t minus 18

No time or energy to write a lot, but i'll try to sum up the last few days.

I spent my birthday in Salt Lake City with amazing kids, especially Kelly and her rad son Django and also Matt. It was full of vegan food (healthy and not), watching people LARP, ghost hunting turned into running from cops, looking at crazy religious statues (Jesus in SPACE!), having breakfast at 4pm, and of course, the serious as hell straightedge.

I got dropped off about 15 miles outside of SLC on the 1st and rode a common route for most roadies around there called Emigration Canal. It was great to be in that environment and the ride was gorgeous. I got to sleep in (past 8am for the first time in over a month!), and more importantly about 2 days off the bike.

Today we only had 45 (read: 55) miles so we took it super slow and by the time some people had made it to the hotel, we hadn't even left town. We stopped at this huge Krishna temple halfway there and had such a delicious meal and were able to feed and hang out with the animals on the land. Videos and pictures to come. The rest of the way I listened only to Shelter and 108.

I'm excited to get home eventually and sleep in my bed and have some stability, but I'm starting to get super bummed about the trip ending. When I had about 6 hours to myself the other day I actually had withdraws from all my other riders.

Greg was nice enough to register me for some of the first CX races of the year...about 10 days after I get home. I realized I won't be trying to do intervals or any high intensity training, maybe a few days of it after the ride in SF and some running before I get home, but those first few weekends of racing are going to be rough. But that's fine, I want to peak near the end and at the time of nationals anyways.