To the beach!

I went through that whole process of packing up all my bags again tonight. Fortunately, this time around wasn't nearly as painful as when I left Boulder. This time I don't have 75 things to eBay, an extra bike, and a car. I sent my car back with my coach, Rick Crawford, so that I can just travel with the team van and won't be burdened with my own gas guzzler. My teammates and I will be leaving Tucson at 7 am. Our destination: the beach. Our next house is in Oxnard, CA and is right on the beach... I can't wait! I'll be staying there for about two months, with a couple weeks in March somewhere else racing.

Here's a link to a satellite image of where we're staying:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=140+Los+Angeles+Avenue,+Oxnard,+CA&t=k&ll=34.149144,-119.216343&spn=0.002189,0.006738&t=k

Is lying on the beach a good way to recover from a hard ride? I don't know, but I think I'm going to find out. I'm not sure if it'll be quite as warm as it's been in Tucson, but it'll still be way warmer than what I'm used to in Colorado.

Today was officially the last day of my rest week. I spent it off the bike and about four hours of it at the book store trying to find the perfect book. I just finished 1984, which was really good. I have the "Da Vinci Code" right now, but I just haven't felt the desire to read it, even though it’s so incredibly popular. Instead I bought the first book of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series called "Gunslinger". I've always been a science fiction and fantasy dork, and I like Stephen King, so I think it should be good. This kind of book is good for bedtime reading because it puts me to sleep and give me cool dreams. I also bought more of an intellectual read, titled “The Fabric of the Cosmos” by Brian Greene. I figure since I’m not in school for awhile, I’d better keep my mind in shape and read something that’ll make me think and learn a little.
a

Century w/45 miles on dirt + 7 flats = EPIC

The end of my rest week is approaching, and I’m not sure if I‘m quite ready for it to end.
I spent the first few days sleeping, getting caught up on stuff, and watching old people play golf in our back yard. Yeah, we live on a freakin’ golf course!!!


I was starting to feel fully rested by about Wednesday, but then yesterday, I couldn’t resist the temptation to join my teammates for an epic. I’m not sure if I can even call it an epic though, because compared to a lot of the rides that I’ve been doing this year, it’s just like any other day. The thing that did make it epic however, was the 45 miles of dirt/jeep roads that we rode. Now if I were to take the ol’ MTB out there on these roads, it would’ve been a piece of cake. But 120 psi and 700x23 tires, made the downhills sketchy and fun… I got that high speed dirt lovers on the edge of your chamios fix that I’ve been craving from all the asphalt I’ve been on lately. Yes, my MTB friends, as I was shredding those dirt roads on my road bike, I felt a bit nostalgic and was dearly missing my mountain bike.

I guess this “es un muy popular” place to cross the border. My Canadian teammate Dustin en route through a hot smuggling route for illegal immigrants.

Not only did those skinny tires make the descents hairy, they also pinch flatted on just about every rock they hit. I think we totaled about 7 flats between the four of us. Wes took the prize for the most with four, and Dustin was the only one not to pinch a tube. All those flats caused quite the delay and put us pretty behind schedule. So once we finally hit the pavement again, about 50 miles from home, we got into formation and rode in a paceline (TTT style) full-on. I felt like I was back with my collegiate mates killing it during TTT practice. It also showed me how strong the rest of these guys are. We haven’t really gone out and hammered together yet until yesterday, and all three of these guys (Frank Pipp, Wes Hartman, and Dustin MacBurnie) have got some horsepower… that’s pretty damn motivational for me.

Today we put on a clinic for TargeTraining. We basically rode slow with some weekend warriors and talked training and racing, and tried to share our knowledge. We’ll do another one tomorrow… it’ll be fun.

I’m only in Tucson for a few more days, and then I’m off to Oxnard, CA for some more training to get ready for the first race at the end of February in Sonora, Mexico.

Cheers.

Base is done, let's eat pie.

I finished my last day of base today. Like I had planned in my last post, I rode up Mt. Lemon which I consider to be the best ride in Tucson. I was a little off in my estimate of mileage and elevation gain, it’s more like a 25 mile climb and about 5000 feet of elevation gain… still huge. Before I started up the climb, I rode down on the flats for about 2 hours.

From Tucson, Mt. Lemon looms in the distance.

By the time I got to the base of the climb, my water bottle was only half full… big mistake. I got about halfway up the climb and was completely out of water. I was already feeling the dehydration draining my power and boosting my heart rate. The only place to get water was the café at the top of the mountain. I got the café and downed a couple bottles of water. To celebrate successfully making it through the hardest and by far the highest volume month of base in my life, I bought some of the famous pie that the café is well known for. One slice of pie cost $6.50… it was worth every penny. What’s pie without a little joe to wash it down?

Well, after all that pie and coffee I was recharged and ready for more, the only thing about that was that I now had about 25 miles of descending and it was cold up there. I made it down without getting too cold, and felt like I was ripping the descents. The more I ride that decent, the faster I go, and the more fun it gets. The views are spectacular up there too; I actually stopped on the way down to try to get a shot of the best part of the decent. This section of the road skirts across a ridge which drops off on both sides, it's pretty amazing.

