I finally won the jersey at the state hillclimb championship. The race is 20 miles up Mt Graham in Safford. The start is at about 3400ft and the finish is over 9000ft at a decent grade (maybe 7% average) with quite a few steep switchbacks. This year a Mexican team (P&S) showed up with some strong guys, but fortunately they weren't eligible for the state championship jersey. After a few early attacks, Carlos Lopez (winner of Tour of Guatemala 07) attacked the lead group. I didn't respond as I was thinking about the jersey.

School has been kicking my ass lately, but I finally got off campus this weekend and did a little cross racing!

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Last weekend my brother and I competed as team "GO JAMIE!!" in the new 2 man 8 hour category at Hurkey Creek near Idyllwild, CA.

Congrats to OA Victoria's racers, who all finished well in each of their events on Sunday! The Times Colonist Bastion Square Criterium is the biggest road race on the island, and typically one of the biggest in BC, and marks the closure of the road season here this year. The course is in downtown Victoria, a four-corner road course around the popular Bastion Square market.

Went out to watch Ile Powell race in his first bout of off-road terror and Marc Romano in his first race in his OA kit. The race was the Kruger's Kermesse and it looked like a brutal run packed with bone jarring tooth chipping excitement! I was only there to catch their last lap so had no idea as to where they were in the field, as with any cross jam the field was shattered like a pint glass at a toga party.

Last Tuesday was the monthly Splash N' Dash (750m swim + 3K run) and as usual I was a little late out the door.

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Over the weekend of August 3rd, 2008, I traveled up to Minnesota to compete in the Saint Paul Inline Marathon (yes, 26.2 miles).

With this being just my second race after a knee injury sidelined me for a few weeks, I wasn't sure what to expect; however, I'd been training hard and hoped to finish below 1 hour, 30 minutes -- as an Advanced speed skater (the category below pro), this is often a reasonable goal to set.

Hey all y'all!

An update from this weekend of racing! The second and final TrackFest was this weekend here in Victoria, BC, and out little club did very well!

Evan in the 'C' category unfortunately had only one competitor in the Omnium, and none in the Bunch Races, so he did no worse than 2nd in any event! =) Thrown in with the 'B' racers, he did amazingly well, remaining in contact with the bunch for almost all the races! He's inspired, and looking forward to a solid winter of training, and joining the B's full-on for next year.

I guess all that suffering out at elite nationals did me some good. I felt pretty good in training this week and pulled out the win at the Kitt Peak hillclimb TT yesterday. Most importantly, I beat a certain Bradley Saul's time from 2002 by 2 seconds!

check for yourself...