WEEKEND UPDATE

(SIGH) Turtle's in the Keys--yes, those Keys--diving, soaking up some rays, enjoying the...ummm...views, and sipping fruity umbrella drinks. Bastard!

Okay, I feel better now--had to get that off my chest. Have a safe trip, buddy.

Now, on to the weekend update:

Grambo and I had an enjoyable day at Bolton Valley yesterday, courtesy of GMARA. As if there wasn't enough reasons for you to join the coolest club in Vermont, add wicked deals at Bolton to the list. Thanks again, guys!

Afterward we stopped at the new Cider House, formerly known as the Road House, on Route 2 in Waterbury. It's got a good lookin' southern barbecue menu and the inside is, well, much nicer than the previous establishment. We just had a couple of beers and went home, but look forward to having dinner there with the wives.

Speaking of dinner, Mrs. G and I later met up with Mr. and Mrs. Grambo for some dinner at the Alchemist. We highly recommend the Alchy, as we like to call it, for both its food and its beer.

Today is a bright, sunny and increasingly warm day for chores around the house and whatnot. Tomorrow, Grambo, Biz and me are doing the 6 mile Kaynor's Sapp Run. (See below.)

It's not too late to get in on some running action, and it's only $5. Come on out! We're particularly looking forward to the post-race cider and donuts! If we don't see you there, we'll let you know how it goes.

I'm off to the hardware store to pick up some more bird seed.

Pax,

JG

The Saps Are Running!

Preparations for the 2007 Kaynor's 6 mile sap run, sponsored by GMAA, continue full-speed ahead.

The race--which is all on dirt roads in Westford, Vermont--is held rain, snow or shine, hot or cold, hail, sleet or freezing rain. This makes it very likely that it will be very muddy. Cool.

Grambo and I have been training for it. In fact, we met up yesterday for a 5+ mile through Waterbury. As much as I love the winter--and I do love the winter--it is nice to get outside more often for some road running. Mountain biking and trail running will be next!

Last year's race (photo above) included some four-legged friends who apparently couldn't resist an opportunity to run with the herd. Maybe they'll make an appearance this year?

jg

THIS JUST IN!

A photo from Saturday's big adventure. The best part may have been watching Turtle try to operate the timer on the camera.

jg

Frigid Infliction, Round 2

So as we mentioned, this weekend TRWS hit the woods of Bolton to retrieve CP8, left over from the FIWAR. For those who didn't understand the rather cryptic note below (sent from CP8 on Saturday), we did manage to find it, with no real problems. It was actually a fantastic day, started out cool (high 20s), but warmed into the 40s later in the day. Justin opted for his tele skis for the entire day (equiped with skins for the climbing), while J and I went with snowshoes and X-C skis. The snow was crusty to start, and we only skiied a couple hundred yards from the Nordic Ctr in Bolton before we took off our skis, and just hiked it. We hiked it up to Bryant camp (TA1/2 from the race) in short order, and then proceeded up the Heavenly Highway trail, donning our snowshoes as we began to posthole. Climbing up to the top of the hill, we were able to easily follow the trail signs (which I don't remember from the race, maybe the race director had them removed to mess with us?) up to the Stowe View. Here we dropped our packs, spread out, and began a sweep south for the CP. Within minutes, J called out that he had it, so we returned to the overlook, which offered great views of Mansfield, Stowe, and Elmore. It's an awesome spot. We also snapped some pics, which I will post once Justin sends them to me...


From the View, we diverged from the race course, and headed off to the east. We took a few side trails to a steep downhill which headed off towards Cotton Brook (in Waterbury/Moscow). Here Justin took off his climbing skins, and after a shaky start, began blasting down the hill. J and I followed in our snowshoes, cursing him. We tried donning our X-C skis at one point once the slope evened out, but bagged it when the going became too rough. As the land leveled we actually lost the trail for a while, but it was easy enough to read the terrain, and the navigation was pretty simple. We continued in this fashion until reaching Cotton Brook, which in the summer is great for Mtn. Biking, and in the winter is a snowmobile trail. Here we finally put on our skiis, made great time, and only ran into 1 group of snowmobilers.


