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But it was mostly the brownies

My husband Dave is a very strong cyclist, as many of you know, particularly those of you who have tried to keep up with him on a climb. This season his years of hard work have really started to pay off, as he has finished top-ten in several races. On Saturday he finished fourth (out of 91 men who started his category 4 race) in the Wente Vineyards Classic, a very hot, hilly road race. Even cooler than his top-5 finish, though, was that he earned enough points to upgrade to category 3. That is AWESOME. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, take my word for it.

I credit his success to three things:

The Fast Brownies I baked Friday night. I used the standard Baker's One-Bowl Brownie recipe, except I replaced half the sugar with brown sugar, added a generous handful of semisweet chocolate chips, a handful of walnuts, a teaspoon of instant coffee and a few grinds of black pepper. Best brownies I've ever made.

The fact that he started shaving his legs a few weeks ago. You know, like a "real" cyclist. I didn't even notice until I saw him picking at a scab on his shin. "Cut yourself shaving?" I joked, totally kidding. It took a few minutes for me to realize that, yeah, he did cut himself shaving.

All that hard work doing early-morning hill repeats, Tuesday night park rides, power-meter spin classes, and riding with the Roasters. I guess those deserve a mention.

Bonus: He won a bottle of wine (pictured above). Sweet!

April 28, 2008 10:44 PM