today was the sunshine hill climb. i brought my camera along. here is the pre-race instruction from tim.

hammer time slams some clif bloks for some last minute sugar. (please notice she is wearing vitamin cottage gloves, she still loves us even though she has moved on to bigger and better national teams)

the view on the way up sunshine.

the girls congregating at the end to gossip about women's racing.

anne cray and i take a much needed stop at gold hill store. 1 cent candy and a v8, nothing better to recoup from a big climb.

on the way home syrae and i went to moe's for some egg and cheese sandwiches.

final results:
1. alex wubuski-something-or-other (canadian)
2. anne samplonious-somthing-or-other (also canadian)
3. ann trombley (olympian)
4. erin huck (needs to start her own blog)

to do well in this race your name must start with a vowel.

tonight syrae, jon, amy and the top of my head walked up and met anne at noodles for some carbo-loading for the big hill climb race tomorrow.

on the way home there was a yard sale and we ended up buying this homemade balance board. from now on it's all about the core at our house.

they were also selling a couch and it looked like poppi from seinfeld was the previous owner.

make yourself useful at work. create a simpsons avatar. (click)

michael jackson went from forcing his kids to wear blankets to "eyes wide shut" masks. yeah, these kids will be normal.

today was bike to work day. ross (who drove himself) and i (rode my bike) worked the vitamin cottage station. we had way more people stop by getting free stuff then i thought, but it may have had something to do with this...

whole foods (which is in the same parking lot) was giving away breakfast burritos.

ross and i made three trips over there pretending like we were commuters. we may have stuck out a bit wearing our competitor vc cycling clothing, but they still gave us some delicious treats.

this kid and his yellow jersey really put the pockets to the test.

overall this was such a fun day of commuting i was so surprised by the amount of people out and about, and it was even raining for most of the morning.

bike to work day rocks.

mr. ryan got a new pair of crocs. is there anyone in the u.s. that doesn't own a pair of these shoes?

don't forget tomorrow is ride your damn bike to work day.

breaking news: 7 time nathan's hot dog eating champion takeru "tsunami" kobayashi said he can only open his mouth to make a gap the size of a fingertip after being diagnosed with jaw arthritis.

jon and i are in heavy training for our annual 4th of july week of mountain biking. we got pretty whacky at betasso this morning. it was quite pretty.

pictures from the big dead dog classic stage race trip.

jon is all about his work. first thing he did when he got to the hotel.

after the 60 mile road race sparky does her best impression of a NBA basketball player.

we saw this on our walk to dinner. clinching my thoughts that this is a true cowboy town.

anne thought it was hilarious.

lisa leads a stretching session in the elevator.

the girls vc team played scrabble every night. the last night i totally showed the girls how competitive i am... i lost so bad, then i proceeded to cry. (not really, but i wanted to)

while we got crazy with the board games, the vc guys had a meeting about their bad tan lines in the hotel pool.

the awards ceremony.

final results: we got EXCELED again... over all we pulled off 2nd and 3rd, but maatje won.

on the way home i noticed that shreck is so popular that people buy cars to show their love for the lovable ogar.

again, no photos because my download cord is still sitting on my living room coffee table. that doesn't help me in this cowboy town, but when i get home you better believe i'll have a lot of pics to post.

the road race was 60 miles and super painful. ouch.

lisa "lock and load" matlock was in the break and got 2nd. the rest of the vc'ers were 3 minutes or so behind wishing we could climb like the leaders.

my jon got 5th in his race and jon "the cookie" baker won for the men's vc team.

sparky has some pics here.

i forgot my download cord for my camera. oops.

so we made it to laramie, wyoming and the road race is this morning at 10ish. last night sparky and i played a heated game of scrabble while anne and jon watched the movie "the fifth element". that movie looked dumb, no one wants to watch bruce willis unless he is playing jon mcclane.

that's all i got.

i was "allowed" to mow the law today. it has been a while and i forgot... it's not that fun. i wanted to quit about half way through (very much like i always did when i was a kid) but i stuck it out and mowed the whole thing.

new 18th st record: 30 minutes. i also beat the sprinklers on the automatic timers by 3 minutes. it was real close.

jon just dropped a bombshell: he has been putting decaf beans in the capresso c1000 for a week and didn't tell me until today.

you know what is really lame... someone STOLE jon's brand new wheels at hugo. i honestly thought we bike racers could be trusted not to steal an $800 pair of wheels. i have now lost all trust in the "wheels in / wheels out" method. since it seems it is now "no wheels in /steal wheels out".

