Early Years:

  During recess in grade school I was usually picked last and then told to not play because they were better off without me.

  I started swimming lessons when I was 5yo in the "Beginner" class. It took me about 5 years to advance out of Beginner. And 2 weeks to advance into the top class "Advanced". Something just clicked.

  When I was 11 it was determined that I had asthma (exercise induced asthma was not yet discovered). My parents put me in competitive swimming because Doctors believed asthma was a lack of understanding of how to breathe.

Swam in H.S. and College:

  I became a sprinter because I did not know that in addition to 'allergy induced asthma', it was not until the spring of 1999 that I understood that I also have 'exercise induced asthma'. I swam the 50 and 100 freestyle because they were short enough that I did not have to breathe. Neither the swim coaches or I ever connected the dots as to why late in a given workout I would be close to, sometimes faster than, school records at endurance distances. I was told my setting distance records was not meant to happen in competition.

  In High School I; was Co-Captian the year we were State Champions, and set some records.  And one year at the University of Iowa.  I left the University of Iowa swim team after one year because the team's Captain - Dave Anderson - gave what should have been my varsity letter jacket, to a friend of his who was not on the travel squad.

Iowa Swim Team 1975-76

  Swimming lead me to bicycle racing:

Bicycle Racing

    I raced Cyclocross, Road, and Track. Won some races along the way. And I was Pro (Road) for the 2000 season.

How did race videos happen to me?

    During breakfast before a stage of SuperWeek 1999, we got onto the topic of needing new videos to watch during winter indoor trainer rides. One thing lead to another and I decided I could make some new videos for us.

    A month later, in August 1999, I figured out a way to film a race, from on a bike in a race. GoPro several years before GoPro was created. The equipment I selected was the best, smallest, and lightest available in 1999. The camera, cables, batteries and camcorder weighted about 1½ pounds and could probably be crammed into a 6 inch square box.

    Late summer and the fall of 1999, I filmed about 60 workouts, including descending Waimea canyon on the island of Kauai, Hawaii which tested mounting the camera to my helmet (my helmet shifted during that ride). Shoulder mounting the camera on the end of a 2 foot pole was the best, but in a crash, that pole potentially could be a spear that could stab a fellow racer. Both the Golden and Bannock criteriums were filmed from a camera mounted on my bicycle's handlebar stem, with a shock absorber in between the camera and the stem.

    I sold several hundred copies at $29.95 each.