Taxes!

While I was down in Boulder yesterday, I went to a tax seminar presented by Gretchen Reeves (current US Pro Women Marathon Champion, and generally kick ass racer). Gretchen is a licensed CPA, and she brought along a tax lawyer friend. Together, they gave some great insight into how to essentially get the government to subsidize my racing. I have to claim all I get from my sponsors as income (as a self employed individual), and then I can deduct all my expenses, which in addition to things like travel, food, entry fees, and equipment, I can also include things like gym memberships, massages, and other training related expenses. I might even start an LLC (limited liability company) to offer myself some legal protection. The main thing I came away with, though, was that there is a lot of gray area with filing taxes as a self employed individual. It all comes down to the amount of risk you're willing to live with. Also, there is a lot of record keeping to be done.
Cool stuff!

Team in training

Yesterday was another day spent down in Boulder with my teammates on Colavita Olive Oil/Cooking Light. We stepped up the intensity on our ride to near race pace at some points, and it was good to find out that most of my teammates are going strong, and were able to push me a lot. The only bad moment from this excellent ride, was when one of the Ryans (we've got 4 of them) on our team did his best impression of Bode Miller, and went down in a turn coming down from Jamestown. Luckily, it was a turn with a dirt parking area, which saved him from slamming into a guard rail or going over a cliff. All in all, he only got some road rash and some minor damage on his bike, so he was lucky. Later, a few of us went over to his house to watch some of the Tour of Colifonia (trying to do my best Governator impression in writing is hard), so I had a chance to hang with some of my boys off the bike, and that was nice. Kinda sucks that I live an hour away.
This last week was a good change from the previous week, weather wise (daytime temps around 0 deg. vs. in the 50's). The snow has been slow to melt though, until today, that is.



This was a Sat morning "storm" (overcast and cold). Today, just over 48 hours later, almost all that snow is gone due to it getting up to about 70. It doesn't get this warm in Feb too often around here. I'm looking forward to riding this week.

1620 Minutes and Still Counting

As you can tell, my blogging has been sparse as of late. Occupying my time most recently was a 27 hour training week, which was a new personal best. The nice part was that I felt great after doing the 5 hour ride that capped off that week. I think I am coming into some good form. Enough of that though.
It is also that time of the year to be completing sponsorship orders, and I am scrambling to figure out what gear I will be riding in the coming months. Finally, on top of that, I am trying to make a little money doing my Ebay Trading Assistant thing. Ain't nothing like helping other people get rid of their crap. It's pretty busy, but I wouldn't have it any other way.