What Day is it Again? The Big Update

The past 4 weeks have been a blur, I barely know what day it is at any given time let alone that it's a new year. It's already the 8th? How long until 'cross season starts? The past few weeks have been nothing but enjoying having Maddy in our lives. Although at time it's not the easiest thing, but like everyone with kids has told me, it is a very rewarding experience. She's starting to smile and can almost roll over on her own. She gets half way then stalls on her side.
I'm finally "officially" back to work but that hasn't really changed much around here. Gina has been awesome with letting me go out and ride. For a while there I was afraid to leave the house or just felt guilty doing so. She told me she knows I'll go crazy if I don't ride and that if I'm cooped up in the house all crazy that will drive her crazy so I might as well go ride. Works for me.

Sunday the Elite/Masters 30+ and 40+ teams headed out to Frederick for a long day of hammering up and down the mountains. 7,600ft of climbing in 66 miles was the plan, but as all with all plans it started out great and then somewhere it went to shit. I knew something was going to go wrong when my front wheel rolled off the roof of the car at 80mph on the highway. I happened to look up just as it was hitting the pavement and watched it bounce then roll off the road into the median. Fortunately there were no cars behind me to finish it off. A bit of a hop and slightly out of true but otherwise ok so no having to turn around and go get another wheel.

As for the ride, I was the only person with local knowledge of the roads and the route and only two of the other ten guys thought it wise to bring the cue sheet. That's a recipe for disaster on a long ride. Needless to say the ride broke up into several groups on the first long climb and the group was never together again. A new teammate Chip missed the turn chasing the lead group, ended up in Thurmont and had to have his wife come bail him out. My buddy Jeff and I gathered up the remainder of the 40+ guys and set out to hopefully regroup at High Rock, but on the climb though Catoctin Park on a road closed during winter and strewn with debris, Eric sucked a stick through his rear derailleur blowing it into more pieces than I've ever seen and finally wedging the stick into his wheel. 45 minutes of major surgery on his bike, using shift cable as dental floss, we were finally rolling again. The 40+ guys rolled back to just hit some hill repeats around Myersville while Jeff and I set out to finish the ride. A total of 5 hours later we finally rolled back to the parking lot totally spent. Legs are weak, and rightfully sore after that ride.

Today I hit the Morning Ride, Maddy was up at 5:10 so it made getting to Child Time by 6 a piece of cake, even had time to stop at Dunkin' Donuts for coffee and a double chocolate glazed donut, hmmm, chocolate. I finally replaced the bald rear tire and leaky tube on the fixie last night only to be greeted this morning with a flat. Replace a leaky tube with a more leaky tube, that's my luck. Not feeling like changing it as it would ruin my coffee and donut plan, I pumped it up and waited to see if it would hold, obviously not long enough as I realized at the end of the ride the tire was half flat, probably for most of the ride and just before bombing a big downhill which requires some skid stopping. 10 minutes later when I rolled into the garage I was at 30psi, just in time!

Working from home has it's perks, we took advantage of the nice weather (mommy what's a polar bear?) and grabbed some lunch to go at the Hollow Bean in Ellicott City and took Maddy for her first stroll through Patapsco park. We hung out on the foot path and ate while she bathed in the sunlight then proceeded down to the swinging bridge.

enjoying the warm sunlight....

Getting a free ride...

contemplating how to keep us up at night.