are we really free?

I just saw this movie last night on Google video. It is a pretty eye opening documentary on how the government is illegally taxing our income. It also reveals that all of the money they raise by taxing our income goes to pay interest on the federal debt. Did you know that the federal reserve is a privately owned bank? They are making money off of our country's debt and our income taxes are going straight into their pockets. They also have the rights to print our money! This is not right. This film is very interesting as well as disturbing. The entire thing is posted on Google video so that you can watch it for free (on a larger viewer than this too). The movie also talks about how we are headed toward a one world government. I believe that this is true because it was prophesied in the Bible in the book of Revelation. I'm not too worried though because I know that God is in control and that this is all part of his plan to redeem the world. He has already won the victory for me. Are you on His side? Jesus has already paid the price for you to be reconciled to God, all you have to do is believe. This film also talks about how there are plans in the works to implant everyone with an electronic transmitter under their skin that can be used to make purchases and identify you. Could this be the mark of the beast prophesied in Revelations 13:16,17? I know that God will give his people wisdom concerning this so that we can avoid the mark when the time comes. I am so thankful that he is sovereign and I don't need to worry or be fearful. You can visit http://www.freedomtofascism.com to find out more about the movie and it's mission.

bonehead

I made a bonehead move last friday night. I was on my way home from work with my road bike on top of my car and I forgot it was on there and drove into my garage. I even remembered my bike was on top when I pulled into my parking lot, but by the time I reached my garage I had totally forgotten. The collision caused my bike rack's front bar to get knocked off of the car and twisted the bike rack's tray. The tray also got pushed into the roof of the car and scratched Kendra's car pretty bad. My bike fared pretty well, considering. The bike seat was broken off of its rails and my handlebars were a little scratched. That's all I've found so far. Hopefully there isn't any hidden structural damage to my frame. I was able to put the bike rack back onto the car and I think it will still work. There didn't appear to be any major damage to the car where the rack attaches. I felt like a huge bonehead and loser after this happened. However, Kendra got home shortly after this happened and reassured me that I wasn't a bonehead or a loser. She is wonderful. My bike is out of commission for a little while until I can get a new seat. Huge bummer. I guess I'll have to ride my mountain bike in the mean time. At least it's not as bad as it could have been.

TV 'a la carte'?

This article in BusinessWeek talks about how many consumer groups want to see 'a la carte' cable programming available to consumers. If this became a reality, cable customers could purchase only the exact channels that they want to come into their household.



I think this is a great idea and should be implemented by the cable companies. I do not currently pay for any cable because I feel that most TV watching is a waste of my time and a cluttering of my time as well as being fairly expensive. There are a few things that I miss not being able to watch on TV in my house such as Football, Baseball, and Cycling. If cable channels were available 'a la carte' I think I would pay to recieve ESPN, Fox Sports, OLN, and possibly Fox, ABC, CBS, and UPN because they carry football and baseball, but I might decide to not get them because the rest of their content leaves much to be desired.



What do you think?

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The Post

As you know, I work for Ball Aerospace in Boulder, but recently that changed. I now work for Ball Aerospace in Broomfield. They just moved me down to their south campus! This move has both some benefits and some disadvantages.



Benefits: They moved our whole team down here and we are in one large room together so we can all talk to each other easily when we need help or input or just want to talk. I also enjoy the rubber band fights that ensue every now and then. My cubical is an upgrade from my last one (more desk space). There is a sweet cafeteria in Broomfield with cheap food (including breakfast burritos) and 50 cent coffee. The building is a lot newer and nicer and doesn't have asbestos in it like our old one. AND our new building has showers and lockers in the bathroom which is excellent for running and biking at lunch or biking to work. We also have a sweet filter for drinking water that also puts out HOT drinking water. And my awesome friend Derrick sits right next to me and we can talk through the cube partition and shoot rubberbands at each other off the ceiling tiles.



Disadvantages: Location (the drive takes about the same amount of time, but the distance is further so biking to work is a larger task). With this cubicle furniture I have to stare into the corner and face my back to the entrance. I also have a large structural post in the middle of my cube.



Since there is a large post in my cube, I think I should probably name it. Any suggestions?

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Charity

There is a new book out that reports that conservatives give more of their money and time than do liberals. Interesting...

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Being Married Rules!