Out and Back

Hell yeah, another huge day in the bag. I peddled my bike another 125 miles today for six hours. I was pretty much on the gas the whole time. The music selection of the day: ambient beats, haven’t listened to those in a while. I started it off with some AIR and then changed it up to some Café del Mar. It turned out to be excellent desert riding music. DJ Niko (Gould) may disagree, but he is the Master of Beats and a damn good DJ. I heard his latest album last week and holy shit I’m impressed!! DJ Niko will spin all night and still race your legs off the next day.

Today’s route was another out and back. I rode up Oracle road a little beyond Mammoth and flipped it. I’ve only got one more day of base left tomorrow; I think I’ll finish this phase with the best ride in Tucson, Mt. Lemon. This ride climbs about 6500 feet in about 35 miles. It’s a pretty gradual climb and is incredibly beautiful. The scenery is constantly changing as you climb. I’ll try to bring my camera this time, and get some eye candy up for you. I haven’t been bringing it lately because I’ve only got so much room in my jersey pockets, and I have a tough time stopping when I’ve got it pinned. But since tomorrow’s my final day of base I will try to take some pictures.

Well that’s all for now… time to stretch.

Desert Solitude

The last ride that I wrote about put me into more of a deficit than I had expected and I could barely ride my bike the next day. I still ended up putting in about 4 hours, but 2 or none at all probably would have been the better move. I ended up going out that night with the intention of having dinner and checking out the night life a little, and to come home by midnight at the latest. It didn’t end up working out that way though and I was out until 2 am. With my poor levels and lack of sleep, I decided that a day off was needed. I was able to get caught up with everything off the bike (ebay, packing MTB, etc.)

I rode alone out to kitt peak and back today… it was 128 miles total. I think this is the furthest I’ve ever ridden in my life. On the way home I past about 50 stopped cars on the main road (Ajo road). At the front of this traffic jam there was a bunch of cop cars an ambulance and a helicopter. An 80-something year old man hit a cyclist. His story was that the cyclist just out of nowhere, pulled out onto the road in front of him. I have a feeling that this is a bullcrap, and that the old man swerved into the shoulder. Hopefully the cyclist comes out ok, and the old guy that hit him will have to pay dearly. I had to sit there for a while until the cops let me by so I ended up getting home late and had to ride through Tucson at night… that’s a bit scary… lots of fast cars.

Well, I’m tired and I gotta go to bed so I can do it again tomorrow.

Good night.

Puttin' in the miles

Oh man, am I tired. My volume is incredibly high right now. I’m supposed to do a 36 hour week this week… that means 6 hours a day for six days… I’ve already taken my rest day. I rode alone today and logged in 126 miles. Sometime around hour 5.5 I started thinking about how different my daily life is from your average Joe, Dick, or Jane. While I’m struggling to pin my HR at 145 BPM for 6 hours, the majority of the population probably won’t even touch this during the day. I don’t really think most people understand how much training, hard work and dedication goes into this sport… especially when I get either honked at or buzzed by about 10 cars a day. I think I started losing my mind a little too towards the end when I caught myself pointing out glass in the shoulder even though I wasn’t riding with anyone. Well, I’ve only got four more days of base, then I start my rest week, then I get to begin transition.

I’m already starting to think about my first race coming up. I’m scheduled to do Vuelta Sonora which is at the end of February/beginning of March down in Mexico. This race should be pretty sweet… I think its 6 or 7 days long. It’ll be a good way to kick the season off and to bring on some form. I can’t wait to start racing again!

Tonight, I’d love to be able to sit on the couch and watch mindless television all night, but I just sold my MTB so I gotta make sure that it’s all dialed, and then pack it up.

Time to motivate and try to be productive.

My new job

I’m back. It’s been hard to motivate to write on the blog these last couple weeks, my life has been all about readjustment. I’m finally feeling readjusted enough to share my thoughts. I’m living a completely new lifestyle now, where all that really matters to me is training and racing… I absolutely love it. I don’t really have to think or worry about anything else… except of course the 70+ things I posted on ebay. About those… half of them went up for auction and finished last week and the other half are up for auction right now. I made a butt load of money, but, I also spent a ton of time (my entire rest day) packaging that stuff up and I’ve made a lot of trips to the post office.

I gotta tell you, my life is awesome down here. The weather is beautiful (sunny and mid-70s everyday) and I’m just riding a ton and spending time with my new teammates. The team is awesome, I feel so lucky that I’m on this team. I know for a fact that we’re going to be a very strong presence at all the NRCs this season. A lot of the guys on the team don’t have the experience of a lot of the other pro team, but with the level of management, and coaching that this team has, our success is inevitable. Now that I’m not in school, my training load is massive, 5 to 6 hours a day. I'm usually pretty famished at the end of these rides and head straight for the kitchen with the rest of my riding partners to consume an enormous amount of calories.

Well, that’s all for now, people want to go to bed and I don’t want to keep them up by banging on the keyboard. I’ll try to be a little more consistent with my posts from now on.