Fly tying

I signed up for a fly tying class at Cabela's. I've always thought it would be cool to know how to tie flies so I'm learning. Here's a shot of the woolly worms and woolly buggers I tied last night. Next week is nymphs!

New Toys!

Well, I've been looking for a deal on a new bike for awhile and I finally found a pretty good one. I bought a Gary Fisher x-caliber 29er. I rode a Surly Karate monkey (rigid with gears) for most of the last two years and finally decided to buy a bike with some suspension. I plan on setting up my KM as a singlespeed. I don't want to get soft in my old age(I turned 33 today!). I think the x-cal is a pretty good setup. It has the same frame as the higher end paragon and it has a RockShox Reba SL fork. I rode it today for the first time and I'm pretty stoked. It's a little heavy, but I'm going to switch out a few things and get some nicer wheels built for it. I'm thinking Chris King hubs with Stan's ZTR 355 29er rims. Should be pretty nice and I'm sold on the 29 inch wheels. They roll!
My other new toy is a kayak. I probably didn't need it, but I've been thinking about getting one for awhile and it was heavily discounted at Cabela's. I figure that It'll be good for training if I get back into the Adventure Racing. I really missed that this year. Anyway, It's an Old Town Cayuga 160. 16 feet long. No rudder, but I can add one if I want. I bought a Pacific Paddles T1 touring paddle to go along with it. 29 oz. for $115. I'm pretty happy with it so far. Now that it gets dark at 6 I should have plenty of time to go out for a paddle, right?
Last weekend I ran the 5k(more like 4+ miles) and rode in the cyclocross race at Wyco park. It was a good time and I was dead tired after getting killed in the cross race. Let's just say my time on the bike has been minimal. They had tons of good food and Boulevard beer!
Next Sunday is the Veteran's Day 4miler. I'm going to try and get out and clean up the course a bit before the race. See ya out there!

heartland 100

Most of you probably know that Cody dropped at mile 64 at Heartland. He reached the turnaround in 10:20, but started having problems around mile 60. Here are a few pics I took out on the course. The one in the dark is at the start. Some big storms went just north of the race course that morning, but it turned out to be a pretty nice day. Paul DeWitt broke the course record with a 14:26! The record was held by Eric Clifton. A nice race, but a hard one mentally I think. You can see a long ways down there in the flint hills...maybe too far.

Riding the Wind

Check out Anton Krupicka's blog. It has his race report from Leadville as well as some interesting training info. I'll post some pics and write about Heartland soon.

Sand Rat Trail Race

The Sand Rat trail race was not what I wanted to do this morning. I've been sick the last couple of days so I just ran a steady pace and finished without trying to hurt myself. Even though I was a bit under the weather, I wanted to be able to wear my T-shirt. The victory was taken by Juraj (pronounced Euro) who runs with the trail nerds occasionally. Kyle Amos ran a good time. Our good buddy Caleb even got a rat!
I just checked the results from Arkansas Traveller 100 and it looks like all of our local runners finished! Congrats Rick, Gabe and Willie. Carey Smith of St. Louis also finished comfortably. Kyle and I were talking today about how weird it is when you know someone is running a 100 miler and you keep thinking about them throughout the day and into the night and when you wake up the next morning you hope they finished. My brother Cody's first 100 is next week at Heartland, where I'll be pacing and crewing along with Keith and Caleb. The last time I was at a 100 miler was Arkansas 2003 when I paced and crewed for Kyle along with his wife Stacey. I don't know when or if I'll ever do one myself , but I'm looking forward to the atmosphere of the 100 miler.

PsycoWyco Run Toto Run 2007

I don't know if everyone who wants to see this has seen it yet, but Mark K. has put a lot of work into it. Check it out. It makes me yearn for an icy trail. By the way, I went running by myself at Wyco last night and I ran into about 500 spiderwebs. I also found the seed ticks and chiggers. Gosh I love chiggers!

P.S. Congrats to Lou Joline for finishing the Lean Horse 100!!! and to Pat Perry for Cascade Crest 100!!!

Recent happenings

It's been awhile since I last posted so this might be a long one. After Psycho Psummer was in the books we went to Florida for a family vacation along with Kyle and his family. I hadn't been to the beach in a long time so I was excited to get out of town and turn into a beach bum. We rented a house right on the beach for a week. It was pretty sweet. Did a few barefoot runs on the beach(are you listening Barefoot Rick?), cruised around on the longboards(Kyle can even ride with a 12 pack on his board),we also tried to skimboard, which was pretty fun. I managed to avoid the jellyfish unlike some other people in our group. Oh, I almost forgot about the drinking. I only drank too much one night. The tough part has been trying to return to normal. No shirt and flip-flops is my new attire. I almost forgot how to use a computer while we were gone too. Since we got back to good ol' Kansas I've done two races. The Grass kickin 5k and the Psycho night 10k. The 5k wasn't really the big of a deal, I ran like 21 min., but I think that race format could catch on. I did have an idea related to that race though. I think it would be cool to do a 5k trail series during the summer. Something like a race every week for 4 or 5 weeks. with a points system and a low entry fee for the whole series. Just a thought. Last friday was the 2nd annual Psycho night 1ok and we had 58 starters I believe . It was as hot as and I'm sure more than humid than hell. I ran a little faster than last year, but the conditions were just horrid for trying to run fast. We did have a night little after party at my house though. I really enjoy the group gatherings after a race. Saturday night we went to a going away/baby shower for Good Ben and Allison at Raul's place. They're moving to Denver next week. We'll miss you guys, although I do look forward to visiting . I'm also coaching a fall baseball league and our first game is this Saturday. Whew! Oh yeah, one more thing -Greg Burger is running the Leadville 100 this Sat. so keep him in your thoughts and prayers. Good Luck Greg! P.S. Did anyone notice the Floyd Landis finished second to Dave Weins in the Leadville 100 mtb last Sat. I heard that he had an early crash and got a flat late in the race.
I would also like to mention that I'm a big fan of professional cycling and the current state of things just boggles my mind. There's a new positive test about every day it seems. Vino, Mayo, Katche-howver the hell you spell your name-kin. Seriously, why would you do a blood transfusion of take EPO when those things are easily detectable. Contador is probably a doper too and now that Discovery is disbanding who knows if he'll even be able to get a contract for next season. I am excited about team Slipstream for next year though.