Buck Hill Thursday #4

The weather was beautiful and the course perfect for another night at Buck. Jeff Hall showed up along with the normal cast and crew. This time we were going “backwards” up the steep nasty climb on the south side of Buck. At the gun, Fisher took off per the norm and a line of Paul Hanson, me, Jeff Hall, and my brother formed. After weaving through the single track, Ben started to fade. At the beginning of the second lap, Fisher got stuck on a root. He let Paul, Jeff, and I go past (in that order). Paul put the pedal to the metal and a small gap to Fisher formed. Nothing changed for the rest of the race including the small gap to Chris. Paul and Jeff hammered the one big hill where any passing could have taken place on the last lap, I was redlined (Paul said he was too!). The three of us rode home for a sprint finish…well not like a Mario Cipollini style sprint, but the equivalent for a Thursday at Buck given all the lapped traffic=) Here is us winding up the sprint just after exiting the single track (I stold the pic from Paul's blog and it was taken by his dad I think)...

I would have liked the win, but I am happy to have ridden a hard pace with Jeff and Paul. I think Jeff has been training really hard, and I anticipate that he will do really well at the next National now that he has a second row call up. Paul finally is feeling better from the cough that was keeping him down. The explosive climbing I saw out of him was reminiscent of last year…at least I was able to hang on for the ride this year=)

In other news, I have a funny story from my wifes classroom:

So yesterday, Jen was giving a year end test to a little kid in her kindergarten class here is the conversation -
Jen- I need you to spell "but".
Kid - (laughing) that is funny
Jen - Yes, but I need you to spell it
Kid - ok (kid writes)
Jen - (pics up paper and starts to laugh) are you sure that his how to spell "but"
Kid - (with a straight face) yes, "but", P-O-O-P, "but"
The kid had no idea what was so funny.

This weekend Jen, Chris, Jen, and I (and maybe some Kato crew) are headed up to Spirit Mt for some camping, biking, beer, brats, etc…they still have sites available if anyone wants to join us. The campsites are on the top of the mountain overlooking Superior, Duluth, and the Lake.

No races for me until next Thursday, with the 2nd MNSCS race on Sunday.

Have a great holiday weekend. Thanks for reading.