Spent last night at my parents house in Sandy. Did a 10 mile run in the morning out 13th east to the park in Draper where the Draper days 5k starts. It was exactly 5 miles to the restroom and drinking fountain in the park. I made use of each and then back. I was surprised how many runners and bikers where out. I'm not used to seeing anybody on my runs. In the afternoon my wife and I took my brother from Texas over to watch the 4th stage of the tour of Utah. It's called the toughest stage race in the United States. It has a lot of the top racers in the world with quite a few of them fresh off the Tour De France. My brother is now in a wheelchair with MS. When he was 20 he was on the 7/11 cycling team that was the first US team to ride in the Tour De France. He and his team mate Frankie Andreu were the only 2 on the team that didn't get to go to France because they were the newest additions to the team. My brother [after being one of the top 2 junior cyclists in the country] was diagnosed with MS about that time and left the team to serve a 2 year mission. After returning he was not able to train at the same level and was not able to get back on the team. Frankie went on to ride in the tour many times including on all of Lance Armstrongs winning teams. Lance came to the same 7/11 team just after my brother was gone and just before it became the Motorolla team. It was awsome to watch and I enjoyed getting my brothers perspective on what was going on. It was an 11 lap race through the streets of salt lake on a 7 1/2 mile loop so we got to see them about every 16 or 17 minutes. We spent the first half watching from Capitol circle where they were coming downhill at 40 MPH and making a right then quick left turn without slowing a bit. It gave me chills the first time they came by so fast. The support vehicles had tires skidding and squealing around the corners to keep up. It was quite a production with dozens of lead cars and support vehichles and dozens of motorcycles and a helicopter filming the lead group. About halfway through we went over to the finish line by the capitol and saw the last few laps and finish from there. It was awesome.
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