Tour of California

The 2008 Tour of California finished at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena this year. Just like every other day of this years Tour it was cold and rainy - so much for sunny So. Cal ;-)

We would not be deterred however and headed out to enjoy the race. We rode the last part of the course backwards up to Angeles Crest Highway and then headed back to the Rose Bowl. Specators were already starting to line up, and of course everyones joke as we came through was that we were leading the race, we even got cowbells to go along with the cheers.

Lead group - lap 2

Once back at the Rose Bowl we decided to put the bikes into the car, and put on dry clothes as we were soaked to the bone and would freeze once we stopped riding. As soon as we changed and walked back the lead group arrived with the Peloton a couple minutes back. The lead group was 9 riders initially but 4 of them got spit out the back and were engulfed by the peloton as a lone rider TT'd in the lead by himself for about 4 laps. At the final lap the 5 came back together and George Hincapi won it in a sprint.

Seeing them ride multiple laps around the Rose Bowl including some of the surrounding climbs in approximately 12 minutes really put into perspective just how fast these guys ride.

The Peloton lap 2

Lactate Test and Dr. John's B-day

On Saturday Kylie and I travelled down to San Diego to do the lactate testing I had gotten us for Christmas. A present only a true tri geek could love ;-)

The test was performed by Dr. John Martinez at his awesome new clinic Coastal Sports and Wellness. This clinic provides sports medicine, chiropractic, functional training and rehabilitation, computrainer spinning classes and more. If you are in the San Diego area, check it out.

We did our tests on the bike as this would provide us with information to use our new Powertaps more effectively. My lactate threshold turned out to be pretty close to where I thought it would be but I was disappointed in my V02 max as I feel like I wimped out and my legs kind of determined my max instead of reaching my actual aerobic capacity.

Kylie has done this testing before and was able to really push herself. Again her lactate threshold was close to where we thought it would be. She did very well on the Vo2 max test, scoring 52.something.

Afterwards I went for an hour bike ride while Kylie did some homework. One of our goals was to keep John at the clinic as long as we could as Laura was preparing for his suprise 40th B-day party.

As we were travelling along the 5 we passed him so when we got off at his exit we went into a side street and hid so he wouldn't see us. Once we got to his house we found out Laura had sent him to pick up their dog to delay him further.

He finally arrived and we had a great time celebrating with him, as well as meeting and hanging out with a bunch of great people.

We were planning to stay there that night but we both had a lot of work to do and were going to see the Tour of California finish the next day so we drove home that night so we could sleep in on Sunday morning.

Redlands Triathlon

Kylie and I raced the Redlands Triathlon today for the second time. What a difference a year makes - last year it was cold and rainy, today was beautiful and sunny with a high close to 80 degrees.

The Redlands Tri is a reverse order triathlon with a 5km run, an 8 mile bike and a 100 yard pool swim. This race last year was my first overall triathlon win in 15 years of triathlon. With the better weather there was a lot more people racing this year and it also brought out better competition.

After a year of ironman training and racing the speed of the 5km was tough right from the start. There was a 5km race at the same time so there was a few other runners up front to run with. I finished the run around 17:20. There was one triathlete ahead and a couple others came into transition with me.

I had a quick transition and headed out on the bike in chase of the the leader. The bike was draft legal and a couple guys caught me in the first mile. I had a short break behind them but they had let the pace slow so I pushed back to the front. Two of us cycled through and we caught the leader by the turnaround. Over the next lap and a half each of us tried once or twice to get away but it wasn't going to happen so the race would be decided in the water.

After the ride I had a quick transition and got to the pool first. I was able to add a few seconds to my lead during the swim and defend my race win from last year in 45:10!

Kylie had a great race as well. She was over four minutes faster than last year and broke an hour!



Here is a picture Kylie took as I came back from the podium.

Great Weather!

Last week the storm that brought us cold weather and a ton of rain dumped a ton of snow in the local mountains. Over the last couple days though the weather has really turned and we have had temperatures approaching 80 degrees.

I took advantage of the warm weather this afternoon and got in a 40 mile ride.

Here's a few pics of the local mountains and whats left of the snow.

STRESS

Feel completely wiped out today due to stress. I got a call from my immigration attorney yesterday afternoon that I had to get my entire application and payment together for my visa extension by this morning! That is a LOT of paperwork and it is NOT cheap :-(

Would have been nice to have more than 12 hours to deal with this.

Kylie's New Bike!

Kylie's new bike arrived at the office this morning, so we have a bike building "date" tonight.
She has heard me rave about my R3 since I got it, so now she will have one of her own (albeit a lot smaller) ;-)

Will post pics once it is all put together.

Now its 10 PM
and here it is:

Damn Rain!

Why does it have to rain on Sundays?

I have nothing against rain, I know we need it, and in fact sometimes I enjoy a good rain storm.

BUT, why can't it rain more on Tuesdays or something instead of every Sunday, which is the only time of the week I am able to get in a nice long bike ride?