Time for browner pastures

Sometimes it's the big things that get in the way of training.. Such as getting laid off an re-locating 4 or 5 states away. It's official, my wife and I are moving to Colorado for a more dry, sunny, and laid back way of life. I hope that this little hickup won't kill my cross season; but before I worry too much about a disruption in my training I had better find a new place to park my commuter bike.  I am looking forward to exploring Denver CO and training in a fairly dry but much colder climate this fall and winter. I ordered some narrow studded tires for the winter commute deep in the snow zone as well as some winter cycling shoes so I won't have to hastle with booties twice a day through the cold season.

Packing bikes for shipping properly is a lot of work. The Burley tandem was quite a job. It took an extended bike box and a lot of zip ties. One bike down, 4 to go. Ugg, very sad to pack the bikes away. Looking forward to un-packing in a few weeks. 

One last mossy trail ride at Lord Hill park: 

Washington days numbered but fitness is awesome

The good news is, after about a year and a half of training nearly every day, my fitness has reached new heights. On a long hard climb I can actually recover sorting the segments that are not as steep and push up the next steep segment. I was able to secure a KOM up the back side of Lord Hill out of Snohomish, nice! Just the type of fitness I need to be competitive in cyclocross this year. 

The bad news, I was laid off from work at BE Aerospace allong with a lot of my co workers. Such is the life of an engineer. I put in lots of miles contemplating my next steps to take in life.

Grr, that's a grumpy face. A fast solo ride was a good start. I needed some more miles and some company. The next day I rode wit my team mate Joe and ran into my friend Zach on the way to the ride start. We rode fairly fast and had a great time together. Perfect weather.

80 fast miles in 2 days but I was not done yet. I was still feeling great. The next day I did the Snowhomish Wednesday night ride which was really fast. We were holding 30 on the flats with 3 very strong riders on time trial bikes. That was fun! I really hung in there near the front and didn't getting dropped at all. That was fun. 

130 fast miles in 3 days and I was ready for some rest. Sara and I also decided to move to Colorado. The cost of living in Seattle is getting out of hand and will get much worse with the new $15 an hour minimum wage. I really like the mild winters and the dense forest but it's time to slow our roll off the bike. Now I am applying for jobs like crazy and spending a lot less time on the bike. I hope to still have a good cross season but it may require snow tires.