5 Days!!!!!!!

It's only 5 days until the big showdown at the Gear West Duathlon. Devon Palmer (the pro triathlete who's going down) posted a little pre-race update. Here are some of the lies he's spreading in that post:

Steve and I will be battling for the prestigious relay title at the Gear West Duathlon this Sunday. I am racing with Ben Kampf as the Gold Gopher Guys. Steve is racing with former pro cyclist from Team Lotto Pete Webster. They are Team Itchy and Scratchy. Steve has had alot to say on social media over the past couple months. Ben and I, being generous guys, are giving Steve and Pete a massive 15 minute and 42 second head start. Steve talked me into such an enormous handicap by telling me he is completely out of shape – and has proceeded to have his best spring of racing ever. Pete is busy riding 500 miles a week. Can the Gold Gopher Guys overcome this vast time gap on these sneaky sandbaggers? We will see Sunday.

I only really got one good workout in over the last week. That's no excuse, and it shouldn't affect our race. My good workout was last Wednesday morning: a fast 11-miler. I warmed-up for 2 miles, and then "built" for another mile. That build mile was slower than I wanted (6:42), so I really kicked it in the ass for the next 5 miles along the rolling hills on River Road. Those next 5 miles were 6:10, 6:03, 6:06, 6:03, and 5:50. Nice.

I had hoped to do some intervals on Friday, but my body had different plans. Wednesday and Thursday, I worked on cleaning out the CVA Photo Lab to get ready to sell all of our equipment, which starts today. (If you've been a bit out of the loop, check out some more details on my Photo Blog.) Here are some photos of dismantling Brunhilda (our color processor) that I've been doing my best to maintain over the years:

Everything in this photo came out of Brunhilda (in the back).
Those are heavy rollers able to accept 31" wide prints in the bags to the front/left.




Getting down and dirty.


Broken into 4 main pieces (the 4th on the other side of the wall to the right),
with a ton of other components all over the lab and out of the frame to the left.


Loading it into the truck of an alumna who's hoping to fire it back up someday.
(Only half of it fit in 1 trip.)

That night, I felt like I nearly had to throw up at 8 p.m. I was WAITING to throw up so I would feel better. But I writhed in the guest room until 2:30 a.m. when I finally vomited. I got a solid 1.5 hours of sleep that night after 2 days of nasty darkroom work. My back was killing me. And my stomach wasn't fully better for a few days. So from over-exerting myself for 2 days and/or being exposed to some old chemistry and/or eating something bad, I had to take a few days off.

So later this morning, everything at CVA will be for sale (just to the students today). Here's a shot of one of our rooms full of cameras, processing tanks, tripods, light meters, etc, etc, etc, etc:

So I've got a big (depressing) sale today at CVA, and then a big (ass-kicking) relay race at the Gear West Duathlon this weekend. Stay tuned!!