Off to watch the US Pro National Championship!

Well, it's only a couple of days away. I've been terribly excited (I reserved my room last year! and I suck at advance planning!) about this race for some time, and as it's closing in let me just say the level is rising!

Of course, the chance to see some of the top guys racing is good enough for me most of the time, but of course getting to see Captain America is going to push it over the top for me!

Hey dude, wait until I take the photo to check the air pressure... jeez

Sadly DaveZ crashed out on stage 6 of the ToC last week (which was an awesome race btw... BMC is doing some dominating so far this year!) on his warmup, so boo for that. Hopefully he's in form for Saturday because man, I want to see him race! I'm also hopeful that Tyler Farrar gets a go at the finish of the road race. I've always thought he was underappreciated in the shadow of the Manx (and now seemingly booty pincher Peter Sagan)

He should actually apologize for that hat... In other news: Fabio is still a badass

So my weekend is filled up with spectating (and likely some imbibing as well) the best Chattanooga has to offer. Unfortunately it means I'll be missing a race on Monday... which I am not all that happy about. I need a good race back under my belt to shake off some of the doubts that were left by my untimely DNF in Florida.

That said, training is taking a turn for the positive. I've been hitting above my power goals for sets on the bike, running without injury or even really any pains (other than general fatigue of course) and swimming long (400-600m) sets at the same pace (~1:30/100m) that I was swimming 100m repeats just a couple of months ago. There's still a LONG way to travel until IMLou, but at least the road isn't quite as dark as it seemed. I still need to come up with what races are going to finish up this years season (possibly the Atomic Man 1/2 Ironman? I have been wanting to do it for a while now) but on the whole things are looking positive.

On the project front the Scott is almost done! I've got one chainstay left to finish sanding, then it's one last coat of Carbo-Lift, some cleaning, and ready to be painted! So Excited for a project that has drug on longer than I expected to finally be so close. I'm hopeful that it turned out to be worth it. (Which means, it looks awesome finished... fingers crossed.)

I have just started work on the Softride. After a heated bidding war on ebay, I came away with these

So much money for so little substance :/ Story of my life.

The necessary mounting hardware for the beam. I spent more than I wanted to, but not having to worry about the headache of crafting something to work is more than worth it to me. Now the question that has to be answered is... what am I going to "DO" with the thing?

Fixie?
Roadie?
Tri?

All are at least somewhat good options. I'm pretty well stocked on Tri bikes, so possibly that is a no-go, and I have no fixie, so maybe I want to channel my inner Hipster. Having bottom facing dropouts does suck, but you can't have everything. (And in this specific case, I suppose it would mean I would have to settle for a single speed... or some welding)

So hopefully I can get a ton of pictures of the race this weekend to share, as well as some good stories. Thanks for catching up with what I'm up to (besides nerding out and playing a ton of DMC: Devil May Cry - which is an awesome reboot btw.)

As always, I really appreciate you guys taking the time to check out my thoughts.

-Christopher Morelock