Are You Living It?

Here’s a tune to get the week under way. It’s really more of a weekend song, if that tells you where my mind is already.

Enjoy: (takes a second to stream)

James Schaffer

Springtime. Sunshine. Snowmelt. But at 9:30 this morning it was still only 30 degrees. A nice 60 mile ride into the warm regions of the South. Well, South Siskiyou County that is. Heading South from Mount Shasta, toward Dunsmuir, we rode along a single lane road with a canopy of Fir and Pine trees overhead. The twists and turns with short steep climbs made for an enjoyable beginning to the ride. We continued South to Dunsmuir and then along the Snow fed Sacramento River. Almost no traffic and the quiet of the morning let us hear the river noises as we rode along side, the intermittent buzz of the freewheels sounding out a tune. We were headed for Castle Craigs State Park. Just South of Dunsmuir we had to ride a short distance on the I-5 freeway shoulder to the next exit. We expected quite bit of rock and cinders along the side of the road, but it was pretty clean.

Yesterday kicked off the 08 season with the uphill time trial as the first stage of the San Dimas stage race.  It was a tough climb, 3.8 miles of uphill. I felt about average and was a bit disappointed as I have been feeling pretty descent in my training.  Training isn’t racing though and  you can never tell how you are going to go despite good preparation until you are out there slugging it out. Both Neil Shirley and Trent Wilson are within 10 seconds or so of the lead. Not bad at all and that gives us some good cards to play today. 

Would have known that there was something missing for the world to be right or he right in it and would have set forth to wander wherever it was needed for as long as it took until he came upon one and he would have known that that was what he sought and it would have been. -Cormac McCarthy

Saw this in today’s Durango Herald.  Scroll down in the article for a pretty cool video.

4,000 miles in 11 days. 

There were two days of house hunting in San Francisco, where my wife will be starting school at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in July.  (I’m very proud of her!).  Then two days in Seattle with renowned web guru, Josh Mather, planning the next phase of Are You Living It?  Back down to California to meet partner Joe Hiss for three days of Live Your Passion Gear sales calls along the I-80 corridor near Sacramento.  And finally two days of strategy sessions and meeting with manufacturers near San Francisco, with company founder Shawn Raley.

Easter Sunday relaxing in Sunriver Oregon.

I disappeared off the radar for a few weeks. Allot of things have happened and I will try to sum it up in a quick post.

Another OTBer told me today her old coach used to tell her that it takes 5 weeks to start noticing you can hang in the races better. Then suddenly, your pain threshold increases and those efforts that made you wheeze, struggle, gasp and heave yourself up start to become less painful. Well this weekend marked 4 out of 5 - so if all is going according to plan, April should be a much better month for the old Juicer.