So, I got married on October 8th to the most amazing girl in the world! (That's one reason why I haven't been blogging much lately.) The wedding was wonderful, I had a great time and everything turned out great. A few things didn't go as planned, but they were only minor things that nobody noticed but us. One bummer was the cold weather, but we didn't let it bother us much. We still put the top down in our convertible car that took us from the church to the reception.

The reception was great. We had a good dinner and a great party with a good band and dancing. It was a lot of fun, but flew by way too fast. We didn't even get to say hi to everybody we wanted to. I really want to thank all our wonderful friends though that helped us make everything happen and supported us through it all. My best man gave a great toast and all the groomsmen were a huge help. The maid of honor also gave a great toast via CD. I also want to thank our parents for supporting us and helping to make everything happen and helping us to survive our lives up to this point. Also, our photographers did an amazing job. Click on these pictures to see their website and our pictures.



Married life is amazing! It is wonderful to be able to live with the person I am most fond of and not have to say goodbye every night. It is also great just living life together and supporting each other. I love making dinner and breakfast for Kendra and really love the lunches she makes for me. It has also been awesome getting our house all put together and fixed up the way we want it. I'm looking forward to the rest of our lives together!

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Seperation of Church and State

I just learned the other day from this article that the "doctrine" of seperation of church and state doesn't exist anywhere in our nation's founding documents. It's not in the Constitution, it's not in the Bill of Rights or even the Declaration of Independence.

"It's not in the Bill of Rights. It's not anywhere in a foundational document. The only place where the so-called "wall of separation" was mentioned was in a letter written by (Thomas) Jefferson to a friend. That's the only place. It has been picked up and made to be something it was never intended to be.

What it has become is that the government is protected from the church, instead of the other way around, which is that church was designed to be protected from the government."

And when Jefferson made this comment he wasn't using it to protect the government from the influence of the church, but was trying to keep the government out of the church's affairs.

"Jefferson politely declined in his letter to use his office for such influence," Hausknecht said, "explaining that the First Amendment prohibited him from doing so because it had created a 'wall of separation of church and state.' Although it's not completely clear among historians as to the complete scope of Jefferson's meaning,
because of the letter's specific historical context it's accurate to say, as Dr. Dobson did, that Jefferson felt the First Amendment protected the church from government interference -- not the opposite."

I thought this article was very interesting because I never knew where the idea of seperation of church and state actually came from and was the intended meaning.

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I'm an uncle!

Nathaniel, our new nephew

As soon as I married Kendra, I became an uncle for the very first time. Crazy! Isn't he cute?

Our Honeymoon in Hawaii

honeymoon

Fat Tire Triathlon

I did one triathlon this year. I kendra got into triathlons after we met. She did her first one two years ago, but I was out of the country during it, so last year she did a sprint triathlon and I watched the whole thing. This year we wanted to do a triathlon together so after looking for a while we chose the Fat Tire Triathlon. It is an off road triathlon (mountain biking and trail running) with an open water lake swim. It takes place near Fort Collins at the Horsetooth Reservoir.

We picked this race partly because it was close to our wedding, but not too close. We thought that it would be at a good time that would encourage us to work out until close to our wedding, but be over soon enough to allow us enough time to dedicate to finish our wedding planning. However, we were so busy with planning most of the summer that we didn't get to train for our race nearly as much as we hoped. I got lots of swimming in and biking, but hardly any running.

Because of this I decided to do the swim as fast as I could, but then wait for kendra (she started 10 minutes after me) in the transition zone so that we could bike and run together. I did the swim in about 12 minutes, which I was pleased with, and then spent over 17 minutes in the transition zone waiting for kendra. It was well worth the wait because I had a blast riding and running with her.

Kendra did a great job in the race! She didn't get scared at all on the swim (even though it was her first open water swim) and swam freestyle the whole way! She didn't even have a wetsuit to use! The water was about 70 degrees, but the air temp was probably around 50 so the water felt warm in comparison. It had rained most of the night before so they weren't even sure if the state park was going to let us do the race on the original course.

Kendra had a good bike ride, pushing hard the entire time. She did fall twice though (spralling out across the entire trail), but she got right back on and kept going both times. The bike was on some fairly mellow, rolling singletrack. The only annoying part was passing people and letting people pass on the tight singletrack. The run was pretty much straight up a mountain and then back down, but we were able to keep running the whole way even if it wasn't very fast at times.

Kendra did an amazing job and we both had a great time. The complete results are here.

