Living Vicariously

I haven't raced or posted in awhile, so I've been checking up on what some of my racing friends are up to.  A few guys I know raced in the Huatulco World Cup yesterday.  Jarrod Shoemaker had a good race and took second but the rest of the Americans had a bit of a tough day. The weather was apparently pretty harsh -- 33 C and 98% humidity.  Ouch.

Fleischmann was in a break for like 6 laps of an 8-lap bike and was probably a bit beat on the run.  Ethan's been running really well lately but didn't nail it in Mexico.  The Charb's been on fire all year but also ended up in that 10th to 15th range yesterday.  Kevin was there, too, but it looks like he got dropped on the bike. 

So in other news, at least four guys I know are racing IM AZ.  The first two are somewhat predictable but the other two are surprises:

• Marky V's been planning this one for awhile
• Richard Freer from Austin, and originally Australia ... when I first met him he was working at Dell but he got outta there and is now Living the Dream
• I heard on Facebook that John Dahlz is on the start list and plans to give 'er a go, pending a bit on how he feels at San Francisco on the 8th.
• I saw on Brandon Marsh's blog this morning that he's planning on IM AZ, too, after Clearwater.  But now he's got a little tweak in his calf and will have to see how that goes.

Ben Collins has been talking a lot about his Spin Class lately.  That's something that I've wanted to do for awhile.  Perhaps I should look into it.  I think that the crowd he'll get at UW might be a bit more rowdy that what I'd see at an eastside gym, but you never know.

Ben and I also went Halloween shopping yesterday.  He put together a very nice Slutty Sarah Palin while I assembled a sweet Hipster outfit.  There was something very poetic about shopping for hipster clothes at the Value Village on Capitol Hill with lots of "real" hipsters roaming the store.  It was great to have reference points *right there* to teach us what a real hipster looks like... but their presence also made it very hard to find a good pair of ridiculously tight jeans.

In closing, I saw a funny video on James Cotter's blog.  He's a Kiwi who lives in Austin now, so this whole play on the Kiwi accent was rather appropriate.