We turned off of Cotton Brook at a turned called Kelty's corner, which took us into the Little River State Park trail system (which we have ridden several times on bikes in the summer). On skis we blazed along (although I had several spectacular crashes on the downhills), and eventually we spit out into the State Park proper. From here it was a quick ski down the road to Justin's truck, and home. All in all a great trip, I figure around 3-4 miles on shoes, and another 5-6 on skis. Very cool, I recommend this trip to anyone. And, we look forward to trying the Bolton-Trapps trail, probably next year, especially since we can go from Trapps to the 'Horn on our skis. Nice!!

Grambo

Mission Accomplished (Really)

To: GMARA
From: TRWS

Houston, this is Tranquility Base.

The Eagle has landed.

Over and Out.

###

Spring Skiing!

The last few days have been spectacular and it's shaping up to be an excellent spring skiing weekend. You can tell, Groucho is psyched!

As Grambo notes below, our plan is to do some backcountry hiking and skiing Saturday. We're departing Waterbury around 7:45 a.m. tomorrow morning and, after a brief stop at the local bagel place, meeting Turtle at the Waterbury Resevoir where we're dropping his truck.

Then, it's up to Bolton where we'll cruise up to the site of the FIWAR CP8, grab the orienteering flag that's there and ski out to the Waterbury reservoir. Grambo estimates a total trail time of about 5.5 hours. When we get back to the reservoir, Turtle will jet to work and Grambo and I will discuss cruising a few miles further to a Waterbury, Blush Hill outlet of the reservoir--that's a game time decision.

The weather looks pretty good. It should be an excellent day. We'll try to take some good pictures and let you know how it goes.

We're suppose to get 6 inches of fresh snow on the mountain Saturday night and Sunday the temperature is suppose to rise again to near 50. I'll be coaching snowboarding Sunday and it should be awesome.

Have a great weekend--TRWS plans to!

J

Runnin', Runnin'

Well, pretty good week of running so far, 10 miles and it's only Wednesday. I ran 5 on Monday, and another 5 yesterday, at a fairly decent (for me) time. Am I ready for the Marathon? Not yet. Ready for the 1/2er in 2 weeks? Unlikely. Ready for the 6 mile Sap Run next Sunday? Heck Yeah!!! I believe J and I are planning to run in this cool, potentially muddy race, and Biz may join in. Not sure on Justin's plans yet. But, I myself and quite pleased with my running progress thus far. I plan on taking today off, and then throwing down a 6+ miler on Thursday. Rest up Friday, and then we'll be adventuring on Saturday...

So, the plan on Saturday is starting to shape up. We'll be heading off into the Bolton wilderness again, first to retrieve CP8 from the FIWAR. A fortutious turn of events, as this, in my opinion, was the coolest checkpoint, as it was way up on a knob with some great views. From there, the plans are still foggy, but likely we will either be heading down to Cotton Brook/Waterbury Reservoir, or on the Trapps in Stowe. In any case, it should be a fun time, and warm, with temps forecast in the mid to high 40s!! Short sleeve hikin' weather, finally...

And, just for kicks, here is a pic of us at TA1 from the FIWAR. As you can see, it was just getting light, and we were fueling up on food and prepping the map. A pretty good TA, something I think we are getting good at, getting in and out quickly...

Grambo

TGIM!





Okay, not really.





But it is a beautiful Monday. There's 18-24 inches of fresh powder in the mountains (the adjacent photo is from Saturday) and I'd love to be hiking and riding. But hey, a guys got to work--we can't ALWAYS be on vacation. Or, can we?
It's worth trying.

For example, Grambo and I went to Jay Peak on Friday for a bunch of runs. (This after a Tuesday afternoon of hooky at Bolton) It was a frozen, fast and fun Friday. Speaking of it being fast, we happened upon an Orleans County law enforcement officer on the way there Friday morning. Grambo received a special award from the officer. It was for his commitment to an early arrival at Jay, I think. Nice work, buddy!

Friday night and Saturday brought more fresh snow--lots more--and some great runs, and an awesome lesson, at Stowe. Then we celebrated St. Patrick's Day. All hail the high holy day.

Sunday was great too--St. Patrick's sluggishness notwithstanding--as there was more snow, and more fresh tracks to be had. After a few runs on Spruce, Mrs. G and I went snowshoeing in the mountain biking park we have in Waterbury. I think we did 3.5 or 4 miles. It was a nice afternoon for a stroll through the local woods. I noticed a cool spot to set up a Tyrolean traverse--lord knows a little practice wouldn't kill us.

