In keeping with the tradition, we started last year, we are doing another New Year’s Letter to sum up 1997. Hopefully, when you finally receive this letter, the hectic holiday times will have passed and you will actually have time to read it!

The year started off great, work was going well for Uhl and Heather was planning on finishing up her Ph.D. in Microbiology. Well, life would be very boring if it always went as planned. Heather went to the Olympic Training Center in February but, towards the end of her stay, she started having a bad cough and chest pain. Unbeknownst to her, she was developing a bad case of pneumonia. She had to DNF (Did Not Finish) the Redlands Bicycle Classic, and fly home early. Heather spent the next two months sleeping 20+ hours a day.

From then on, it was a series of false starts on the road to recovery. Once she seemed to have regained her energy and the symptoms were gone the doctor would tell her she could train hard and race again. But once she did, the chest pain would come back and she would have to back off. The biggest scare came when a chest x-ray showed a solid mass in her left lung. Heather went to the hospital for a bronchoscopy. Once they went in and took some biopsies, they confirmed that it was tissue inflammation due to pneumonia.

Well, it wasn’t until October that her latest x-ray showed pneumonia had all but completely disappeared. Heather did manage to get a couple of good finishes at the few national races she did attend. She won a stage of the HP Women’s Challenge in Idaho and got 2nd at Hotter-n-Hell in Texas. Despite being home in Utah more than she was planning on, pneumonia didn’t let her achieve her academic goals either. She is now looking to finish her degree sometime in 1998. Uhl calls her “The Eternal Student”!

During this time, Uhl was still working for Intel at the American Fork site. In March, there was some bad news from Uhl’s side of the family. Ricardo Albert, Uhl’s brother, had taken his life after suffering through drug addictions and depression. Heather and Uhl flew out to New York, as did many other family members. Though the circumstances were not the greatest, it was nice to have all of Uhl’s family together in one place. Everyone was able to console and strengthen each other through this difficult time.

Once we returned to Utah, life was back to normal. Uhl did a lot of mountain bike racing during the summer and achieved his goal of not only getting one but two top-ten finishes in his category. With Heather’s season pretty much shot already, Uhl was able to persuade her into doing some mountain biking. In addition to doing a lot of riding on the local trails, we both took a four-day trip of the 100 mile White Rim trail down near Moab. The weather was perfect and the scenery was fantastic! We spent our Halloween camping under the stars.

For a change of pace, we went to Hawaii for Thanksgiving. We went to the island of Oahu and stayed in Waikiki. We went to the Polynesian Cultural Center to see their incredible night show. We also went snorkeling with sea turtles in Hanauma Bay. The beaches were beautiful and we ate great seafood at the local restaurants.

For Christmas, we headed back to New York. During this trip, we had more time to relax and visit with everyone. We did the New York City tour, hitting Chinatown, the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, Times Square and we even experienced the nightlife at Webster Hall. It was great to be able to spend more time with Uhl’s family and friends.

Hope you all had a great holiday and we wish you the best for the new year!