Steve Tilford

This past weekend was nearly a slap in my face. The Berrryman MTB Epic, a 56 mile MTB race I’ve done the past 5 years or so, plus the Gateway UCI cyclocross races were both happening. And of course I would nearly give my left arm to do either.

But, I’m building a bathroom and trying to figure out how to walk properly. I did try to take a few running steps in physical therapy the other day. I thought that I did real good, but Burt, my PT guy said I was running with a limp.

Berryman did have Topeka/Kansas attendance. Brian Jensen had planned to go, but fell out training and hurt his shoulder, so he gave his entry to Bill. Bill went and finished 2nd, which is his best finish there ever. I was 2nd there last year, to the rider that won this year, Garet Steinmetz. Garret has been ripping it up here in the Midwest on his MTB bike, so Bill must of had a good race. My other team mate that went, Benn Stover finished 4th, so two guys in the top 4. Pretty good.

Then yesterday at the Gateway Cup, B-Matter won the race. That was a super result. It is good when guys I race locally win national caliber races.

So if I can’t race, at least I can project how I would of, could of, should of finished in these races. I always tend to do better when I race this way.

Click to enlarge.

Brian Matter winning the UCI race on Sunday in St. Louis. Photo: © Matt James

Start of shower pan I did last night.

I’m super underslept, but it’s not like I don’t have valid reasons. It seems that there aren’t enough hours in the day anymore. This is without riding, which usually takes up the biggest chunk of time of my day.

I’ve been working on this bathroom most of my waking hours. My time day rotated to 4 am yesterday morning, which means that yesterday was over almost by the time I woke up. It takes a lot of thinking before there is any doing in this project. The building is 125 years old and everything is a little out of whack. Anyway, it is slowly getting there.

I took time to watch most of the Royals game last night. It happens that it was on Tuesday night beer ride, which makes it hard to get back to work after. They only had beer that had at least 7% alcohol, so it got a little ugly. I left after a couple beers to go eat at the Burgerstand and watch the rest of the game. It was already 8-0 Royals by that time. So, it comes down to game 7 tonight.

There is talk about driving down to Kansas City to the Power and LIght District or the Plaza, for tonight’s games, but I’ll have to see how the day goes. That would probably get real long, like tomorrow long.

Okay, below is the blood test results from a friend. Check out the hematocrit and hemoglobin numbers. Also the MCV. What’s up with these numbers? Maybe JV if he’s reading this could pipe in with his ideas. He is an expert on blood values. Anyone else have any ideas about these crazy numbers?

Okay, I need to get going. Physical therapy again this afternoon. Part of that is sort of an upper leg massage thing, but it always comes first. I told Burt last time that I’d like the massage after the PT exercises, not before. We’ll see if he rotates the schedule.