Los Gatos

Today I finally rode... er rode most of, the Los Gatos route. Steep doesn't begin to describe the hill on Los Gatos. My Garmin registered greater than 25% grade! It was so steep I was really struggling with keeping the front tire on the ground while standing and putting everything I had into it.

It kicked my butt, I wound up walking a short distance.

Here is a profile...



I hope to go back and try again, maybe I will try it on my mountain bike. Yes it is that steep!

Training Fast Forward

This is the first time I have ever trained with such consistency. Following in my wife's footsteps, I have been putting in crazy amounts of saddle time.

The craziest thing about all the training, working, life... is that when you fill up all the time in the day that you possibly can the days go into this wild fast forward haze. I guess it doesn't help any that I have been busy at work, but I have been busier than this before.

Lately I have been squeezing in two daily workouts as much as possible. Riding for an hour or so at lunch, then jumping on the trainer in the evening at home. Of course weekends always have the 2-4hr rides both days, I look forward to them all week long!

So the Training Fast Forward is not so good for keeping up with blog entries or stuff like that. The good news is that hopefully next year I will have some good post race blog entries about getting my butt kicked by a bunch of girls on pink bikes with baskets on the handlebars. :)

In the mean time, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. See you on the road/trails!

I suck.

I have been dropped by the cyber peleton!!!

I can't keep up.

Just like when I get dropped while riding (with fast people, or in a race, or by my wife, or by someone's grandma) I will scramble to keep up and blow myself to smithereens. It has to be a pitiful sight: me gasping for breath, snot running from my nose, drooling on my top tube, sweat pouring down.

Here goes..

Training has been going great! I got in like 7 solid weeks!

Went on an awesome ride on Saturday, destroyed HJ, MDTT, and UHJ. Strongest I have ever been on two wheels.

Ruined all the training with 4 days on the road for work. Had fun, ate horrible, didn't sleep.

Tonight was my first ride back. I suffered. Couldn't manage my HR and nearly blew chunks.

Thats all I got.

Bootleg

We got up and driving before the sun.



I ran out of gas (not the truck, me) and had to hand over driving to Allison for a bit.



Once we finally got there, the fun started. Shuttle truck was a little cramped, but it is a small price to pay.



Bootleg has such awesome trails and features. I had a blast out there and tried some new (to me) trails like Kavorkian. Next time I hope to clean all of that one.



All day out riding... I get back to the truck and I have this waiting for me! :)

(Late edit: the wife didn't want to share... sorry guys)

We have this little tradition, it involves consuming Tequila.



Once again up with the sun, the lake view from the hotel is pretty sweet!



We loaded up into the shuttle truck over and over and over...



And I fixed flats over, and over, and over.



The riding was great!

When you figure out a good thing, I feel you should keep at it. :)



The last day was a short one, and I hadn't really ridden with the wife all weekend (save for two quick DH runs). The XC trails out there are just as good as the DH and we had a blast.



Of course after all that fun it was time to pay the piper. We sat in traffic for almost 9 hrs to get home. The riding was great though. If we do this again we need to stay another night and try to miss some of the traffic!



Lots of fun was had with some real good friends. Back to riding the road bike and training. :)