The girls are great. Kylie is all first grader. She amazes me with what she is able to do. For instance, on Friday she came home with site words and sentences that she needed to work on. She insisted that she did not need to read them because she knew them (to which I responded:read them to me!) She did. Three times. I then gave her the parent letter (thinking this will challenge her) which she read fluently and missed only one word. Damn...I don't think I could read that good in middle school! Now its just the attitude we need to work on. Addie is nuts! Just NUTS! Sneaky, quick, naughty but so lovable! She is really starting to talk a lot and really likes to ride her bike. Very independent and busy. She will diffidently be more of a challenge than Kylie in many ways. But she listens so well!!! I will take that.

So the race to the races began a while ago. I had a couple ideas pocketed for this fall. One being a back-door attempt at the SS championship race. I have had 3rd and 4th place finishes in the past so I should compete. The other competing in the cyclocross season. My training has been constant and the legs are feeling very fatigued. So it is time to lay off a bit. The races begin next Saturday so I need to recover a lot. I have gotten a few laps in at the Jail Trail, some good some bad, some with crashes. The best was last night while attempting a full sprint lap. I was good until the last 50 meters where I carried far too much speed and found myself in a heap trying to figure out what happened. Result: bent handle bars and front flat tire. Road rash on all of the right side of my face, both arms, left knee(not good) and took a huge shot to the left side of my ribs and chest where I landed on the handle bars. Oh, and I need a new helmet. But I feel amazingly good this morning so either pain no longer bothers me or my body has developed fast ways of healing. Either is fine. I will ride again today to regain some confidence.

The cyclocross training has been good. I have paired it with road rides to try and combat the influx of roadies competing and it seems to help. I have set a coarse up and time myself three times a week. What started as mid four minutes laps has decreased to a mid three minute lap. This is a lot faster than the times I was getting last year so I might be able to compete this year. I have no UCI license so I will be in the cat4/5 division but I think I can hang with the 3s. Nothing like losing weight and restructuring your muscle mass. I guess the illness has helped in that aspect.

My recovery is good. The bike stuff above might be better than ever, however the healing of the body is a bit less 'great'. I finally had a relapse into my past through a dream and it was crazy! I think it was one of those memories that the anesthesia was suppose to suppress forever but somehow snuck its way back to me. I hope for no more(but it gave me an idea of one of the procedures performed on me). The ribs are still nasty sore all the time but I seem to not care anymore. I just do and they are along for the ride. I pay but I like to play. The neck is good and the trach site(I call it the 'hole') still trips my swallowing and breathing at times but its fine. If I could help one aspect along it would be my lung capacity. It is still not close to before. I noticed it last week when I went on a fifty miler with some road riders who pinned the ride for long miles at a time. I struggled to get enough oxygen in and that in turn gave them the upper hand in a few sprints. So I hope that can come around. Other than that life is good.

until next~mark