People don't realize how awesome my wife really is.

It is a well known fact that I have an amazingly awesome wife, but people don't how awesome she really is. People see the lunches she prepares for me, the meet our amazing kids (which she deserves much of the credit for), and they hear about her running.

She does some really awesome things that go unseen.

James has been really interested in knights lately. He has recently spent his allowance on some little knight toys (like little green army men, but knights). I was sitting there remembering about a really awesome cardboard castle and plastic knight set that my brother Jason and I had. I was telling James about it when Alison said, "I bet we could make a castle out of cardboard."

It took Alison less than 24 hours to build that castle. I typically get credit for being the artist, but Alison is a pretty talented artist in her own right. You have probably seen the pinatas that she has made for birthdays or the Halloween costumes she has made.

Alison takes being a mom very seriously. You will not hear her making excuses for not doing what her family needs her to do. You won't hear complaining about what SHE feels that she should be doing. This castle took her hours to make. She had other things that she could have been doing and things she probably would have enjoyed a lot more. The amazing thing is that she does this kind of thing all the time and trust me no matter how sweet and great they are 5 year olds and 2 year olds are very good at being grateful. Alison knows that she won't get the praise and thanks that she deserves, but that is not why she does any of it.

I am so thankful for all that she does for me and our two children. God has blessed me in many ways (great job, great house, great friends, health, healthy children), but he has given me no greater blessing than my beautiful and talented wife.

My Weekend: 1.5 mile run, 48 mile Steam-N-Wheels, leg cramps, a flat tire, bike crashes, and puking...twice.

I finished the 2009 Steam-N-Wheels bike race yesterday. It was a tough 48 miles, but eventful. Typically, I like to write about these things the day they occurred, but I was so exhausted after yesterday I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. I was so tired I actually took a nap in the middle of the afternoon. This is a rare occasion for me. I hate naps.

I started my day by going to the Abilene Family Fitness 5k fun run thing. Us Wellborns put the 'Family' in Abilene Family Fitness yesterday. Alison ran the 5k with her dad, Joe Cannon. It was his first running event and I think it was a thrill for. I know Alison really enjoyed getting to share the experience of competitive running with him. I think he is hooked. James was running in the 1.5 mile kids run and walk event. What is that, a 2.3k or something like? I let you do the math. Divide 1.5 miles by 0.6 and that was how many k's it was. Anyway, I agreed to push Maya in the stroller and follow James. Typically, with my longer stride I am able to walk at a moderate pace and keep up with James, but James was feeling it that day or something. He took off so fast I thought there was no way he was going to be able to keep running. I was wrong. I bet I had to jog with him for 90% of the way. He finished his race in roughly 20 minutes. I was impressed.

I left there in time to get to Nelson Park for the Steam-N-Wheels at around 9:00 am. This was plenty of time to do all the things I needed to do. What I didn't realize was the 1.5 mile "fun" run was more of a workout than I bargained for and I should have drank more water during and after it. In my mile 2 of my race my legs starting cramping. They continued cramping for the next 46 miles. I was proud of myself for riding through the pain. They were the worst leg cramps I have ever experienced. I also had a flat tire about an hour into the race. I passed a kid who had not eaten any breakfast and didn't have food with him. I gave him a bag of trail mix. Shortly there after that a couple of riders got tangled up and went down kind of hard about 100 yards in front of me. I stopped to see if everone was all right and to stop any cars that might be coming. I loaned them my Leatherman tool to un-jam a bike chain. The starving kid passed my while I was standing there. I started off again and was catching up to him when I passed a guy who looked to be in some pain. I asked if he needed anything and he quickly said he needed an allen wrench to lower his seat. I just so happen to have an allen wrench. I stopped to let him use the wrench. While standing there, the starving kid got tangled up with another rider and they both hit the pavement pretty hard. He did not have clips on his shoes and I guess his feet came off the pedals while crashing and he hurt the most sensitive of sensitive places. I checked to see if they needed anything and since I did not have an extra handle bar to replace his crushed ones, I continued on. This all happened in a 5 mile stretch. It was crazy.

I eventually finished the race. I am not real sure of my time because my computer keeps track of the time that I am actually moving and since I had to stop so many times I don't know what my official time was. When I was done, Alison was waiting for me with lunch. The food didn't really settle quite right and I threw up shortly after getting home. I tried to eat some crackers or something and to my surprise I threw up again, a lot. This is note worthy because these were only the third and fourth times that I have thrown up since middle school. The second time was after I over did it on a ride last summer. So that makes 3 times in less than a year. I sort of feel like I should count yesterday's as one time though. There was like 5 minutes in between them.

So there is my eventful March 21, 2009.

Communism is Bad for Baseball

I was watching the World Baseball Classic today. It was Japan vs Cuba. Japan being a capitalist country and Cuba being a communist country made for some interesting comparisons.

First off, Japans best players leave Japan to play in American and make millions upon millions of dollars. In my opinion Japan's 5 best players are not as good as good as Cuba's 5 best players. Ichiro Suzuki is probably the greatest player to come from Japan. He recently signed a deal that will pay him around 12 million per year until 2012.

Cuba's national team's (their best players) average salary is $550 a month. That comes out to be about $6,000. They also get other perks of course. They have the opportunity to purchase a car and a home. They also get to by other imports and such. Really?? It is a perk to buy a car in Cuba!!!

The rest of the Cuban players get about $250 a month. In Japan, the average salary is $500,000. That's the players that are not good enough to play in the US.

US teams bid millions of dollars to just negotiate with Japan's best players. In order to sign a Cuban player a US team has to wait for him to risk his life escaping his country. He must leave his family behind and take the largest source of income the family has with him. Then he has to hope a team will sign him.

ARC - Abilene Road Cycling

I have started a Facebook group. It is called ARC - Abilene Road Cycling. Yes, I came up with that on my own. I even designed a logo. The idea is to connect the Abilene road cycling community. There seems to be a lot of runners and they get information out pretty easily. As a fairly new cyclist I have found very difficult to get connected to the road cycling scene here in Abilene. I also want to use the group to promote road cycling and its events in and around Abilene.

I also want to use it to give a shout out to our local bike shops. We have two of the best around.