This weekend, we may be deployed by our buddies at GMARA to retrieve some orienteering checkpoints from the Frigid Infliction. If they've got that covered, we may do a different hike/ski. I'm hoping that we might make it out to Beaver Meadow Lodge in the Sterling Valley Saturday night for a night of winter camping--with the comfort of a wood stove and the serenity outhouse (more on that later). If we do that, I'd have to hike out early Sunday morning (6-ish), because I have some lessons at Stowe that begin at 9:30. Whatever we do, all are welcome. We'll keep you posted.

Well, my boss is out of town and I'm quietly conspiring to sneak out for a (road) run or something. So, I better get back to work!

Back in the (running) saddle...

So, I've been on a bit of running hiatus lately, basically due to the FIWAR. I had been running regularly in Jan and Feb (getting up to 20 miles/week), but along about the 2nd week in Feb, I got some new XC ski boots, and in preparation for the FIWAR I spent all of my workout time skiing rather than running. Plus, we got about 3 feet of snow in town, making the sidewalks...difficult, and it has been screaming cold. However, this Saturday, having recovered from the previous Saturdays exertions (and being that it was 30ish degress out), I rather reluctantly pulled on my running shoes and hit my regular 3.6 mile loop. I expected pain, in my calves especially, due to 3 weeks of 0 miles, and wasn't even sure I'd make it the entire way. So, I hit the road...and felt pretty darn good!! I actually ran the loop in my fastest time in months, even running into a very strong (15 mph steady) south wind for 1/2 of my loop. To what do I attribute this amazing feat? Well, the crosstraining on skiis likely helped, but the most likely cause for my fleet-footedness is the fact that I have dropped about 12 pounds in the last month. My wife and I have been on a somewhat vegitarian diet (The Rice Diet), which is a low fat, high fiber, lots of fruits and veggies type diet. Pretty satisfying, and it works. And apparently shedding the weight does help to speed the pace. Today, I'm off for a 5 miler, we'll see how that goes...

Saturday night, veering wildly off the diet I just talked about, J and I headed out to the Alchemist, a brew pub/restaurant in Waterbury, to see if they had any new brews. And indeed they did, among them a strong red ale (8% alc) and a really tasty Belgian white. Then, it was off to Wings to meet Justin for some dinner, and more tasty beers. A good time was had by all, and the warm weather yesterday was awesome. It was nice to be outside in just a T shirt!! Well, back to work. Plan is to take a 1/2er tommorrow and go for a ski at Bolton, hopefully the rain will hold off...

Grambo

All Hail The Vindaloo Chicken!

You like it hot? We do. Hot sauce, hot showers, hot wings, hot fires, hot saunas, hot peppers, hot tubs...you get the point

On the 5-star hotness scale, this dish--prepared by our friends at local Waterbury eatery Marsalis Salsa--gets a 4-star rating. It's awesome.

Here's a list of the basic ingredients:

2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds; 2-3 hot, dried red chillies; 1 teaspoon cardamom seeds; A 2 cm (3") stick of cinnamon; 1.5 teaspoons whole black mustard seeds; 5 tablespoons white wine vinegar; 1.5 teaspoons salt; 1 teaspoon light brown sugar; 10 tablespoons vegetable oil; 190 g (6.5 oz) onions, peeled and sliced; 5 tablespoons plus 225 ml (8 fl oz) water; 900 g (2 lb) boneless chicken cut into small chunks; A 2.5 cm (1") cube of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped; A small, whole head of garlic, separated & peeled; 1 tablespoon ground coriander seeds; 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric.

This dish is definitely not for the faint-of-heart, or, uh, anyone with a sensitive stomach or digestive tract. This stuff gets your furnace burnin'--which, as every adventure racer knows, helps burn extra fat.

I recommend the Vindaloo Chicken with some guacamole on the side and a beer. I had mine with Trout River's Rainbow Red.

If you're in the Waterbury area, please visit Marsalis Salsa--only a few things on their large menu is hot--you can't beat the prices and the food is great.

On the Run

I managed to sneak out early yesterday afternoon for a short 4-miler. It was just what the doctor ordered.

The sun was out, Greatest Hip-Hop Hits from the 80's and 90's was blasting on the MP3 player and the 24 degree afternoon felt more like 50. It was comfortable enough to wear shorts. The run was followed by about 45 minutes in the gym. Haven't done squats on the upside-down Bosu ball for awhile. Ouch! I highly recommend them. They're great for your legs and core!

Time to enjoy our Saturday...Peace out, yo.

Your Daily Fix!

