Prep Week One - Done!

Started the prep part of training for 2010 this past week. I started it off similar to last year by racing the 12 Hours of Temecula, only this year I didn't race solo! Rediscovered just a tad little bit of the speed I'd had in the late summer for a lap or so.

Sunday we did an easy spin down to a local market to pick up some local veggies, fruit, and meat. Wednesday I did my first revised schedule at work, and took off in the afternoon for a few hour ride! It was really windy on the way back, got cold, and was almost dark when I got back, but it was cool! Looking forward to more of those, for sure. Thursday was back in the gym for some mega strengthening, and then I had some sweet weekend riding with my 2nd favorite training partner, Luke.

My favorite riding partner was over in OC taking the MSF motorcycle course to get his certification. The knees are still not doing so well. We tried dual-action Cho Pat straps, which do help the pain some, but they haven't solved the issue(s) yet. *le sigh*

I dropped Justin off at school early yesterday morning and then DROID told me how to get up to Cooks Corner. Sweet. Luke and I (it was entirely my fault) had a meet spot fail, so once I realized around 9:10 that he was at the nature center, not at Cooks, I rolled out in chase. He got up into cell range about a mile or so up Harding, got my text messages, and met me near the bottom after I'd climbed Modjeska. We set a pretty good spin pace up the climb and chatted the whole way.

Ran into Ann and Andy on the way, in chase of OMR and Gene, who were in chase of Clinky and Maxwell et al. It was great seeing everyone out there.

I hadn't climbed Harding literally in about 3 years. Justin and I climbed it once on our first half century as we were training for Counting Coup. We'd climbed up ITT, traversed over either Holy Jim or Trabuco, and tried to go through O'Neill (wound up climbing Live Oak) over to Harding and started climbing that around 25 miles in to our day. I could barely pedal for 15 yards without stopping to stretch my lower back, and Justin kept downing Tums tablets to try to break up the cramps in his legs. We got up to Upper Holy Jim just as the sun was setting, and I turned on our only light as we descended. It was a long cold trip back down ITT in the dark, and I'd never been so happy to see the truck as that day!

This trip up was quite a bit different. No running out of daylight, no back pain! The climb does go on for ever (it's around 12 miles or so from the bottom up and over to Joplin), but then you're almost home free with LOTS of descending and grinning!

I was all by myself...







After Luke "found" me we climbed nice and steady





It got COLD up at Main Divide!

Ran into some familiar faces



Droppin' in



Luke was nice enough to play photographer for me!



Don't forget to breathe!



Way off line... I was committed until then, though.

We were cruising pretty good down Joplin when Luke came up with a flat. D'oh! It's ok, we're used to it riding with Justin.



We got down to Old Camp, took a short break, then continued down STT. Luke's front tire was getting low again, so after a quick pump-up we kept going, until he was getting rim strikes!



Weather was better when it was sunny than when it wasn't!



After the ride I hung out a bit with Ann and Andy, and left early to go pick up Justin from moto school.





Sunday we got up early so Justin could head back to OC. I spent the morning cleaning house (yay!) and then met up with Luke for a pretty short road spin on the flats in town before we parted ways to watch the Chargers/Broncos game.

Stoked on my weekend! Short week coming up, so awesome.

Labor Day Weekend

On Friday, Luke mentioned that he would've enjoyed sitting on a patio with some Spanish white wine, so when I stopped by the store on the way home, I picked some up! Sounded like a good idea.





Looking back, I probably should've added some non-vegetable, non-alcoholic carbs into that meal!

I'll be honest: this weekend didn't really turn out as planned. I had some weird delusions of hitting up some massive volume and good riding for the 3 days we had off.

For Saturday, Justin needed to pick up some parts at The Path, and also get his fork looked at, so we knew we had to head over to OC. We planned to do another dawn-ish ride on the road to start out the weekend right with 2.5 or so hours of riding on the flats.

NOT the breakfast of champions...



Right away my heart rate was skyrocketing with the smallest of efforts. Since we had another ride planned, I was trying to take it easy, but my body wasn't really cooperating. I just didn't feel that great.

Sky sure was awesome, though







We did manage to get in some mileage and a few short efforts, but turned around early. Got back home, and Justin cooked up some delish breakfast burritos!!



I felt a little better after eating, and eventually we headed out the door, with the plan to ride the Luge in some way shape or form once we had taken care of some errands.

View of the fire from THE 91



We got the bike shop stuff done, picked up some necessities, checked out the new Stumpy HT Comp (sweet bike, actually), and then headed south to Oakley. Justin wanted them to check out the cracks that are ever increasing on his Flak jacket prescription lenses (I just noticed a new crack in my left lens as well - sucky since it's around 7 BUSINESS days to be without sunglass vision). We also got some new "flair" - different Earsocks!





It was hot out over there, especially at 3~ pm. We suited up in the crazy heat anyway and headed out to do Whiting - Luge. We had planned on maybe doing an O'Neill - Whiting - Old Camp route, but that was a bit too much for me!

We saw four hikers and one other mountain biker on the entire route, and not much wildlife! Pretty much just hot and dry out there.



Mustard was hot and tough, but we hit it pretty hard anyway, and I was putting in some efforts, but the power was coming and going! I likened it to the waxing and waning of the moon. I'd charge a section and feel great, and then the next short rise have nothing left.



I was pretty stoked to be hitting up the Luge again, since it's been almost a year.







It had felt pretty good to get out on the mountain bike afterall, but I was definitely fatigued post-ride!

Since Justin was grilling up some carne asada for taco's, we decided to open our last beer.



Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous... the chronical







Dinner!



We weren't really sure if we should spin on Sunday or just kick back. I wanted to at least get out on the bike in some semblance of a ride. So, we left the house later in the morning and set out on about an hour regen ride. At the turn off street, we both agreed to get a little more volume and head around the lake. Sounded like a good idea at the time!



It doubled the ride time (as I knew it would), and we both wound up running out of energy on the way home. Luckily we had about a buck fifty, so once Justin scrounged together the extra change we were able to purchase a 12 fl oz Pepsi can (seriously, everything else was too much $$). That got us home!

We had some post-ride fuel, got prepped, and headed south to see Justin's sister and cousin, hit up REI, and stop by La Jolla to see the sea lions.

It was gorgeous down there at the coast!





We got home pretty late, so didn't get much done, but were both able to prep for Monday's planned ride: Idyllwild! I warned Luke that I wasn't sure I'd be physically up for 3-4 hours, but we were going to head up and see what we could do anyway.

Once in the lot, we realized that there were a ton of people out pre-riding for the 24 hour event in a few weeks, so we decided to cut out the first part of the course (climbing the 24 hour course descent) and just headed out on course. I was pushing, but feeling ok, and only fell off the pace of Luke and Justin a little on the early climb.





I was pretty stoked to *finally* clean the rock wall



We rode some singletrack, hit up some fire road climbing… and generally had a really good time. It was just what I needed; singletrack stoke and no masses!

























Since it was Labor Day, yet another American grilling holiday, I had picked up some ground sirloin and sweet potatoes from the store so Justin could grill up some good American cookin'!

For those of you that like to see Justin's meat, you'll have to check back later! I left the pics on the camera :)

All in all, the weekend worked out pretty good. It wasn't as fruitful as either of us hoped, but we got in some solid bike time, a little beach time, and tried to rest up. Taking the day off hoping we can get back to it tomorrow!