It has been a while...

While the blog has taken a post season rest, I have not. I will wait until it is cold to do that=)
The mtbk racing season wrapped up for me at St. Cloud. The course is flat, fast, and twisty. It is a great course for the end of the season because it requires more skill and less leg snap. After the first lap, Jeff and I rode together for a while until he dropped me in the "obstacle course" section on the 3rd lap. He was riding that section at a brisk walking pace...I was riding it at a slow/normal walking pace=) It was fun either way, and I finished a minute or so behind him.
Since then, it has been family time, hockey playing, camping, running, and riding w/ no agenda. I love the fall because it is beautiful and the temperatures are great, but I also love the fall because of the diversity of activities I have more time for. I am thinking about doing a 1/2 marathon this fall to see how it goes. A full marathon has been on my list of "to do's" for a couple years, but I figured I should start w/ something shorter.
Hmm, what else...oh, I was promoted to engineering manager now at Seagate with a small group of engineers under me focused on developing new manufacturing technologies. What does that mean? My Group gets to play w/ really cool and really expensive equipment to see if we can improve how we build hard drives. The new job is definitely more demanding, but so far has been really challenging in a good way.
The economy? This is a bike blog, so maybe a comment on how it will affect biking: I think the bike industry will definitely have a tough year because much of their income comes from people buying "toys". With people feeling less wealthy - I say "feeling" because a lot of what people are loosing are non-liquid funds anyway - they are probably less likely to get that carbon wheel upgrade for their road bike (i.e. me=). Seriously though, it is amazing and sad what greed can lead to.
A final comment on cyclocross. I would like to do some...not sure when or where, but some. I really need to take a bit of time off (couple days at least) to get the leg ready for racing, but I am having too much fun right now for that!

-b