Racing Season

Dave says: I can't believe that it's barely February and the racing season has already started. Last weekend it was the big kick off for the Trisports team with a fancy dinner at the Westward Look Resort and a team ride out to Saddlebrooke. Michael S. and I are the new guys on the roster joining Peter, Andre, and Justin under the direction of super-coach Scott Blanchard. The women's Trisports roster is pretty stacked this year and it looks to be a good year for the team.

We had a couple days of "record cold weather" which I put in quotes because it would be about average this time of year in SLC. However, we're back to 70 degrees today and I went riding up Mt Lemmon in short sleeves.

On Saturday, we kicked off the race season with the McDowell Mountain Circuit Race up in Phoenix. We passed by some of the sweetest mtb trails that I used to race as a kid and I was thinking that maybe I brought the wrong bike with me. However, it was a fun little circuit for a road race despite a fast downhill finish. Alisha brought the heat and won the race plus 2 primes. Her form is looking really good this year. I finished with the group but had a good race with some break away attempts that just didn't work out.

Afterwards, we went to Christine and Parker's which was a zoo of family members in town for Allison's baby blessing. We got to see my side of the family and had a nice time.

The blog has been neglected for a bit and I almost forgot to mention that we had our friend Tyler come through town and stay with us briefly. We also bought a red 2006 Mazda5 and sold my Civic. I wanted a car that we could throw 2 bikes and a whole lot of gear in yet still get some good mpgs. The timing was just right for race season. Zoom Zoom.

Tucson Tragedy

Outside Gabrielle Giffords office. This is only a small portion of the well wishes.

Dinner on the back patio with guests Michael and Lauren

Training on Mt. Lemmon with Tayler and Kelsey

Alisha says: Tucson has captured the national news this past week and not for a good reason. It's always shocking when a tragedy occurs but to have one occur not only in the same city that you live but only a couple of miles from your home really makes you stop and think. The morning of the shootings Dave was meeting Alex for a bike ride at 10:30 at the same intersection where the tragedy occurred. The 911 call was placed at 10:11 so just as Dave was getting there police, ambulances and other emergency personnel were all still arriving at the scene. After stopping on the opposite corner and asking around they finally found out what had happened.

Our hearts go out to those who were involved. We thought about going to the mourning where President Obama was speaking but when the line was already two miles long by mid afternoon we watched as the President gave an excellent speech calling on us to make America the sort of country that 9-year-old Christina imagined it to be.

On a happier note we have had some excellent weather and great company. Michael and Lauren stayed with us to get some training in the sun. We especially enjoyed Lauren's great cooking.

We have also been enjoying the wildlife that we get to see around our place. We like to feed the quail each morning. They are getting to where they expect food and are waiting outside every morning for it. We have also seen coyote and just tonight a bobcat took a stroll right through the back yard.

The Holidays

Dave says: December was quite the busy month and as a result the blog has been a bit neglected. Near the end of the semester I was juggling final projects, final exams, and some really interesting ethics research. Since students wanted to participate in the research in order to receive extra class credit, tons of them were signing up.

Our house closed on the day of my last final. It is a short sale that we are fixing up a bit and renting from my parents (they still talk of retiring to Tucson when they visit here in the winters). It is perched up on a little ridge with a great view of the city out one side and of the Catalina mountains out the other. To get to it, the driveway kicks up to 38%. It's lots of fun after a long bike ride.

The previous owner left things a mess and so in addition to moving there have been lots of little projects that we are still working on. My parents came to visit before Christmas and helped us with the move. My little brother Daniel proved especially useful in moving large objects.

We drove to Utah on Christmas Eve to spend Christmas with Alisha's family. All of her siblings came into town and they all now have little ones who are fun to play with. Debbie made us matching aprons (pictured above) as a Christmas gift.

Life has finally been a bit less crazy now that we are back in Arizona. Our annual New Year's tradition is to go to bed before 10 pm and I'm especially looking forward to sleeping right now. The cold weather followed us home and we have become a bit wussy in the last few months. Now we complain about riding outside in the 40s when this would be the best possible weather you could expect this time of year in SLC. We rode to Oracle on Saturday with Alex, Tulio, Doug, and Roger and were surprised to discover that the town was covered in snow. My hands were too cold to take a picture and we rode as fast as we could back to Tucson. Thank goodness that we'll be back into the 60s next week.

