New bikes, cross and 2008

These pics are of Kuota's 2 newest bikes. The first shot is from Paul Thomas, Kuota's National Sales Manager. The Kueen K is Normann Stadler's new weapon for the Ironman World Championships. The bike looks ridiculously fast. The 2nd bike is their new cyclocross bike. I am hoping to pick one up in November.
In the last few days I have learned a lot about recovering from multiple IM's so close together. The first thing I learned was that even if I feel good on the bike, keep it very, very low key. On Tuesday I went for an easy spin. I didn't bring a watch and I ended up going for 2 1/2 hours. It was all easy, but that night I was tired. Wednesday morning I woke up and felt exhausted. After breakfast I tried to get going, but I just didn't have the energy. At 9 I went back to bed and ended up sleeping until 12:30! I would have slept longer too but Court and I had signed up for a class at the Mac store. We learned about iMovie, and Court bought me an early birthday gift, the new iPhone. It is ridiculously cool and I still haven't figured out all it can do. Anyways, so even an easy effort takes a lot out of me. I'm feeling stronger, but I still need to keep it dialed back no matter how good I feel at the time.
That being said, if I feel good I am going to race some cyclocross on Sunday. Court is going to race on Saturday and I will race on Sunday. I am borrowing a bike from my friend and client Frank. The guy is seriously fast on a bike. On Sunday he raced his first cross race and was in 3rd until a flat tire slowed him up. I did a quick wheel change for him and he was able to hold on to 4th. It was an impressive showing.
With my spare time I have been able to do a bit more around the house, get some work things sorted out, and think about my '08 season. My lawn looks good, the garage is clean and I have some great new ideas for D3 Multisport. I was also able to attend a great USAT coaching clinic at the Colorado Springs OTC. It was about running off the bike by Bobby McGee. I have been lucky enough to work with Bobby in the past and he is amazing. The clinic was great and I got so much good information that it will take me weeks to get it all.
I am already looking forward to racing next year. This year was a big disappointment for me and I feel like another season has slipped away. I am searching around for a coach and trying to plan out my race schedule. This year I travelled more than I ever have, and having a coach to see the big picture would have been very helpful. Looking back at the year I see some points where if I had rested, or done some different work leading to IM things may have been different. Or they could have been worse, you never know. I think too many people think that if they had just done something different, things would have worked out better. Maybe, but they may have turned out worse. I get frustrated when I look back and see the mistakes I made. It's tough to know that you have more than your results show. I guess I need to use that to fuel a successful 2008.