Well, our cold streak appears to have ended--at least for now.

In the spirit of the upcoming spring and summer seasons, here's a little video to get you motivated for some training--slacker. Enjoy!

I'm off for an afternoon run, followed by a trip to the doctors with Mrs. G to check in on the critter.

JG

WHY DIDN'T WE THINK OF THAT?

Sometimes you see something, and that's exactly what you think--Why didn't we think of that?

It would be way cooler if it looked like this:

I'm jealous.

Check it out!

Refrigerator Will Toss You Can of Beer
By ESTES THOMPSON Associated Press Writer
AP VIDEO
Raw Video: Can You Toss Me a Beer?

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- When John Cornwell graduated from Duke University last year, he landed a job as software engineer in Atlanta but soon found himself longing for his college lifestyle. So the engineering graduate built himself a reminder of life on campus: a refrigerator that can toss a can of beer to his couch with the click of a remote control.

"I conceived it right after I got out," said Cornwell, a May 2006 graduate from Huntington, N.Y.

"I missed the college scene. It embodies the college spirit that I didn't want to let go of."

It took the 22-year-old Cornwell about 150 hours and $400 in parts to modify a mini-fridge common to many college dorm rooms into the beer-tossing contraption, which can launch 10 cans of beer from its magazine before needing a reload.

With a click of the remote, fashioned from a car's keyless entry device, a small elevator inside
the refrigerator lifts a beer can through a hole and loads it into the fridge's catapult arm. A second click fires the device, tossing the beer up to 20 feet - "far enough to get to the couch," he said.

Is there a foam explosion when the can is opened? Not if the recipient uses "soft hands" to cradle the can when caught, Cornwell said.

In developing his beer catapult, Cornwell said he dented a few walls and came close to accidentally throwing a can through his television. He's since fine-tuned the machine to land a beer where he usually sits at home, on what he called "a right-angle couch system."

For now, the machine throws only cans, although Cornwell has thought about making a version that can throw a bottle. The most beer he has run through the machine was at a party, when he launched a couple of 24-can cases.

"I did launch a lot watching the Super Bowl," he said. "My friends are the reason I built it. I told them about the idea and hyped it so much and I had to go through with it."

A video featuring the device is a hit on the Internet, where more than 600,000 people have watched it at metacafe.com, earning Cornwell more than $3,000 from the Web site.
Cornwell said he has talked to a brewing company about the machine, but right now only one exists. Asked if he might start building some for sale, he said: "I'm keeping that option open, depending on interest."

When Cornwell was a student at Duke - an elite, private university in Durham - he participated in the engineering school's robotic basketball contests, said mechanical engineering Professor Bob Kielb. He said students tried to build a robot that could retrieve a pingpong ball and toss it into a small hoop.

"He always did well in it," Kielb said. "He came up with completely unique ideas."

OFFICIAL RACE SUMMARY & RESULTS

Good evening, friends. Here's Tim's (The Race Director) official race summary and a link to the results. We want to echo Tim's praise for race sponsors and volunteers. Thank you!

Back to the gym tomorrow. We're fixin' to run a half marathon in April.

JG

Race Results

This year's Frigid Infliction was a terrific event. Snow conditions on course were even better than last year, with a foot of fresh powder on top of four feet from the recent blizzard. The weather was perfect - warming past 30 degrees as the day went on with little wind.

When the starting whistle blew at 5:18am, racers postholed (no snowshoes) to one of two checkpoints, then up to the first TA at Bryant cabin. From there, snowshoeing to several CPs in any order took them to some of the most beautiful views in the area, then back down to the TA and instructions to find their skis.

After putting on their skis, the teams travelled to several points, some more brutal than others, before reaching manned CP12 and a water refill. 9 of 24 teams made the cutoff to cross to the east side of Joiner Brook and struggled up several reentrants to discover CPs 13 and 14 before rejoining everyone else at the tyrolean traverse. Each team then pulled themselves across ropes stretched 50 feet above the frozen ravine before snowshoeing for the finish line.

After racers took advantage of the showers, hot tub, terrific pasta meal (tomato pesto bisque... yum!), lots of story-telling, and had massages, the winners were announced. Team ARFE Smartwool crossed the line first at 9hrs 37min, taking the 2 person coed division. Team Berlin Bike took first in the 3 person coed division at 10hrs, 11min. See below for the full results.

It was great to have had so many teams come to race with us. To have such a wide range of experience and still have everyone leave with a big grin is the best reward any of us could hope for.