Thanksgiving

Dave says: It has been a busy semester and I haven't written a blog for awhile. Fortunately the semester will be over in 2 weeks and I'll have a month to recover. Right now I have a few papers and tests coming up. I'm also working on some exciting research which fills up the rest of my time at school. Alisha has already started training for next season and I've been doing my best to get some riding in as well.

The only day of the break that wasn't crammed full of stuff was Thanksgiving itself. Alisha and I rode to Saddlebrooke with Alex, Doug, and Tulio on a Thanksgiving day that was a bit cool by Arizona standards but warm enough to make all the cyclists in SLC jealous. We had Thanksgiving at my grandparents' house with my mom and the kids as well as Christine and her family.

On Friday, we met the Toussaints for breakfast at Einsteins. Next, we worked out some of the details with the short sale that my parents are trying to purchase here (hopefully more details to follow soon), and went to see the latest Harry Potter movie. I find it unfortunate that all the "bad guys" in this movie are extremely powerful while the "good guys" are a bunch of kids who spend most of their time hiding in the woods and arguing amongst themselves. For dinner, Alex and I went to see our old friend Clay. I hadn't seen him for several years and he is climbing up the corporate ladder at Exxon. Even after a decade, we all still seem to have a lot in common. Clay's mom made some fancy pizzas, we also saw Clay's younger sister Amanda who we used to torture, and we all watched Arizona lose at football to No. 1 ranked Oregon.

Saturday began with a leisurely bike ride but as soon as we got home it was time to travel up to Phoenix. We went to the Mesa Temple with my family and did some babysitting for Christine. We drove back late and slept in this morning. After a windy bike ride and an afternoon of church, it's back to homework and preparing for the coming week. I can hardly wait for Christmas break.

SRAM Commercial Bloopers

SRAM - The Bloopers from Jim Fryer/BrakeThrough Media on Vimeo.

Alisha says: Here are the bloopers from the SRAM commercial. It's amazing how hard it was to say the line "I'm Alisha Welsh from Peanut Butter and Co./Twenty12 and I chose SRAM". Quite a few of my team mates made the bloopers, I make a great face around the 7:40 mark.

Episode 2 - The Heat Is On

The Heat is On - Ep 2 "Building Champions" from Jim Fryer/BrakeThrough Media on Vimeo.

You can catch me for one split second in this episode at minute 1:29 :)

Visit Home

Fishing at Navajo

Brody in his monkey Halloween costume playing the penguin computer game

Homemade doughnuts for the party

The sheep making their way down Main Street

Alisha says: Last week I flew to Cedar to visit my family. There is just something fun about returning to the place where you grew up. We started the week out with a trip to the St. George Temple. Tuesday we went fishing at Navajo Lake and gathered some firewood for the fireplace that my parents had just installed in their home. It was really cold but we still caught two small trout.

Halloween seemed to last all weekend as it started on Friday with a Halloween party that my little sister planned. My Mom, Mandy and I made homemade doughnuts and two different kinds of chili while Shane made dry ice root beer. Several of my cousins came and brought their children. Saturday we went to the Livestock Festival Parade. The livestock route to bring the animals off the mountain for the winter goes right down main street so they turn it into a parade. It was actually very entertaining watching them herd a couple thousand sheep down the road. That night we took Brody trick-or-treating and to a carnival.

I had a ton of fun playing with my nephew Brody. He is a crazy active two year old. He pronounces my name "She-sha". He loves me to chase him and run so all week I heard Shesha run, Shesha run, which meant chase me. He could probably run at least a quarter of a mile without stopping. I also taught him how to play some games on the computer. His favorite was the penguin game so I also heard Shesha penguin, which meant he wanted to play the penguin game. His favorite movie right now is How to Train Your Dragon so I think we watched that about seven times.

I love hanging out with my family and ended up seeing and visiting many friends including my Coaches from high school and college as well. I was taking the week off the bike before starting up training again so instead I went on a couple of my favorite runs from high school and college. It was nice and cool while I was there but no snow as Dave was hoping for so that I would want to return to Arizona sooner. It was such a fun trip. I love my family so much!!