Winter Park Cross-Country Super Loop

On July 8th, I participated in the 3rd race of the Winter Park series. The course was great, it was a gigantic loop on and next to the ski resort that was 15.7 miles long with lots of climbing and some fast descending. Here is a profile map of the course. All categories ran one loop, I lined up with the sport group again. It was lightly rainy the entire time and slightly chilly.

I ended up getting 3rd place this time, which I was very stoked about. I was only 3 minutes behind 2nd and 6 minutes behind 1st. I also beat the 4th place guy by less than 40 seconds! Complete results are here.

This ended up being my last mountain bike race of the year, but I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to next season.

Eldora Escape

On July 1st, I participated in my first Mountain States Cup mountain bike race. They take place throughout Colorado, New Mexico and sometimes Utah. This was a nice local one just up Boulder Canyon from my house.

The course was pretty hard, probably the hardest mtn bike race I've done. There was a really steep rocky singletrack uphill section, a steep, loose downhill section with several small drops and there were lots of muddy spots with several "puddles" (read lakes) that you had to ride through or around. There was also a very short steep climb that most people had to walk/run up. And we had to do 3 laps! Here is a map:

I ended up finishing in 5th place with a time of 1:47:11.80 which I was very please with. I was in 2nd place halfway into the first lap, but came out of my pedals on the steep climb and got passed by a few people. The complete results are here.

Kendra was kind enough to act as my water support and did a fantastic job! Love you, baby!

Winter Park Mountain Circuit One

This race was the day after the first WP race, the Hill Climb. My legs were pretty dead from the hill climb, so I wasn't too sure how I would do. My friend Rob came up Saturday afternoon to pre-ride the course and race on sunday. After he heard how well I did in the hill climb in beginner category he talked me in to upgrading to sport for the next day's race.

This race was out to a loop, ride the loop twice and then another out to the finish on the opposite side we started from. Here is a map: This race was REALLY hard. I left everything I had on the course, but was unable to stay with the lead group. It was also difficult to pass people and be passed during all the tight single track sections.

I ended up finishing in tenth place, which I was pretty happy about my finish since I had just moved up a category. My full results are here.

My friend Rob raced in the expert category and finished in 3rd place only 4 minutes off of the winner. I was pretty impressed.

Here are some pics. This is my start (i think):






Here is Rob's Start. Rob is number 1053:

Here is Rob getting his medal:

This is Rob and I at the awards ceremony:

Winter Park Hill Climb

So, this year I decided to bike racing more of a try, especially mountain biking. I joined the actual race team of my cycling club, ICCC, and by being on the team I was given a good discount on a bike purchase, but also had to commit to racing 6 races. On June 17th, I participated in my first mountain bike race of the year at Winter Park Resort. It was a ‘hill climb’ that involved riding up to the top of Mary Jane from the base of Winter Park on a 5.3 mile long fire road including over 2000 vertical feet of elevation gain. I’ve been doing a lot of training, but mostly on my road bike and haven’t done a whole lot of race pace training on my mountain bike.

Kendra, Marcia and I drove up Friday night and camped near winter park at the base of Berthoud pass in a campground called Robber’s Roost. It was nice, but a little to close to the road, creating lots of noise. It was pretty cold, but we kept warm in our 4 season tent that we borrowed and nice warm sleeping bags.

We got up early and headed over to the winter park base where the start of the race was to be held. I went over and got my race number at the start line and then headed back to the car to get my bike and myself ready for the race. After my bike was all set I started warming up by riding up the road back towards Berthoud pass. I thought it was going to be a faster ride back to the resort and rode out a little to far on my warm up and had to race back to the car. I grabbed the girls and then had them hustle over to the start line with me. I was getting a little anxious though so I went on ahead. I got to the line about a minute before they started, just in time to hear the start line official give his informational speech.

At exactly 10:48 they blew the horn and we were off! I was pretty well warmed up, much better than my first ever mountain bike race last year, which is a good thing because this race starts straight up the mountain! I tried not to go out to fast so I wouldn’t burn myself out to quickly. I just wanted to try to settle in to a good rhythm, not caring too much about the other racers, but also trying not to let any of them get away.