Thanks as always to all of our sponsors, and our volunteers, without whom this race could never have happened. We hope to see everyone August 4th for The Bitter Pill - until then, race on!

-Tim Curtin, Race Director, and the GMARA gang

Results are located here: http://www.gmara.org/frigid/results07_chart.html

Photos can be found here: http://gmara.smugmug.com/(If you have any photos taken during the race, please send them to photos at gmara.org - we'll put them in the racer-submitted gallery and include any notes you'd like with each.)

Blogs about the race:

ARFE Smartwool: http://blog.arfe.org/
Runs With Scissors: http://teamrunswithscissors.blogspot.com/

Some of the race staff...thanks GMARA!

IT'S COLD! FROM WEATHER.GOV:

Point Forecast: Waterbury, VT 44.33N -72.75W
En EspañolLast Update: 10:28 am EST Mar 6, 2007

Forecast Valid: 11am EST Mar 6, 2007-6pm EST Mar 12, 2007

TodayBlusteryHi 0°F

TonightMostlyClearLo -12°F

WednesdayIncreasingCloudsHi 17°F
WednesdayNightChanceSnowLo 3°F

ThursdayChanceSnowHi 9°F
ThursdayNightMostlyClearLo -13°F

FridayMostlySunnyHi 31°F
FridayNightPartlyCloudyLo 16°F

SaturdayChanceSnow/RainHi 39°F

Hazardous weather condition(s):
Hazardous Weather OutlookSpecial Weather Statement

Wind Chill WarningToday: Mostly sunny and cold, with a high near 0. Wind chill values between -18 and -24. Blustery, with a northwest wind between 20 and 24 mph, with gusts as high as 37 mph. Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around -12. Northwest wind between 13 and 16 mph becoming calm. Winds could gust as high as 34 mph.

Barre / Montpelier, Knapp State AirportLast Update on Mar 6, 9:51 am EST
Unknown Precip-9°F(-23°C)
Humidity:
55 %
Wind Speed:
NW 16 G 29 MPH
Barometer:
30.15" (1024.3 mb)
Dewpoint:
-21°F (-29°C)
Wind Chill:
-32°F (-36°C)
Visibility:
5.00 mi.
More Local Wx:
2 Day History:

Click Map for Forecast
Lat/Lon: 44.33 -72.75 Elevation: 499 ft

THE SCENE OF THE CRIME!

Broken Indeed...

As J has noted, this was a tough race, probably our toughest. I think part of this can be attributed to the fact that during a summer race there is some limited time to rest one's legs (while seated in a canoe, or blasting down a long bike hill), while during a winter race there is no rest, just constant forward motion on ones feet. Even X-C skiing downhill burns loads of leg energy. In any case, the FIWAR was a great experience, but I am kinda glad I don't have to do it again this weekend (especially the Tyrolean, which we'll fill ya'll in on a bit more once our pride heals a little).

For me, I think the highlight of the race was the snowshoe leg, the 2nd leg after postholing. As J described, we shoed through some great scenery on the Catamount Trail and on Bolton's backcountry trails, climbing up over 3000 feet before dropping back down to just over 2K. In particular, CP5 was located way up off of a trail called (I think) Raven's Wind, and man, it was great. Climbing up through the spruce/fir forest was great, and the clamber up the final section to the flag was way cool. Anyway, the pics are up on line now (no results yet, but we'll post when they are up), you can go here to view them all, or just wait, and we'll eventually get bunch posted. For starters, here is a pic of us the night before at gear check, and below that is a pic of us at TA2 (also TA1), getting directions from Jim the course guy to where we could find our skis. We (or at least I) had assumed that we would find them right where we were, but no, it was another mile or so down towards the Nordic Center. As you can see, I had my glasses off, as one of the big challenges of the day was the ole' glasses fogging. I thought I would have it beat when I treated my specs with a compound called Cat Crap (seriously), but within an hour, I was battling the fog. Arghhhh.

Anyway, check back daily for more stories of our trials and tribulations during the '07 FIWAR....

Grambo

It broke me...

I'm not sure how else to put it. The Frigid Infliction just broke me. It's fair to say it broke us all.

But, what a race!

While the official results and photos have not yet been posted, we did well--finishing in the middle of the pack and, we think, in the top three in our division. And while the race was tougher than we anticipated and we didn't move as quickly as we had hoped, our execution (strategy, planning and navigation) was very good and we had a blast. In fact, Grambo gets mad props--and the MVP award--for navigating a nearly flawless race.

