back from our big weekend in jersey. qualifiers were saturday, it was still a fairly wet course which worked to my advantage and i placed 26th out of 300 riders (!). racing sunday was a little tougher, the course was fast, dry and dusty… totally unlike most of our riding around here. i placed 41st which i’m okay with, but my race run was much too conservative. i nearly slept through the race run, which didn’t help i’m sure. i was on the mtn with 30 minutes to go. dozed off for 10 minutes and heard them calling my number. 2 minutes later i was rocketing down the mtn.

it was nice to have the whole family waiting for me at the bottom of the hill (pic) and they had a good time hanging out. we took ryder swimming for the first time and he seemed to like it.

monday we went to the vienna memorial day celebration and ate food, browsed vendors and introduced ryder to the merry-go-round.

view all the pics here

i’ve stopped counting out loud.

raced on saturday at massanutten, had a great time. what a whirlwind coupla days though, it really stressed me out. thursday night i was silly and went to go see mono at the black cat. great show as always, but i should have been home sleeping. got home late from that, got not much sleep and went to work on friday, came home, got all my gear together, left for massanutten at 9pm, camped out on the mountainside ski slope which was awsome. woke up sat early after not much sleep (again). practiced, rode & raced. scored a solid 7th place in expert sr which i was pretty happy about. same exact time as last year, 3:45. different bike, different course, different health. cooked home post race to take kristy out on our first adult ‘date’ in nearly 10 months. thanks to krista & elmer for babysitting, those guys rock. went out to dinner and then over to jarrett’s for his bday party. i lasted till 11:30, went home to bed. up early the next morning for church (gotta go 3x after baptism), then mothers dayish things, then mothers day dinner.

whew.

plus i’m kinda stressed at work. but the upside? damian snapped this sweeeet pic of me coming down the fireroad during a practice run:

makes it all worth it, right?

picked up a used Burley D’lite on monday night. been surfing craigslist for a while, finally got an email from a guy selling one. it’s in pristine condition and was half the cost of new. i love used stuff. if ryder’s not too sleepy, we’re going to try to swing by performance and HTO to see about getting him a little helmet and hopefully try it out later this week or this weekend.

that is if we’re not too slammed getting ready for the baptism…

rebuilt the master cylinder on the DH bike last night with Kristy’s help. That thing was a pain in the ass. now just to fill & bleed and cross fingers… it should be good to go.

Day 35.

had a great weekend, spent a LOT of time with ryder. kristy had a baby shower on saturday so we went out to clarendon. first to revolution, then to B&N and crawling around on the grass in front. crossed a few home maintenance things off my list sat night, some basic touchup painting and babyproofing, getting the place ready for the baptism afterparty next weekend.

yesterday i got in a short trail ride at wakefield with jack then i took ryder over to see krista & elmer, then onto konami for sushi. wakefield was really fun, i took the jump/street bike around and felt like a kid on a bmx bike slaloming through the woods.

day 33.