A few guys pulled out ahead quickly, but I was able to hold back and let them have their fun. I settled in behind a few guys in about 4th or 5th place. By now, one guy was about 100 feet off the front, but we didn’t worry and just stayed at our own pace. The guy in front of me was quickly burnt out and dropped off and I jumped onto the guy’s wheel in front of him. He led me up past the guy that was dropping off in front of him and another guy and then there was only one guy left in front of us. The guy right in front of me was going at a pretty good pace, but I was able to stay on his wheel. We were slowly reeling in the guy who was off the front because he had gone out of the gates a little to fast. Before the first mile was behind us we had caught him! Now it was just me and this other guy in front of me, wearing a black jack porter jersey. He was going at a very good pace, but I was able to hold on around the first couple turns. I looked back, and we had a very good gap on the rest of our field. By this point we started passing some of the field that had started before us. I was starting to feel tired and wondering if I could keep this pace up for the rest of the race. I looked back again as we went around another switch back and could not see anyone from our field. However, this guy I was following was starting to pull away. I tried to chase back on to him, but he was going too hard and continued to pull away from me. I tried, but just could not match his effort and soon he was out of sight. I continued to work as hard as I could without blowing up and kept picking off riders from the earlier category starts. I looked back again and saw that I had second place in the bag and so just tried to push to get the best time I could without bonking. I soon saw the top of the mountain approaching and gave it all I had to the end.

I finished in 2nd place with a time of 45:53.6, just under 5 minutes behind 1st place and almost 10 minutes ahead of 3rd place. Complete results can be found here.

We decided to hang out for the awards ceremony and I received a silver medal for my efforts. J This was a great race. It was well organized, very fun, and an amazingly beautiful venue.

Sharefest!

Two weekends ago (June 10th and 11th) my church participated in the annual "Sharefest" of Boulder County. This is an event where several churches in the area team up and help out the Boulder Valley School District by donating free work to their school such as painting, repairing, landscaping, cleaning, etc. This year 7 churches teamed up to work on 8 schools. My church was given Boulder High School to work on. We spent the majority of our efforts painting the cafeteria and hallways, doing some landscaping work and cleaning there really cool central atrium. It was a lot of fun and also hardwork. I was the team leader for my life group and we were in charge of painting a certain corner of the cafeteria. That was done pretty quickly and my team left for other jobs and I was left to work with only Kendra. We had a good time putting the finishing touches on our corner. We are both somewhat perfectionistic and so we can spend many hours just painting one corner. I think it looked great when we were done though. After the corner was finished we had the priviledge of painting a window sill and the wall around it. I think we did a great job on that as well. We spent the rest of our saturday cleaning paint drops off of the floor.

The next morning (sunday) we showed up and were assigned to help paint the doors that enter the cafeteria. Kendra and I assisted by removing the push plates on the doors so the painters could paint under them and not have to mask them. We also masked the edges of the doors. After that we were put in charge of cleaning paint drops off of chairs that should not have been used to stand on while painting. That was not a very fun job, but we got through it by focusing on how we are blessing the school and glorifying God with our service. At around 11:15 we finished up and headed to the mackey auditorium on CU campus for a huge worship service with all 7 churches that participated in sharefest. It was awesome worshiping with that many people (the auditorium was packed) and seeing a large portion of the church body in boulder coming together in one place. It was really cool when some of the school officials got on stage and expressed their thankfulness for what had been done and tried to estimate how much money had been saved for their schools.

It is awesome when the body gets together and stands along side with the community; loving them and serving them. That is how communities can really be reached for Christ. All glory and honor is HIS!

Fruita!

The next morning on our quest for single track on the westen slope we got up early in order to beat the heat, had a quick breakfast and headed to the trail head. It was already getting pretty warm at 8am! We started by climbing up toward the book cliffs on the Prime Cut trail. It is desigend for climbing up to the other trails that are used for descending back down to the trail head. It was a pretty mellow climb, but still had some challenges. There was one huge rock the trial went over the neither of us could clear.

After we finished the climb we traversed over to Joe's Ridge and took this trail back down. It was a screamer that rode down on top of some ridges with a few really steep parts. In one section we were descending down some hill that was too steep for our brakes to stop us completely and there was a steep drop off on both sides of the trail. It was pretty thrilling!

After we were back at the bottom we took the campsite road for an easy climb back up the the other trails and traversed over to "western zippety". It was a pretty hilly traverse though and one section had some really nasty switchbacks. Kendra gave it her best and was a great sport. I was quite impressed. Western zippety was a smooth, fast singletrack that screamed back to the bottom, past the trail, so we had to make our way back to our car on a 4wd road and a dirt road.

