Original Glory

I'm still alive after the big race. I took a few photos, but they don't really capture the fun and excitement of a 2 pm ride under the blazing sun, or coming back from a midnight ride to some warm ears of roasted corn. Or how about the glorious sunrise ride on my 4th lap, following Jim Dover (who finished 2nd in the Solo category) and was on his 17 lap.
I ended up doing 5 laps (10 miles each). My fastest lap was 58 minutes, and my average time was 1:02. That's about a minute faster than my average last year. Maybe next year I can average under a hour? 2 of those laps were in darkness, with only my helmet and handle-bar lights to guide me. Or maybe that allowed me to go faster, you can't slow down for obstacles you can't see.
As a team we came in 14th out of 35 teams (150-199 combined age). Next year we might be in the 200+ category, which unfortunately seems to have tougher competition. Why does everyone get faster as they age?

On saturday I'll be in a mountain bike race, '24 Hours of Adrenaline'. I've done it for the past several years. The pain must have done something to my memory so I can't say exactly how many times. In a few days you should be able to look here for the results, I'm racing with Team Harold (after Harold Davis, a friend who passed away a few years ago). They may even have a live webcast or race updates. I'm riding at 2:00 PM saturday, then 8:00 PM, 2:00 AM, and 8:00 AM sunday. Maybe even one more time about noon sunday. Each lap is about 10 miles / 1 hour if you're fast. I've been riding my bike to work for about a month, but have only been on the dirt twice. So we'll see how it goes, it's always a lot of excitment, and I enjoy being in the mountains.

While I'm on the cloud theme, here's one I took in Arizona over the weekend. I was at my grandparent's house in Wickenburg. About an hour after this picture, we were surrounded by a huge dust storm that turned the sky brown.

I took an early morning bike ride on sunday, up to the top of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. I managed to get this picture with my camera phone before descending through the clouds to the ocean below. Quite a treat for waking up so early!

Last weekend I taught at church, since both the pastor and associate pastor were out of town. I introduced a new series, Jesus' Farewell Tour. We'll be going over that the next 7 weeks. I taught specifically on the promise of the Holy Spirit.
"If you love me, you will obey what I command."
I'm still working on that, especially the jealousy part.

this crazy world,
prayers for #109 on the HDI report, where a new law is about to go in effect. "Article one grants religious freedom, then the following articles gradually withdraw that freedom until nothing is left."
prayers for the effects of 2 boys, 22 and 26.
prayers for the 400.