Soldier Hollow, MIT, AK

Last weekend was the Soldier Hollow race. The family was all pretty busy, so it was just Ian and I.

It was raining as we drove around Deer Creek reservoir, and looked like it might rain at Soldier Hollow. I waited till the last moment to sign up in case it rained, but it didn't and the weather was great for racing - no dust and cool weather.

Ian was somehow signed up for the High School JV men (he should have been Jr. High). The results show him at 3rd, but I wonder whether that was right. Regardless, he rode the whole lap. They added a couple jumps through some trees at the end of the lap which were fun.

Ian finished just in time for me to see him before I needed to head out for the warm up.

My race was fun, but largely uneventful. We started fast, and after a couple minutes I moved to the front, but then part way up the second climb of the first lap Aaron Phillips went sailing by and quickly opened a substantial gap. At the end of the first lap, I could still see him, and couldn't see anyone behind me, and this was essentially how things remained the rest of the race. Racing is always hard, but I pushed well throughout, had no bike problems, and felt great about my race.

I made up a fair bit of time on Aaron on the last lap, but I did not catch him, finishing 25 seconds behind him. The next guy was about 3.5 minutes behind.

After the race we had to hurry home to make it to the Hale Theater, so we skipped awards. Just before arriving home, a huge hailstorm erupted. So much hail and water fell that it clogged the roof drains and water was flowing over the sides of the rain gutters.

On our way to the Hale theater in the hail storm (ha ha), I-15 was flooded with several inches of water, but we made it on time (rare for us at the Hale!) and saw Peter and the Star Catcher.

I spent a couple days at MIT this week as it looks like we will start on a new project with the MIT OpenAg project. It was a fun trip and I'm excited about the team and the project. I think we can help them a lot, too.

The trip home was lame - we arrived to the Boston airport more than an hour early but the TSA line was super-long and we ended up missing our flight by about 3 minutes after running from security to the gate. We didn't actually miss them taking off - the plan was still there - but they gave away our seats and shut the door as soon as their 15 minutes window had arrived. I think they had oversold the plane so it solved a problem for them. That meant we left 3 hours late and had a 3 hours layover, so the afternoon was blown.

As soon as I got back from the airport, Scott, Ian, Tanner, Parker W and I loaded up the truck and drove to the ward father-son campout at the Garff Ranch. I was kind of dreading it because I was tired, but actually it was relaxing and fun. The kids are old enough that they handled themselves, and we just slept in the back of the truck.

Saturday morning the kids shot airsoft guns, bows, etc.

Then we drove home, I did a little training in Corner Canyon (much needed after missing most of the week with travel, etc.), and then dropped Kim and Kaitlyn off at the airport.

They are now in Alaska visiting Ryan and Heather for the week.