I had a blast riding these trails and can't wait to make it back out there soon. Kendra did an amazing job riding these trails and I know she is going to be a great biker. I can't wait to go riding with her again.

Idependence Monument

Last weekend (6/3) Kendra and I ventured to the western slope of colorado for a little camping and mountain biking. We didn't head out until late saturday morning so we didn't get to our destination until about 4:30pm. On the way out we stopped in Minturn to use a bathroom and found a cool little winery there. We stopped and split a tasting between the two of us. They had a Reisling, a Merlot, and a Port. The Reisling was amazing, the merlot was ok and the port was not that great. Anyways, After we got to Fruita we stopped by over the edge sports to talk about which trails we should ride and bought a map. Then we decided to wait until later in the evening to ride after the heat had passed some (it was 95 degrees that day). So in the meantime we ventured into the Colorado National Monument. We'd never been there before and were quite amazed by the beauty of the place. It is a very breathtaking landscape and the main attraction is a formation that looks similar to the man made national monument in D.C. It was quite cool. God is such an amazing artist.

After we had taken in enough of the park, we headed over to the Mary's Loop group of trails and rode the rustler's loop. It is designed as a practice loop for the area and has signs posted along the way with tips and tricks for better mountain biking. They also designed in as much of the different terrain the the area has to offer so that beginners can get a taste of everything they may encounter. I thought it was a very cool loop. It also was on top of a bluff over looking the colorado river and had some amazing views. We had a blast on the trail and Kendra did a great job. She only had to dismount for one obstacle! After the ride we got some mexican food and went out to search for a campsite in the dark.

Wheels of Thunder

On May 13th, my racing team, the International Christian Cycling Team (ICCC) put on their annual criterium race in Golden, CO. The race takes place on a 1.3 mile closed course loop that the police use to practice/train in their squad cars which is located on top of a large mesa called South Table Mountain. I volunteered to help out the race and was asked to work at the registration table. My fiancee said she wanted to come help out as well and we got there early and worked the table together, entering every racer's name on the scoring sheets.

I also decided to race the Wheels of Thunder category 4 men. This was my first race of the season and only my third criterium ever. My race wasn't until 12:55 so I helped at the registration table until about 11:30 and then started getting my bike ready for my race and warming up. I had to change my tires on my spare wheels for the wheel pit (in case I got a flat during the race) because my old tires had holes in them and I had just recieved my new tires at the race. That took me a little while and then I got my bike all ready to go and put it on the trainer I got from my coworker to warm up. I had it in my mind that my race was at 1:00 instead of 12:55 so I rode the trainer a little longer than I should have. As I was taking my bike of the trainer and preparing it to race, I realized that I didn't have my race number on my jersey yet! I can't put it on myself while I'm wearing my jersey so I ran over to wear Kendra was working, but she was not where to be found so I found my closest team member (a guy from emmaus) and asked him to pin my number on as fast as he could. I only had a couple minutes until the start of my race! He did a fabulous job, then I ran over and grabbed my bike, hopped on it, and bike the wrong direction on the race course towards the start line, swerved off the road right before the pack at the line and went to the back of the pack. Right after I turned my bike around and got on it, they fired the gun to start the race! I almost missed my first race of the season!

That got my adrenaline pumping pretty good, so I was amped up for my race. As we started I let most everyone go ahead of me and just hung out in the back. I needed to get a little more warmed up before I tried anything fancy. My goal for the race was just to hang on and finish with the pack. After the first lap I felt that I had to work pretty hard to hold on, but I was still hanging. I started to feel a little better during the second lap and started to get into a rhythm even though I was still working very hard, and we had to race 14 laps! On the third lap I was feeling pretty good and started to work my way up closer to the front of the pack. I think it was on this lap when there was a crash right next to me! It happened pretty quickly, I just saw a couple guys collide and go down and heard the terrible noise of metal grinding on asphalt. I was very thankful that I wasn't right behind the crash. On the next lap as we were going through the S-turns on the far side of the track, the peloton (pack of riders) condensed very quickly and I had guys pressing up against me on both sides. It was pretty nerve wracking, but I kept my cool and we rode out of it without any harm.

Around the 7th lap or so, I found myself near the front of the peloton and feeling pretty good so I decided to push myself as we were approaching the finish line. I broke off the front of the peloton for a little bit and crossed the line in about 2nd or 3rd place. I didn't get any credit or anything for that effort, but it was really fun. On the following lap however, I was regretting speding that much energy and had to really push it to not drop off the back of the peloton. I was able to stay in the pack and recover over the next lap and then started mixing it up again. A couple laps later there was a small break away off the front. I was up near the front of the pack and we worked together to reel them back in quickly.

