busy month

Wow. Work's been crazy. I took 5 days off in late July to go watch Ironman Lake Placid and it was like I had left the country for two years. Two more days in NYC last week and once again it seemed like months. It's good to be busy though, I'm really happy with the recent changes at my place of business.

I skipped the PMC this year, wanting to give my donors a break. People tell me that it is an honor to make donations to that cause, but I can't help but thinking that I'm a huge PITA in asking people for money. 

Marcia and Judy are never far from my thoughts. I jumped into the PMC ride this year for a bit to give the guys at the front a bit of a push and wish them well. 

We drilled it for 35 miles and then I had to turn around. That is such an incredible event, and even in the face of tougher financial times, they are still raising incredible amounts of money for cancer research.

Ok - Ironman. I went to watch and ended up signing up for the race

 in 2009. The onsite registration opens at 9:00 am the day after the race and each year it fills up faster and faster. Five years ago it sold in 4 days after they took care of all of the onsite registrants. Four years ago it was 18 hours. Three years ago it was 90 minutes after onsite registration. Two years ago it was 20 minutes and last year it sold out in 180 seconds. This year, they started to line up for registration at 1:00 am. Franqui & I jumped in line with a Andy who had been waiting since 6:00 am and was about 300 people back. The line extended down the road about 1/3 of a mile. 

In the end, we all got in for 2009 but some people didn't. These were all on site registrations. So if you want to race the Lake Placid Ironman... plan two trips. One to register and a second for the actual race. 

Hopefully my knee holds up to the training.

I jumped in the Ninigret training crit last week and after a few silly efforts tried to get up the road, I managed to find myself in "the break." There is something ironic and cruel about calling the group of riders that gets away from the main pack in a road race a "break."  There was nothing restful or relaxing about it. My eyes were bleeding as I tried to hold the wheel of the nice young fellow in front of me who was riding me into the ground on a bike made of my crushed bones. I lasted about 5 miles with that group and then got spit out. 

On to the here and now. I'm in NH, Alton in fact staying in a hug

e house with my wife's entire family on Lake Winnipesaukee. Here's the view from the deck:

Also found a good route today, but it was super windy. Just under 4k of climbing in 42 miles and the traffic was much better than I recall. 

Tomorrow we'll be swimming in the lake for 30 minutes. My first open water swim of the IM 2009 training. 

I'm loving the new Garmin in case you couldn't tell.

Five weeks until cross season... are you going to be ready?