May 8, 2007

Quiet cars are nice. I finally got the studs taken off our cars. We got an extension this year since the ice stuck around pretty heavily in April. Normally we would have been required to get the studs removed by the end of April, but they extended the deadline to May 15. I kept putting it off and then when I tried to get the tires changed, the lines were too long.

I got lucky taking my truck back to the same store I have been using for change outs the last few times. Two of my summer tires were damaged and they replaced them for free. It was almost as if they knew the tires were damaged last fall and didn’t tell me. The tires only had one summer on them, but now two of them have a few more miles left in them than before.

Kris ran her bike race on Sunday. It went well. She had a strong ride, finishing in the top third of competitors overall and within her age group. I was surprised that some of the best times were in her age group and the immediately surrounding groups. Kris did beat her friend, primarily as a result of better bike handling skills. While Kris hasn’t ridden a road bike much, she has spent plenty of time on bicycles in the past decade and is comfortable with such things as standing up to pedal up a steep hill or even to pull out a water bottle and get a drink while still moving.

Kris and I worked on a few handling skills leading up to the race. I showed her the best lines through the turns which allowed her to maintain momentum rounding the corners. On Saturday, we rode the course again. I made Kris ride her mountain bike so that the road bike would feel really quick on race day. We worked on managing pace and had one more chance to strategize. I think we figured out as much as we could in a short window for preparation. On race day, everything went pretty much according to plan.

Even though she didn’t win, she did win a door prize. She won a $50 gift certificate to one of the nicer restaurants in town. It is not one of our favorites, but certainly worth going with a gift certificate.

We participated in a charity walk on Friday evening with some friends. It was about 3 miles through downtown with several food stops along the way. The food was very good. The lines were a little long at first, but then we moved ahead and people spread out. We added an unofficial stop at a bar for a pint of Guiness, but that was fun too. We hung out at the after party for a while, but when we didn’t win any prizes, we headed home at a relatively early hour. It was before dark, anyway.