The next thing I noticed was the announcer saying there were only two more laps to go. I couldn't believe it! We were almost done and I was still in the main pack. I just had to hold on for two more laps to accomplish my goal. The race felt like it was going by really quickly too. So, I managed to hang in the pack for that lap and the following. As we were coming down the final stretch to the finish line I realized that I had made it! I had finished with the first group! Then I thought, "why don't I try to move up in the field a little more?" So I worked my way up a little bit and finished 22nd out of 58 finishers and 93 starters. I was surprised at how many racers had dropped out. Our average speed was about 27mph and it took us just under 45 mins to ride about 18.2 miles.

Complete results are here.

I actually had a blast in this race. Criteriums have never been my favorite race, but I really enjoyed this one since I didn't have a flat tire or get dropped like my first two races. As I look back I feel like I could have finished higher if I had pushed it a little sooner and harder as we were finishing, but I wasn't really trying because I was content with my performance. Part of me wishes that I had though. I guess I will have to do another criterium and go for the win next time...

"It's your weekend, you decide."

Back in the last weekend of April I ventured to Moab for my friend Rob's bachelor party. Basically, it was a blast! We spent the whole weekend mountain biking the sweet trails of Moab! We tried to go to Fruita, CO, but all the camping spots were full by the time we got there due to the Fat Tire festival that was going on that weekend. So, we continued on down the road to Moab.
Moab is basically the mecca of mountain biking. There are an amazing amount of really sweet trails. The first day we rode the Klondike Bluffs trail which is a good intro to moab riding. It has sand and slickrock and dirt riding. It is an out and back to the border of arches national park and has several dinosaur tracks on display in the slick rock. On our way back to the car we decided to ride some of the baby steps trail as well to get some more time in the saddle. This trail had one cool climb up a slick rock slope, but that was about it.
The second day Rob, Hughes and I got up early and rode the famous "Slickrock" trail as fast as we could. This trail is amazing. It is almost entirely on slickrock (which is sandstone that gives you an insane amount of traction) with a few sand crossings. It involves many really steep climbs and decents along the way with plenty of technical riding to keep your guard up. It took us about an hour and 14 minutes to complete the ~10 mile loop and then we hopped in the car and raced home. It was a great trip!

Birthday Gift From My King

So, I was born on this day, 26 years ago. Doesn't seem like it's been that long. Yet it does because I can't seem to remember anything before that event...

I love to ride my bikes. I don't have my new moutain bike yet. It's in the shop, I just need to pick it up and haven't had time yet. So... I rode my rode bike today at lunch. It's also easier to rode ride at lunch than trail ride. I thought it would be a great birthday activity to go out at lunch and suffer up one of our threatening climbs here in Boulder.It was a beautiful day out today and we had a great ride. (I went with some coworkers and others that work near Ball)

3 of us were planning to ride up sunshine canyon, maybe even to the top, but we ran into Bill, a guy I used to ride with a bunch but haven't lately, and he was heading up super flagstaff with some friends so we decided to join him. There were 7 of us that rode up flagstaff all the way to the top. We rode to the base of the climb at an easy pace, but as soon as we hit the climb the pace was raised quite a bit. I was hurting at the bottom, giving almost everything I had to try to stay on and got dropped about 1/3 of the way to the top. I kept pushing though and praising God (helps me get through the pain). and I was asking God to give me the strength to beat Bill because he is a good climber and I've ridden with him a lot and never outright beat him, but come close several times. anyways, he had already dropped me, but i spotted him and another guy struggling up the 'wall' and i was feeling pretty good at that point. I decided to keep pushing at a steady pace but not too hard. I was closing the gap and he spotted me at the last switch backs and put in an extra effort to try to keep me off. I almost gave up, but kept my cool and kept pushing at my steady pace. After I cleared the last switch back I stood up and pushed HARD up the last climb and passed bill and the other guy about 5m before the finish line! It was awesome! and painful! I ended up third at just under 34min behind a Rocky Mounts guy who did it in 29 something and kraig who finished in just over 31min. God is so good! what a great birhday present to finally out climb Bill. I haven't been climbing that great lately either. So far, it's been a great birthday!