This past week while I was training with CXC in Hayward, my family and I were spoiled with great accommodations.   I want to give a shout out to Chuck and Lianne for always allowing us to stay at their cabin on Round Lake. I am always grateful when I can bring the family with me to training camps since I travel so often throughout the year. When we stay at Chuck and Lianne’s cabin I can train and see my family.  They have the most comfortable mattress in their cabin I have ever slept on… always a factor in my Birkie performances over the past few years.

Also, Marybeth’s dad, Mike, came up for the weekend and was nice enough to take us out on the boats.  Friday evening included a pontoon ride across the lake for dinner at Famous Dave’s and Saturday involved some speed boat fun!

The weekend included many firsts… Grant and Samantha’s first boat ride and my first time wakeboarding.

I think wakeboarding may be my new calling.  I watched a 14sec youtube video on “how to wakeboard” and then I gave it a try.  It took me 4 attempts to get up but after that I was golden… probably my snowboarding background.

Thank you Chuck and Lianne! Check out http://www.roundlakeescape.com

Grant fishing:-)

Take us to Famous Dave’s!

The “chauffeur”

the “guinea pig”

yep… I’m a pro

the family!

the kiddies

Sorry all, I should have updated this earlier but I have been swamped.  Right now I am back up in the Hayward area for part of the intersity block with my team.  I brought the entire family and Marybeth’s brother, Ben, came up to help out for the week.  Thanks Ben!

This past week in the cities I spent sometime shopping for a new bike since mine was totalled.  I can’t decide between and 26 or 29in MTB.  In the interum, Kuan Teoh,  built me up a sweet ride that I would caterize as an “everything bike.”  Kuz says he has some beefy tires for it so hopefully I will get to ride some single track this week.

My back is starting to come along, athough I did a running race this weekend and I was sore afterwards.  I can pretty much do anything without pain except hard running and weight lifting.

Larry Foss at the Fix is helping me out with massage and I get to bounce some training and recovery ideas off him.  He worked me over a few days ago and I am feeling a lot better.  I have been seeing Larry for the last 3 years and this guy is amazing.  He can put me back together after I tear myself apart… http://www.thefixmassage.com/default.htm

Just got back from a 2 day trip to Hayward.  The plan was to v02max test and run the 3000m time trial.  I didn’t get to vo2 test because the machine broke but I did get to run the 3000m.  It was a good effort and we had some PRs on the team.  Brian Gregg and I ran together for most of the race and ran 9:12 and 9:17 respectively… pretty fast for both of us.

My back and neck held up pretty well for running efforts over the past few days… not 100% but better.  Sometimes after hard efforts it feels pretty sore and tweaks out a bit.  Also, weight lifting is probably weeks away from happening… or more.

I ended up spending one night in Hayward; it was very nice to sleep 8 hrs straight for the first time since Samantha was born… sure didn’t hurt my 3000m time.