to who ever stole jon's wheels...karma's a bitch.

c-ray and i rode the mountain bikes today. we did chimney gulch (which is essentially climbing lookout mountain). then headed over to enchanted forest which was so very enchanting and then down the apex trail to our cars. it was super hot, but super fun too.

i fell twice. this was the first time, i was just telling c-ray that i needed a little teeny tiny rest and then the next thing i knew i was down the side of this cliff like thing. it doesn't look like a cliff like thing, but it was pretty cliffy. i landed on some brush which i really hope wasn't poison oak.

the back of c-ray's car is filled with goodies. i was particularly interested in this sweet 80's book about getting stronger.


in other news:

it is so hot outside a lot of men are thinking that a sleeveless hanes undershirt is a good look in downtown golden. (couldn't get a pic of that, but here's an example)

4 hub caps for sale.

tonight i met with the girls and had a picnic outside chautauqua auditorium. it was great, we had a bunch of apps and some delicious fruit pizza. the fruit pizza sounds healthy, but it's not. it is sugar cookie dough, h-bomb vanilla frosting and you top it off with the fruit of your choice.

we picked up our picnic and instantly looked like homeless people. amazing what a simple blanket or towel can do to "dress you down". try it sometime, it's fun.

after dinner we were cheap asses and sat outside the auditorium with the rest of the frugal people in boulder and listened to a concert. i have no idea who it was, but it wasn't so bad.

while going through my photos tonight i found this man with a wedgie. i thought i would blog it.

don't be surprised if i roll up to the start line on this thing saturday, and no i don't know where i am going to put the toilet paper holder. i'm still working on that.

photo before my big escape from alcatraz swim. thanks for being there for me when i stepped off of the ferry boat plank into those shark infested waters. (and for every other time you have been there for me, which is pretty much always)

happy father's day popi.

lisa stepping up on the podium today with some other damn fine athletes. watch out kids, she's turning into a sprinter.

the final omnium: carol " the hurricane" hutton maintained her lead today with sparky and i in a close 2nd and 3rd. good job carol, excel girls and your super secret supporter jenna.

jon racin' his bike.

i'm tired of verbally fighting with the the pee break mafia. i went to grayson's memorial service today and it really reminded me of what's important and what's not important. family and friends are important. the rest is just filler.

it's time to step it up for the criterium tomorrow. a rocky III montage video is the magic we need for some inspiration.

remember in yesterday's blog when i said sparky was going to pull of a magical win? well, i predicted correctly, and the david blaine of cycling is undefeated at the hugo road race.

here's how it went down. excel racer mateeeejha embarrassed her team by attacking while we all agreed on a pee break. this is a huge, and i mean huge no-no in bike racing etiquette. (i have a feeling she never took this class) so we finally catch her and renee has an amazing counter attack that only triathlon time trialer trish could hang with. then they went riding off into the sun and wind together hand in hand. it was great.

when i got back to the car i saw that i had been riding with a huge hole in my tire for 40 miles. i am guessing it was when the crash happened right in front of me. i got real lucky, her bike went one way, she went the other, and i went right through the middle of the chaos. it was as if the seas parted for me. thankfully she is okay and got back in the race.

public service announcement: jon either had his easton slx wheel set w/ ti cassette stolen or mistakenly taken from the wheel car today. if you see anyone sporting a new pair of these with gray tires and isn't on the vitamin cottage team please get on the http://www.tetoncycling.com/ site and email us or post it. thanks.

i just got back from the rocky mountain (made up) omnium time trial. it was a cool course, great roads and stuff. i managed 2nd behind carol.

tomorrow is the 2 hour away hugo road race. sparky is undefeated in this race, so expect some amazing stuff to happen.

i drove out to the race with amy dombroski (peas and carrots blog link to the right). she's 19 years young and has a good head on her shoulders. i hope to see her move up the cycling ranks here pretty soon.

another birthday wish. this time around it is sent out to the madre tarkington.

we celebrated with a dinner and great weather out on our quiet patio.

the madre kept mentioning birthday hats and none of us remembered to get her any, so we improvised and gave her a napkin. she wore it for a while until i couldn't stand it anymore and asked her to kindly remove it. (at that point it had blown a bit and was pretty much a tissue balancing flat on her head) she's a good sport.

after dinner we had oxymoronic ice cream.