- A few people knew this, but I started '07 with barely riding my bike for 3 months but instead doing Physical Therapy 2.5 hours a day, five days a week. X-Rays in October '06 revealed my right hip was twisted 1" lower and 1" set backwards from my left hip. Apparently it's a common thing that happens to pregnant women... and me. Awesome.
- April: screw up my back royally days before the first race of the year in the Midwest, Hillsboro Roubaix. Race anyway and get into a break with 75 miles to go with all my old teammates: the Bird, Mumford, Puffer. Pure comedy. It didn't turn out so well for me. Puffer probably suffered more than anyone that day for a very respectable top 5 finish.
- Aggressive PT exercises lead to a hernia two days before the Tour of Virgnia. Worst organized stage race I've ever been to, saved by the comedy and experience of one Beth Wrenn Estes.
- May: spend 10 days at best friend's wedding in Europe. Munich, Germany is my new favorite city. The hernia gets to come too, which means that Rosa carried the luggage.
- Hernia surgery. Sucks. Tendontis of the groin still happens to this day.
- Summer: the ABD team is fast. Josh Carter wins lots of races including the team's first stage of Superweek.
- August: I start taking care of Grandma. She was a trooper.
- October: Grandma passes. I return to L.A and hang up my ABD race director hat.
- November: Get to announce the ABD/GEARGRINDER Pro Development Team. Fast team of fun loving guys.
- December: Rosa's Dad has a heart attack and dies two days before Christmas. I'm in Oakland for the night with my family when we get the call. I catch a 4 AM flight to Phoenix followed by an 8 hour drive across the desert to Ojai, California. Jeff SanMarchi was a one-man show known as the Ojai & Ventura Voice, a biweekly newspaper that ran for 18 years. For a week or so I think about donning an Editor-in-Chief hat with Rosa's sister, Ana. After an exhausting 10 days we decide we're not passionate enough about Ojai's small town politics to do it justice.
And here we are, 2008. It's a big year, folks. It's an election year. I'm starting some new jobs. And although what I most like to do is ride a bike, I can't guarantee this blog will just be about bike racing. In addition to commentary on cycling, I like gadgets, tasting new beverages and have caught some election fever. Thus, I'm moving to ebertchecksin.blogspot.com . Maybe I should have renamed it to "Ebert Checks Out..."
Thanks for reading.
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