Big snow

Here are some pics of the big snow storm that hit the east coast this weekend. We 'only' got around a foot, not as bad as other places but the most in a decade in Blacksburg. For us it was no big deal but lots of fun to be had.

Guess I should have installed some snow cleats on the upper roof section. You can see the ones on the lower sections. Avalanche!

Giant snow lizard, Sauromalus nieves.
Conquering the giant lizard!

Sledding on campus. Downhills are fun.

Uphills are not so much fun, at least for me.
Amalia loves playing with the dogs in the snow.
Romeo loves playing in the snow too.
Making snow angels.
Our house, covered in the snow.

what really happened

this captures my life

cyclocross season

My cyclocross season this year is really just the local race weekend this year. Between the trip to the Dominican, kids, job, etc. it just limits my ability or desire to train and travel to races. Thats alright because we have practice races here every Wednesday evening and a few weeks ago we had our race weekend. The race weekend involved a saturday evening full of racing followed by races all day sunday. Last year the weather was horrible, so it was a nice change for it to be beautiful this year. I did the 35+ races and officiated the other races. The saturday evening race, I started slow and the leaders took off. I finally got into it but the gap was made and I couldn't close it and ended up 5th out of like 15. Sunday went better as I got a better start. Actually my start was about the same but the guy who won the day before decided to crash out after racing for about 30 seconds. Anyway, eventually John McKenna (a local buddy of mine) and I pulled away from everyone else. The McKenna opened up a gap on me and it looked like the finish order was set... until he flatted with half a lap to go. I felt sorry for a brief second but still caught him and won. The best part was having Amalia and Lisa cheering for me during both races. I think Amalia was more excited about my win than I was! Camilo was there too but still is too young to figure out what's up. My win is mostly attributable to my tires. I can go around corners faster than most my competitors and that helps make up for my lack of fitness.

So anyway, my cross season is probably over and I will concentrate on running over the winter.

control

I wish I could control anything like this guy can control his car. Fast forward to 36:00.

back from the D.R.

We've been back from our trip to the Dominican Republic for a week or so now. We were in Punta Cana as part of the Virginia Tech in the Caribbean program. The students are there for a full semester and we were there teaching ecology and evolution for two weeks. It was lots of fun! Lisa's mom came for the whole trip and my folks came down for about 5 days. Amalia loved the trip, especially the beach, turtles, swimming pool, cheese pizza, etc. Here are some random pics.

Amalia and a hispaniolan boa one of the students caught.

Amalia and her favorite Dominican, Nicolas.
Grandma Belden with the kids.
The beach.
Amalia with grandparents Tom and Ana under the waterfall at the pool.

Amalia with the baby boa.
Tom, Amalia and me sailing in the Caribbean. We did this a few times. Amalia loved it and we took Grandma Belden with us too.
Amalia walking on the beach with Tom.
Doing intertidal ecology with mom.

Big scary tarantula!
Camilo and grandma Belden on the beach!
Rough life...
Every morning at dawn, I would take the kids to the freshwater lagoons to look at the turtles.

sunday race

Sunday evening was the Summer Sizzle 5K and 1mile fun run. The race is to raise money for the Blacksburg High School cross country team which is the #1 ranked team in the state. So Amalia and I decided to give it a go and Lisa and Camilo came to watch.

Here we are lining up for the 1 mile run. Amalia was ready to go! Notice that she was one of the youngest kids, maybe the youngest.

The starting whistle went off and Amalia took off.

Unfortunately, this was soon followed by tears when the big ran faster than she did. Thats alright, we worked through it and ran a fast as she could. I had to carry her a bit but she probably ran 3/4 of a mile. She would sprint catch people and then have to rest before sprinting again.

Post-race cupcake!

Then it was time for the 5k. Reid and I had a bet. If he won, I would pay his entry. If I won he would admit my superiority on the web. Luckily, we were the only people with a cheering section. Thanks Cora and Andrew!

In a complete amateur move we ran over towards Lisa and Amalia to get high-fives! Somehow though we ended up at the front of the race... whoops.

Somehow we ended up staying up front. Two guys ran away from us but we stayed together through 2 miles. Then I was able to pull away a bit from Reid. He had me hurting.

One kid caught Reid. I ended up third overall at 19:08 and Reid was 4th about 30sec back. Not bad for an old guy and a cyclist.

The best was the post-race hug!

coaching

Lots of athletes (cyclists and runners) around here have coaches. I don't. But I need one and I think I found the perfect one.

the shot

Federer may have lost the US Open but he had the shot of the tournament.

getting bigger all the time

Camilo just had his 4 month check-up a week or so ago. I can't remember the actual numbers but the kid is a giant. He is 95% for weight and literally off the chart for length. He is so long the doctor thought the nurse messed up in measuring him, but Lisa watched and said the nurse did it fine. So he is a giant. I am guessing his size comes from Lisa's side of the family, because no one on my said has his kind of size. We'll see if he stays on this growth curve for a long time or settles down into a more normal growth rate.

why shave your legs?

I discovered a new reason that cyclists should shave their legs yesterday. Unfortunately, I learned it the hard way. The traditional reasons are 1) its easier to clean up after a crash and 2) its easier to get a massage. Well, I don't race so (hopefully) don't crash and I certainly don't get massages. So I don't shave my legs these days. But today I learned my lesson. While descending Ellet a bumblebee landed on my knee, held onto my leg hair, and stung me. So consider bee protection next time you debate whether to shave your legs.

childhood emotions

Here are some pics of the kids. Most were taken by Lisa. Pretty good displays of emotions.

fun in Knoxville

Last weekend we were in Knoxville, KY. Lisa was attending a parasite conference and I was on kid duty. It was super hot but we still went out a lot. Here are some highlights.

Great fountains to play in. These are the small ones, the big ones go up probably 30ft.

Playing in the kid fort.
Good climbing.
Visiting the zoo and sitting in the Land Rover.
These kind of look like Land Rovers too.
Camilo liked the trip too. He likes to watch his sister play.