nothing like grass between your toes

back

side

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Thanks to the help of Justin, Jones, and Fox.

sod party wednesday

Sod is coming tomorrow and were having a pizza party. If you are itching to get some dirt under your fingernails and need some dinner were laying the turf at 4pm. I spent the day prepping the soil and setting timbers. Despite using leather gloves, I managed to get a large sliver wedged under my thumbnail, pure pain. I finally used the scalpel to dissect out the treated lumbar but I am not very good with my left hand.

After tomorrow (and a few days recovery) I will be back to cycling and maybe some croquet!

timber stairs and the hill ready for sod

the front trimmed and ready

Eva climbing and eating the hill

eva on the stairmaster

am I still a cyclist?

I try to keep a good share of the content on this blog cycling related, thus no updates lately. My mind and my time has been taken over by landscaping. The sprinkler system is done, the grading is nearly complete, and I unloaded 1 yard of soil this evening to till in before I lay sod. If you have never designed and installed a sprinkler system in hard mountain soil and crazy terrain changes you are missing out on one of the finer frustrations in life. i am now more patient and you should see the muscles in my back!

It won't be long and I will be laying the foundation for a solid cross season, assuming my left hip cooperates. After I get back on the bike for some miles I hope to hit up the DMV for some leg speed and intensity work.

The E100 is this weekend and I am sad to be missing this epic, although I am disappointed about all the course changes from the original as I will never be able to compare times. I plan to win this race again in the future but it will have to wait.
good luck to those firing it up this year.

Tour of 6017

Where have I been? Up to my armpits in landscaping. Its been like a stage race with one concentrated focus, I have been putting in 10 hour days back to back a good share of the week and am in need of a rest day. The tour guys are a bunch of pampered fairies, full time landscapers are the ones who need hematoligists and team docs. I should only have a few more days and I will be ready for some sod. I saw in velonews that JHK puts in a day or two in the yard to beef up his upper body, anybody looking to fine tune their bunny hopping forearms for cross come on up to the BG cyclocross training camp. I have been so focused on bustin this out I even forgot Rog's birthday, he has been my landscape design collaborator, and is a true genius.

No riding this week, no training on th bike, no commuting, no nothing. I plan to start getting some riding in soon. It has been nice to focus on something else for a while but I am itching to get back on the bike.


pile of timbers for bordering the lawn

prepping the front for timbers and then sod

growing rock collection, Monday I am getting another pallet of flag stone, can't get enough of these forearm builders.

Those valve boxes are a "work of art"

Rain Bird control panel, top of the line.


It won't be long and I will setting up the croquet set on the lawn!

red neck weekend

So I stayed in a cabin 3 miles away from the wolverine ridge mountain bike race all weekend but never made it to the race. Friday evening Tom and I burned a lap on the coarse and it was exactly how I remember it except now with added gravel.

I had every intention to race even though I had not been training but on Saturday morning when Tom pulled out the wadders to go fishing I couldent help but join him. We "wet some line" in christmas meadows and had a good time despite the smallish trout. Later in the day we busted out the guns and shot skeet. I had not pulled the trigger on my Remington 870 wingmaster in at least 10 years but did not miss a beat, the skeet had no chance. Rosie also had her first experience with a shotgun and I came away impressed, she's still complaining about her shore shoulder. We fished again in butterfly lake without much success but it was a good time playing with Eva and Tom's kids.



Yesterday Tom and I broke in his new road bike by riding to Kamas, it was a nice 50 mile ride with some great views. All in all a great weekend doing some things I don't normaly do.

I picked up 50 6ft gaurdrail posts for some more landscaping in the yard for a cool $180, great deal. This week will be dedicated to landscaping and sprinklers. I don't plan on touching my bike so I can pour what little energy I have into the yard. Once the yard is done I will start riding again and hopefully be up and ready for cross.

Still have not got the results of my pelvic MRI, although I am pretty sure I know the problem. Piriformis hypertrophy is impinging my sciatic nerve, it has been killing the last few days and none of my normal remedies seem to help. Maybe I just need a couple weeks worth of colonics. Anyway, hopefully I can get a handle on it or I may just op for a hemipelvectomy.

props to climbum jones for 9th at NCS finals

flower girl

Not racing the last few weeks has been tough. When we built our home the foothill county overlay zone (FCOZ)ordinance required that we post a $2500 bond for reseeding and landscape to be done within 1 year, well it is fast approaching and I want my money back. I have recently turned my focus from racing to landscaping in order to get the sprinklers in, finish the shed, get the yard prepared for sod, reseeding with wildflowers and ground cover, tree planting, and general manual lobor. My fitness on the bike has gone a little south but my back is ripped- to pieces! All year I have been attempting to balance racing with the rest of my life and have found some success, this time of year and this type of work were just to much. If I can just get things nearly done by September I will have plenty of time to be in good form for cross season.
After working most of yesterday we joined the Heckman's for a hike/picnic up to Twin Lakes above Brighton. Eva loved playing in the wildflowers and Rosie packs an amazing spread. On the hike around the boardwalk at Silver Lake we ran into an inspiration to all of us, Gael Yonett. Gael is first year medical intern at the VA who is newly adjusting to being paralyzed below the waist due to a snowboarding accident in March. I recently had the opportunity to help him get his over night on-call room wheelchair accessible. Since then I have been drawn to his infectious personality and attitude. At silver lake he was burning laps around the lake in his wheelchair, he has spynergy wheels with SPOX spoke technology. It would be very dificult to complain about being sore, tired, or fatigued on the bike to Gael. I am excited to work with Gael down the road as a PM&R resident, he will make a great doc.

"Look at all these flowers I can eat"


What a babe!

I have an original This Old House T-Shirt

Watching This Old House right now, best show on tv. There remodeling a home in Hawaii about 100 ft from the beach, when they started the landscaping I got all excited, I am currently trying to be a landscaper. I would post some more hacker training tips but I have not been training much lately. I have had a flair of my left sciatic nerve, the same issue I have been battling for nearly 2 years. I have ruled out a lumbar etiology and am convinced it is due to an entrapment in my buttock, I go for a pelvis MRI next Thursday to check out my hip external rotators. I guess it's a good time to take a little break from racing so I am not going to push it, I may do Evanston as the last IC race but not to serious. Bummed not to be in Brian Head but in typical team big bear style it will be an expensive event where the racers play second fiddle to the convenience of the promoter. Unfortunately my new Raleigh cross bikes are delayed so I won't have them until September, I was hoping to get a little more time on them before racing.
Kyle is flying out to Utah tomorrow for a month of goofing around before he is back at the books, maybe we can hit the links. The big rain Storm did wonders for packing my trail, I rallied the Honda trail 110 on it to help pack it down while its damp. I hope to start working on the trail again this fall. Not much to report here, sorry if you came looking for good pics or answers to lives burning questions. HGTV's Landscape Smart is on now!