First, apologies. I have been shirking my responsibilities as a blogger and have been devoid of content for posts but to be honest, I have not been all that inspired these days. I get in front of the keyboard and...nothing. Thoughts are uninspiring, Food is devoid of taste. I'm just crusty these days I guess.

Losing Darren in May was hard. Shortly thereafter, hearing my dear friend and team mate Joe Il Campione is going to face and man-handle the Type B Non-Hodgkin's out of him was staggering. Finally a week later learning my father is facing a tough battle with the cancer that has made its home in his pancreas and liver was all I could handle.

But I get to handle it. I'm alive and healthy and I'm needed.

What is needed of me is to close my eyes and think and pray and look ahead and live and communicate that life. And within that burning hope, be able to continue to communicate it with truth and conviction to those that will likely want to look into my eyes and try and find it as worlds are crumbling around. I am blessed to support those I love and do so with an intensity that causes a demonstrable pain in me when I focus on this love I need to share. Was born to share. The effort to create and communicate hope must be boundless and it is a deeper energy that any bike race can ever strain you with.

I'm scared for all of the families and individuals facing these roads. What's being faced is anyone's nightmare. And as spoken about before, the bravery witnessed is blinding and somewhat shameful in an odd way. In a way that questions whether if I were faced with like conditions, if I'd be as brave.

So I sit and think on it all.

I never anticipated writing any of this. I desperately want to write about cross and bikes and racing and all the fun that it entails. I'm the Lab with his tail always wagging. The wagging has stopped for now as the gravity of things applies its necessary weight and I am there to support it.

And I'll continue to look ahead.