TransRockies!!!!!

Hi all,
A summer shot to remind us how warm things can be (Moab for those lacking knowledge of Utah's geography).

As winter slowly creeps into Cochrane I already have my eye on next August, the 10th to the 16th to be precise. The big bro and I are entered into the TransRockies Challenge; a 580km mountain bike stage race with over 20,000 metres of climbing, from Panorama BC, to Fernie BC. It's going to be awesome and already I'm picking the training up as I feel I need to, seeing as through Big Willy has just won the overall yellow jersey in the 5 passes stage race (road) of NZ - good lad!!!!!!

Registering for the TransRockies was rather fun. Entries opened at 10am online on the 1st Nov, and I had it all dialed that I'd simply log on just before 10am, and register from work! However, it was a bugger when I realised I was in a conference in downtown Calgary on the day entries opened. Not to be detered by a world class speaker and 1000 onlookers at the conference, I brazenly kicked my shoes off in the conference hall at 9.25am, laced up my running shoes, and trotted out of the hall (to many a disgusted snort and scorn from the attendees to the conference) - to run like bloody hell through the streets of Calgary to find an internet cafe by 10am in order to make sure we were registered for the race! I made it and had all the details filled in and paid up by 10.07am!!! Not bad!!! Now it was time to run like Billio back to the conference clutching my printed off registration form, slip back into my poncey work shoes, and have a conversation with the Principle of the school during the intermission, acting like I knew exactly what the speaker had been talking about during the morning session.

All was going well until I was skimming through my registration for the TransRockies, and in my haste I'd entred me and Mark as being Albanian!!!! I duely fixed this after a wee bit of mockery to United Kingdom - although Lucy has since pointed out that neither of the competitors for team R and R NZ actually live in the UK (or have done so for a considerable while!!!!). Surely there's a tax break in there somewhere!

So the conference was a write off as I was as high as a kite with the excitment of the TransRockies, although the Henry Winkler speech (see Happy Days post a while back) on the Wednesday night was awesome.

The snow is coming, Lake Louise opens on Thursday, avalanche course with Brad in a couple of weekends and then hopefully we'll be out stomping in the deep stuff.

Brina is a cheery little soul and converted coffee princess.

Work for me is in the deepest recess of my mind, the only thing I'm thinking of is next August 10 - 16th!!!!!!

Hope you're all making dates on your calendars,

Is it the weekend yet?

S&S. p.s I thought I'd finish with a picture of the big lad.