Oh yeah!

Another week has flown by.  It's tough to be positive when you're in the moment, but being really busy at work is mostly a good thing.  I'm thankful to have a good job at a great company.  The other news of the week was the flooded streets around here and spending a couple of my morning rides on the trainer.  I only got in HALF the ride time I would have been able to if I was outside, but it seemed like TWICE as long.  Both days I downed 2 bottles of water in 1 hour, and felt like I needed more if I could have stomached it - that's a lot of sweat!

A little fried from computers right now, so no more typing for me.  It's vacation time with family in the Texas hill country!

A few more glimpses of the week

Last chance to donate!

Another crazy week at work and now a very rainy weekend is forcing me to take some much needed extra rest before my new training block starts.   Riding in the rain I can handle when I need to.  Riding in the early morning dark is no problem.  But riding in the rain AND the early morning dark is a bit too much and I'll have to come up with something alterntative for tomorrow morning...

In other news World Bicycle Relief was featured in Barron's Magazine "Top 25 Givers" Article.  It's a pretty big deal to be mentioned in the same article as the Bill Gates Foundation.  "At last count, 71,416 of Day's bikes were on the roads and byways of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Tanzania, helping 702,080 individuals."

This week is the last chance to donate to my fundraising site - http://grassroots.kintera.org/active/pro  

50 - 16

Another busy work week is in the books.  Now we only have 2 weeks to go before the holidays!  It feels good to wrap-up my first training block during a busy time at work.  I've logged 3 consistent weeks of 45-50 hours worked and 16 hours ridden.  Most importantly I've had a lot of fun on the bike. 

The 3 week block wrapped up yesterday afternoon on Saddleback peak.  First we had to get to the peak and that ended up being a 2 hour, 4,000 foot climb in the 80 degree December heat.  Then at 3:12pm the alarm clock rang and the next 40 minutes was awesome downhill ripping to Cooks Corner.  My 178 average heart rate for a 40 minute downhill means the effort was ON the whole way down (including the few small climbs out).  The Downieville Classic DH is the only other course / effort I've done that compares.  Good times! 

The rest of my week looks like this...

 The view to my left 40-50 hours a week

And this is the drawer that keeps me going!

Busy Days

Time flies when you're having fun - or when you're really busy at work.  I just finished the Roger's Cup group ride / race and my legs are DONE.  I did a great 5.5hr mountain bike ride to Santiago Peak yesterday and had an awesome descent down Joplin, Old Camp, and the Luge.  It was an perfect way to start the weekend after a long week at work.  Today I decided to hit the Como Street group ride for my a couple short, hard efforts and otherwise spin easy...  Only once we were rolling I realized it was the Roger's Cup, which means a bigger group, faster group, longer route, and more pain for my legs.  I think the exact same thing happened last year and I ended up on the Roger's Cup without knowing then also.  I (barely) made it up Live Oak, over Cooks climb and through Santiago Canyon with big front group.  No sprinting for me though. 

Last weekends ride above Laguna!

Ryan Hall Interview

http://www.cornwallchurch.com/Media/SermonArchives/LifeisaMarathon/RyanHallInterview.aspx

Check out minute 32-38 for some pretty great insight on racing (or doing anything) with FAITH!

1 Thes 5:18

"Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Jesus Christ"

Long Days

There isn't much exciting to report here.  The last couple of weeks have been pretty dedicated to real world activities, which just aren't that interesting to write about.  We did go to the second showing of Race to the Sky last week and it was SOLD OUT.  I guess that's a good thing for mountain biking.  My interest level in doing Leadville is still at about a 1 out of 10.  Seeing the La Ruta stage 1 coverage yesterday was really interesting though and my interest level on that one has made it up to about a 5.  There's something intriguing when guys who race mountain bikes all year, repeatedly say this race is the hardest thing they've ever done...  Well I went running for 30 minutes last night and that was pretty hard.  I'm thinking about doing a mile for time, it shouldn't be too hard to get a PR since I've only run a mile for time once since high school. 

Sunday was a beautiful all day ride and Beth finished her first century!  I actually think we did 105mi and after being calm all day, the only wind we had was a headwind for the last hour, making the finish pretty tough.  Did I mention it was a beautiful day?  Overall we had a great time and it looked something like this:

Zion

Things have been good lately.  Work has been challenging, but I've been having some really good times also.  This past week was my last chance to do anything outside after work for the year, so I squeezed in 2 amazing sunset rides during the week.  Then I followed that up with a World Access for the Blind fundraising ride, run on the beach, and the san juan trial over the weekend.  Sure there was a big cross race going on in LA, but I don't feel like I missed out at all.  The previous weekened was our trip to Zion and we had an awesome time in an amazing place with Kath, Matt, Dee and Brett. 

Over the last couple weeks I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what I want my focus to be next year - which races - and WHY. The purpose and motivation behind my racing goals is more important than the goals themselves, so it's healthy to spend some time thinking those things through.

It's also nice to just get away from the race scene for a couple months and enjoy some other things in life - like Zion!

October

It's been nothing but more work and a couple chill weekends here.  Fighting (actually resting) a tough cold at the moment so I can be 100 percent for our long weekend to Zion coming up in a couple days here.  Only 1 ride in the past week has me anxious for some mountain biking, but that will have until after the Zion trip.  The photos pretty much cover what we've been up to...

 A solid 40hrs with this view

 Countless bars, this is a good one!

 Top of the world - my 1 ride for the week

 View on the way home - more of this to come with the time change

 Beth and her snacks

 Beth's friend Brenda's work on display in Laguna

Our Halloween runner

Off week

Off week from the blog - logging too much computer time as it is

World Bicycle Relief

Don't forget to give a few dollars if you can.  If you give $20 right now instead of getting dinner out tonight it will go a lot further than you think in creating opportunities for someone in Africa.

http://www.profundraiser.blogspot.com/

Tri

Beth had a really good day and took a solid win for her age group at the OC Triathlon Sunday!  It's a tough (hilly) international distance race and the course really shows who has it and who doesn't.  It was fun spectating for a change, especially T1 where hardly anybody knows how to get on their bike smoothly.  Beth is the type who trains all the time and only races occasionally, so it's especially cool to see her have a good result.  It's also good to realize that it's possible to just enjoy training and being fit even if you don't race often!  That's a little hard to understand for us cyclists, but probably a lot healthier lifestyle then feeling a need to race all the time. 

Things are staying busy at work and I'm up to about 2 1/2 weeks off the bike.  I was hoping to get some fun mtb rides in this week, but somehow strained my hamstring pretty bad over the weekend.  I don't even know what caused it.  Only about 3 weeks until time changes and then I'm not sure when I'll be able to ride during the week. 

At least I have a good one planned for Saturday...  If you're in the area come join us from the Quail Hill trail head at 8.  We'll hit a pretty cool route though Laguna Coast Wilderness and El Moro to the coast and back in about 25 miles and 3500 feet of climbing.  Tacos and beer to follow at Sharkeys...