Don't call it a comeback...

I been here for years!

Back in the saddle again. (Man, cross genre puns)

Bad LL Cool J reference aside, it is good to be back to training. Don't get me wrong, my "holiday" was much appreciated, and in a lot of ways I was sad for it to end. The first couple of days of "laziness" for a chronic endurance athlete are, in my experience, always the worst. Honestly it's not the thoughts of "I'm going to get fat" or "I'm going to lose all my fitness" that drive me crazy... (although those thoughts do exist) it's the sudden... seemingly rather immense amount of time that you come across.

It's actually after the first few days... you find that all the laundry is done, (no mountain of socks and shorts to dry) the dishes are no longer piled up (water bottles...) and the house, for the first time in what seems like forever, has been vacuumed. Personally, video games were always a big part of my life growing up, so I expected to veg out in my time off... but I found even that got boring rather fast. Eventually I set myself the goal of totally re-organizing and cleaning my garage, which I must say was a smashing success. I also managed to clean and re-cable all of the bikes and while I didn't do any work on any of my projects (hello CR1... it's been a while) I am now back in a serviceable area to do such work, should the urge strike me. I also scored a 650 Zipp Disc for the Zipp 2001... which is awesome.

Matching Zipp bottle too! Woohoo.

In other exciting news, this picture surfaced on Cobb Cyclings Facebook page last week

Top Secret stuff until Saturday at least

This is a custom HC170 that has (somehow) been modified for *somebody* who is racing on the big island this weekend. My personal hope is that the modification to the HC170 was longer rails, and I would guess that's fairly likely. I've thought for a long time that this saddle would be awesome with a tri version (it's mainly a road race saddle) although I can definitely see there are likely only a limited number of athletes that would agree. Most people prefer a bit more padding in tri than the HC170 can provide... but for those of us who like a minimal saddle...well... I like the idea for sure. And as for who's riding it... well, I guess the cat is out of the bag as of yesterday (and I had to re-work part of this post... sigh)

Can he set the record on the big island?

In shameless promotion to a friend (and because there is a 0% possibility you'll be seeing any race reports involving me and "off road" conditions) here's a link to Jimmy's report on his first Cyclocross race of the year.

I just now realized none of the triathlons I do involve an actual physical podium... 

This weekend I'll be hanging around in Anderson SC for the Rev3 (Err... Challenge?) race with Jimmy and Sharon (who will be racing while I continue to live vicariously through others) so if you are going to be around the race feel free to say hi. I'll of course be decked out in my Cobb Mobb gear so I shouldn't be hard to spot... just look for the goofy guy in the trucker hat.

This guy... coming to your town! (If your town is Anderson... otherwise probably not.)

Next week I'll try to have some good pictures from the race, some more nonsense to spout off about, and maybe even some tidbits of actual USEFUL information sprinkled in. (although no promises.)

As always, thank you all so much for reading. I appreciate it.

- Christopher Morelock