The Main Course is the Most Important Course

When we have dinner, we will sometimes splurge and get an appetizer, or a dessert. Our drink is usually water. The main course is always important. That is why Megan and i were not sad that we didn't win prizes for our other dishes at the 3rd annual fall harvest smackdown . We did, however win the prize for the best main course with our waffle smothered in cinnamon syrup steeped in Habaneros.

At 5 o'clock on friday evening the secret ingredient was revealed for this year, which turned out to be the Habanero Chile Pepper. We were all expecting this ingredient last year but instead got the crappy Jellymelon.

Not having cooked with raw Habaneros before, most of the competitors were a little concerned about the heat. My sister got some pepper on her finger and touched her eyes. She ended up having to get milk in a syringe and squirting it in her eye to get the burning to stop. It was a fun and challenging ingredient and produced A LOT of really good food. i think this year there were 25 entries ranging anywhere from a tropical drink to peanut butter and Habanero Jelly sandwiches, to home made oreos to salmon, to sweet potato fries to ice cream to peach and habanero trifle.

Within 5 minutes of when we started eating, most people were red and sweating. I was actually a little surprised that most of the dishes were not hotter. It was a pleasant surprise to eat something that tasted good and then had a little, subtle heat at the very end. Team Mo' Shizzle really redeemed themselves this year and walked away with 2 prizes after being shut out last year.

Run for Bun

I have always been on the other side of the table during packet pick-up for any athletic events. You pay your money, you show up and pick up your packet, pin your number on and expect that the event planners have thought of everything and expect that you can just concentrate on doing the race.

After the last few months, i have a new appreciation for how much time, energy, effort and manpower it takes to put on an event. I guess the good news is that because i helped with organizing things i didn't have to actually run.

My contributions were very minimal compared to what Megan and some of the others put into it, and this race was only a 5k. It's hard to even imagine what it takes to put on an Ironman, or a 200 mile bike race through 3 states? The Run for Bun was a little different, in the fact that it was a very short timeframe from conception to event, EVERYONE was a volunteer, and everyone in every capacity had never organized anything like this before. We did have some helpful direction from events planners at Draper City and many of the organizers had participated in events, but none had actually organized one before.

All said and done, we raised somewhere between $40-50,000 to be put towards the creation of a trail in Draper in Bunny's name. It will probably be a few years before they are able to secure enough funds to do the whole trail, but what a wonderful tribute to a wonderful person.

A few things that really struck me were the volunteers and people that came together to help. Businesses that gave of their services or goods to support this event. People that gave of their time and money.

A guy that went to school with Luke and had not seen him in 15 years and wasn't sure Luke even remembered him showed up to help at packet pick-up because he wasn't going to be around to run the 5k but wanted to do something to help.

Megan talked to the woman that was in charge of all of the registration and put countless hours helping and getting everything set up and running smoothly before, during and after the event. Megan asked her how she new Bunny. Her response was that she had never actually met Bunny. There were lots of people that had never actually met Bunny but she touched their lives anyway.

She made me as a cyclist realize how vulnerable i am. She made me as an athlete realize how powerful i am. She made me as a parent realize how precious my children are and how powerless i really am at protecting them. She made me realize as a sibling how grateful i am to have a family i can count on whenever i need them. She made me realize as a husband how much Megan means to me and how completely lost i would be without her. She made me realize as a child of God that this short mortal existence isn't all there is and at some time in the eternities, Someone has a helluva lot of explaining to do.

Cyclocross 2010 #1

It is a little hard to get excited about cyclocross racing when it is 91 degrees outside. That was the temperature of last Saturday's race. I really love the muddy, dirty, wet races. I just wish i had a mechanic to clean my bike afterwards.

I achieved my goal of not taking last place. It was hard and fast and i didn't have the kick to stay with the lead group....or the 2nd or 3rd chase groups. It has been a long biking season and i am caught between my mind wanting to go and race

hard, but mentally my body just wants to lay around eating megan's baking.

The loss of daylight is making it tougher to get out and ride during the week which makes getting into the Pain cave and staying there for 60 minutes hard. Maybe i will just change my diet and start eating spanish beef.

Lil Bills dad was supposed to start his cyclocross career on Saturday, but after taking him out and doing a few practice laps on the course, he decided to lay down in a goat head patch. We both thought it wise for him to practice a little more before strapping on that number.

This weekend i will miss the race but for a good reason.

If you are not doing anything Saturday morning, come and run, jog, walk, crawl, scoot or hop with us. You may be thinking to yourself, 3.2 miles is so far, i couldn't possible run that far. My 1 legged, pirate brother is doing it, so unless you had both of your legs cut off, your excuse is lame.