Pooks Canyon

We have yet to see any mustard fall.

When joining boulderbeat.com they asked if I had any hidden talents. Turns out I am a fast skipper, as in fast at skipping. Oh the things one learns in boot camp. I'll add that to my list of skills of questionable worth. Jon says he'll call me Skippy.

Axel blew out the candle on his first try, from a distance of about 2 feet. Axel inspects the water tower of his new train set with his new directional flashlight. Sam meditates on birthdays.

A week ago I joined a boot camp with my friend Beth and have been too sore to blog about it. No cute shoes are involved but it is still fun in a masochistic sense. Today we did all sorts of little exercises punctuated alternatively with running laps or hill sprints. Ask me about "bobble-legs". Boot camp is Monday Wednesday Friday for the month of September and- if you want to try it free - next Friday from 9-10 am is Bring a Friend Day. Takers?

Happy Birthday, Axel!

I found Jon in the garage gently caressing these new white tires.

Our team sells "I support fast women" t-shirts as a fund raiser. Here is a pic of Leah and Axel in their new shirts: Said fast women: Pooks, Davian, Hillery, and Amy. photos courtesy of Megan Hottman... aka fastest woman

The HART crit was today (HART stands for Haulin' Ass Race Team- yeah, I know). The men's 1/2 field will be haulin' a** to stay in front of this: Tornado 6 miles from the race site The women 3/4's may have started the tornadoes with our ripping fast laps times. haha. I felt really bad today. Megan said that if you feel bad, attack! So I did. I won three primes then got dropped. There was a pretty big hill in this crit- not my favorite ;) Seriously, though, as I type this, I think Jon is racing in a tornado warning. I took the kids and hightailed it out- luckily we took separate cars. Here is a map. The "A" is the race course and the x's are the tornado sightings we heard on the radio. We saw a small funnel cloud hovering to the southeast of the race course before we took off.

Team Director and cat 1 extrodinaire, Megan Hottman crushed it in the sprint. Go Megan!!!!

Jon went from adding 5 years with the mustache to taking off 10 years with the mohawk. What can I say? My husband is a punk.

Axel is doing somersaults over Dad's performance in the crit. He got 5th place which seems to be the family standard today. Leah races in 1 hour!

Early this morning I raced the women's cat 4 race at North Boulder Park. This race was cool for 3 reasons: 1.) I didn't get dropped 2.) I got 5th place 3.) It was a "mentoring" race Sharon "The Hammer" Allpress and Renee "Sparkles" Eastman, Cat 1 racing gurus, were there to mentor our group. We did two neutral laps with Hammer and Sparky giving the pack pointers on how to take the technical corners. I truly feel that these neutral laps with sage advice kept our race crash-free and gave me the confidence to stick with the other girls in the corners. I basically hung somewhere in the top 12 for the race and then sprinted for 5th at the finish. It was fun and so wonderful to not get dropped. Special thanks to Megan for the sideline advice each lap, Sparkles for reminding me to move up when it got easy, and the ACA for promoting women's racing with these mentor races. Jon and Leah race this afternoon...

Posted by Mr. Pooks: I'll let the pictures tell the story here. All photos courtesy of David Hunter . More at the Daily Camera Article . McCarthy and Baker make a selection. The final attack, with one last check behind. The coveted Roubaix Rock.

My new teammate, Lina (now aka Esta), invited me to go on an 'easy spin to Allenspark' yesterday. So I went. Lina brought her friend Abby who is training for a triathlon and is a natural climber despite having just started biking a few months ago. When I saw this sign I thought I was going to die. This was the darkest before the dawn moment. This was the last I saw of Lina at the bottom of South St Vrain canyon. Lina: That wasn't so bad, was it? Abby: I just started riding a bike a few months ago but still dropped you. Me: My legs hurt, gimme a bagel. The swanky Allenspark coffeeshop. Thanks Lina and Abby for a great workout. Here's to keeping up with you guys next Thursday!

Well, Butters has been gone for a month now, I don't think he's coming back. We saw him a couple times after our return from California but he clearly was cheating on us with another family as he was spending most of his time away. Eventually, he stopped coming around at all. Today I cried because I missed him. It is probably for the best as he was known to attack people on occasion. I hope he has found a nice human to care for him.

What can we say, we've been riding bikes all day.

I could not be HAPPIER, unless perhaps I wasn't missing 20% of the skin on my left forearm (see post below). T-Mobile corporation and I have been partners to several mobile phone contracts over the last six years, the most recent of which was not due up until next December. Some of you know about my voice mail issues with them, I've literally spent over 20 hours on the phone with their support department trying to fix to no avail. So, after missing a voice mail from Leah... for 3 days... when she was 3 states away I decided it was time to get an iPhone and switch to AT&T. T-Mobile said "Scr*w you, you owe us $200 in early termination fees" and I said "Scr*w you, I'm taking this up with the Better Business Bureau." I LOVE the Better Business Bureau! They had an easy to use website to file a complaint. Then they force the business to respond. After 2 rounds of responses, here is the outcome:

My friend Shelley and I went for a sunrise bike ride this morning and, while descending South Boulder Road, I hit a fist-sized rock with my front tire and was launched into traffic. I landed in the middle of 2 lanes of west bound traffic and was very lucky I was not run over by a morning commuter. There was a veritable asteroid belt of these rocks in the bike lane (no wonder they call it South Boulder Road) and as Shelley and I waited for the calvary to arrive we cleared out all the rocks. At this point the only thing stopping me from riding home was modesty as my shorts were comically blown out. About 45% of my bottom was showing and the holes looked like two large milky white eyes. See photo below. Went to urgent care for the Lidocaine injection and scrubbing of what I like to call my "glass elbow". Let's just say this is not the first or even the second time this elbow has required this oh-so special treatment. Perhaps this round removed some of the unsightly s...

It takes a conveyor full of pens, pencils, paper, and duct tape (yes, duct tape) to start fifth grade these days. The Mesa Elementary list cost $100. My friend Niki teaches in an impoverished agricultural community in central California and the principal gives her $125 for school supplies for the whole class. The parents cannot afford to buy their own so I should feel fortunate.

Click here to read about the Magical Wonder Endurance Pills W.A.D.A is working with the scientist for testing athletes. p.s. Jon thinks people won't get the sarcasm in the title of this post. Pooks is not advocating pill-popping, it's just what Homer Simpson would say.