Following the briefing at 4:30 a.m., the race began shortly after 5:00 a.m. with a long postholing section, in the dark. Postholing is the not-so-fine art of hiking through deep--in this case, very deep--snow without snowshoes. With more than 6 feet of snow in some areas of the mountains, that's a challenge.

We made an immediate strategic decision to let many of the teams rush ahead of us. Why? Letting some teams blaze a trail ahead of us helped to create a boot pack that made the postholing much easier. This helped us to conserve some energy early...energy that we needed later in the race.

Just as the sun was rising we arrived at a local backcountry hut (Transition Area 1) where we were given another map and were allowed to put on our snowshoes. The snowshoe trekking portion--the first of two snowshoeing sections--of the race was incredible. It brought us through some of the most remarkable, breathtaking backcountry around. In some areas, particularly the highest elevations, the snow was so deep, and the trees so encased in it, that it was almost like walking through a snow cave.

We hit every checkpoint in the snowshoeing section spot on. Well, expect one--but it wasn't our fault. Checkpoint 8 was, well, not in the right spot. Fortunately, we only spent about 15 minutes searching for it, along with about 6 other teams, before a race official showed up. When he arrived, we were standing on an overlook/cliff triangulating our exact location and someone said, "it should be here somewhere. We should be standing on it." Then we looked down from the cliff we were standing on and one of us said, "maybe it's down there?" At that moment, the race official showed up and notified us that we were indeed in preciously the right location.

After returning to the backcountry hit where we started snowshoeing, we were given the location of our skis. A short hike from the hut brought us to the start of the skiing section. This was an adventure, for sure. While the navigation wasn't particularly difficult, the skiing was from time-to-time. In the end, however, we arrived at checkpoint 12 at about 12:53 p.m.--just 7 minutes before the 1:00 p.m. cutoff for this checkpoint. After a very confusing discussion with another race official regarding the race directors instructions and my hope that officials would give us the 15 minutes we lost looking for checkpoint 8 to go get nearby checkpoint 11 (we had gone straight to 12), we were notified that none of the teams would be allowed to continue on the full course. It turns out that only 3 of the 24 teams in the race did the full course. That made us feel a lot better, but the competitors in us were a little annoyed that the race was being truncated and we weren't going to get our shot at the next shoeing section. Instead, they sent us directly to the tyrolean traverse.

The tyrolean was, uh, interesting--about 120 feet over a ravine. That's all I have to say about that.

From the tyrolean, we were back on our snowshoes and navigating our way back to the Bolton nordic center and the post-race

It was a very challenging race. Special thanks go to Tim, Chris, et. al. at GMARA and all of the race volunteers who make it possible.

As I said, it broke me. I was so sore I almost couldn't snowboard this morning--almost. It is epic after all.

JG

Good Morning Vermont!

It's 3:30 a.m. EST and I'm just about to head out to meet Grambo at his place, Justin is going to meet us at Bolton.

The FIWAR starts this morning with a pre-race briefing at 0-4:30. "What's the o stand for? O my god it's early."

We also get our maps then...the actual race starts promptly at 5:00 a.m.

There's nothing like doing a 10 hour multi-discipline race on 4.5 hours of sleep. Hell, that's an hour or so more than we usually get for these things.

Stay tuned!

JG

Here we go....

Well, T minus 19 hours and counting until the start of the Frigid Infliction, and conditions right now are UGLY. Snowing, with winds of 20ish mph blowing, and possible rain/sleet later today. Luckily, this is supposed to blow it's way through this afternoon/evening, so hopefully we'll get a decent day tommorrow. Probably not beautiful and sunny, but temps are looking OK (low to mid 30s). After a hellish day yesterday thankfully things are slowing down here at work, which is good, as I need to get home and packed. I have all my gear together, but it's just a matter now of sorting it out and putting it all in one bag. The team is meeting at my place around 4 this afternoon to discuss strategy and last minute items, and then it's off to registration at Bolton for 5:30. Hopefully home by 7 or so for a hearty dinner, followed by and early night, as we are due back up at Bolton by 4:30am for the pre-race briefing. Well, at least it's an improvement over the Bitter Pill and the PPBS, where we had to be there by like 3:30am to catch the bus to the starting line. Wish us luck, and check back on Sunday or early next week for race results!!!

Grambo