was the best team I’ve played against this year
-The opposing volleyball team had a fellow Rice Laker on it. Tina Scheiffer. She is a year younger than me and has lived in Madison for the past 3 years. We talked a bit (probably more than I’ve ever actually talked to her in my whole life) and she is very nice! She’s pretty good at volleyball too!
-My dad retired on Monday. It was pretty unceremonious (he has only one other guy in his office who is pretty darn boring) but I guess there was surprise party for him last Sunday so that was cool!
-Jess’ sister is moving to Indiana (from Conn) this weekend. It will be nice to have her closer (and living in a town with a Waffle House and White Castle.) Little 500 here I come!
-The Beav is having some foot surgery today. His recovery? To go to a couple Brewers games. Everyone wins and Jess and I are getting picked up after work to go with to tonight’s game! It’s a routine surgery I guess, not exactly sure on the specifics.

Weekend includes Brewer game, farmers market, Gelato, long bike ride and hopefully some buffalo wings…

Long weekend!

Sorry for the lack of weekend updates but I was traveling and busy and lazy all at once! Here is the recap though:
Friday- I went in and had my ecco done. It went really well. I waited all day for the doctor to call and finally the nurse did and said that my heart was fine but they think I have pleurisy. I actually argued with her as I knew I didn’t have pleurisy and finally I just told her to have the doctor call me as she was just reading what the doctor said. I get home from work and am totally pissed because now I was certain that they didn’t have a diagnosis. The doctor called and we were on the phone for a good 15 minutes trying to discuss what it was. She ordered me in for more blood tests on Monday but was pretty sure I had a random lung virus. The more I thought about it the more I think it might be when I got some water in my lungs from the Aquathon as lake water can get kind of nasty. After I calmed down and realized that I figured it was some lung parasite all along I was ok. I went out to eat with the Long’s at the Great Dane, came home, ran some errands and got ready for the weekend.
Saturday- We drove to Eau Claire. We pre-rode the course and got bit by all sorts of bugs. I felt ok but not great but it was fun to ride some trails. Afterward we drove to Stillwater (via Taco Bell) and were there for a family pool party. I was in the pool for a couple of hours and I enjoyed just hanging out with the family. After supper we were tired, we got in the car, listened to the Brewers and Daytona and got to the hotel where we watched said sporting events with some Tour De France mixed in.
Sunday- I thought I might race so I got up early and had a big breakfast and did some puzzles. After a couple hours though it was clear, there would be no racing for me. We watched the Tour and then went to the course. We watched the citizen race and saw Paul (Jerry’s brother) and our teammate Jeannine race. It was fun! Then was the hard time, I watched the sport race. The camera battery ran out so I couldn’t take many photos. All of the regulars took the top 5 spots though in my race. I made the right decision though as I might have been able to keep up for a while but I am guessing eventually I would have got smoked. One person who didn’t get smoked was Jess who had her best race getting 4th in her age and 20th overall. Gabe got 1st in the clydes again but poor Brozek crashed hard and tacoed his rear wheel. But he finished, even beating another guy in our class who crashed. Then was the Elite/Comp race and I knew a lot of people. Jerry lead the whole thing out before settling in and finishing on the podium. Ryan wasn’t far behind either so it was fun to see them battle. Hertz settled in for 4th in his age and 9th overall after his 2nd place finish in the crit the day before. Lots of good Chainsmoker finishes but Garett DNF’d. It was fun to hang out. The best part though was this random raffle. We waited forever for this raffle and I really felt it was pointless to hang out. But they were raffling off an I-Pod Nano and Jess had to go ahead and win it so she probably had the biggest payday of any racer! And she originally wanted to skip the race. We then got on the road and headed home for some Tour and pizza. Good times!
Monday- Woke up, got some bloodwork done (read about some dude who snowboarded down Everest) and then went to the grocery store. Got home and watched the Tour. Did a whole lot of nothing except at one point I cleaned out the basement which was long overdue. Now I have a bunch of crap to take to Goodwill.
Tuesday- We went to Kettles with the Longs. I brought plenty to do in case I couldn’t ride much. Of course when I was on the bike though I went out hard. I rode about 2/3 of the blue loop hard and 1/3 of it easy and actually felt like a rock star. We get back to the lot to switch babysitters. Jess wasn’t feeling good so she agreed to do the second shift while we did the connector. We didn’t do Emma however (except for Jerry) as we needed to get back to camp to switch shifts. We got back to camp but no one really wanted to ride any more so we just sat around and then headed to Culvers. We got home, watched some Tour and then grilled out at the Longs. It was good to see Kelson and Jen again, it’s been a while.

Now my lungs feel yesterday’s effort. I am thinking I’ll rest today (might ride this evening but likely not) and then ride again tomorrow. Going to the Brewers game on Friday too so that’ll rock! Hope all is well with everyone!