New ride route

When I see this picture I think of a watermelon for some reason









I find it hard to find new routes here in Monterey county without having to drive about an hour south or north of my house. So I decided to ride over to East pinnacles and take the sinic route on the Santa cruz Blur. It eneded being 6.5 hours long. When i got the Pinnacles park i hit a trail that headed south(bikes prohibited) on a very unused trail I knew this trail ended up to the back side of Topo Ranch. 50,000 acres big, all to myself. Well except for the cow here and there. I think Im the only moun tain ever to ride this ranch. I was also suprised I didn't see one deer.

After another weekend out of town I am really missing being home. But on the other hand it has given me different areas to ride the bike. This weekend was spent in Placeville. I really like that area. A lot of hills and scenery. Really close to tahoe. Well thats all I got.

I was thinking about how all these bloggers wright and post pictures everyday. I wonder how they do that. It's tuff more me. It seems that my blog suffers a lot.

Well its time to get a plan together for racing 2008. I have some good news and will post about it as soon as I get everything together. I will say it calls for out of state races, thats all Im going to say though intel its finalized.

Fall is here

So I went to Woodland, my home town,over the weekend. Its always nice to go somewhere different to ride. Although its very flat in Yolo County. But I get to check out all the old fishing grounds where I grew up casting my shimano real. Know Im turning circle with my shimano gear.
Im glad fall is here. This time of the year my bike rides are so slow even grandma could pass me on the road. Well not that bad but it feels like it. Just now power!

Spent 4 hours in the rain on Saturday and not once did I think about turning around. All my training know is do what I feel like. Like this morning, I felt like sleeping in and I did. If I don't feel like working out i don't. Although I hope this don;t come to work against me starting next season. I here people do this but it's all knew to me. I use to just hammer all the time any time of the year. It has worked well for the last few years but I feel I need something different. Maybe get back to putting the shimano toy's in my hand on not clipped into it with my feet.

Can't get enough of wild life in the country

I bet you didn't think Soledad could produce scenes like this.

Things are looking good again to be pain free in my knee finaly. I went for a three hour mtb ride last night after work and it didn't hurt after words. I still feel a little tingle every once in while but getting a lot better. I don't plan on testing it at this piont though, or do anyspeed work, or a 10,000 feet bike rides. But I will keep thing going they way they are, just steady and what ever I feel like without to any pressure.

Vacation Time

So for our vacation this year we decided to pack up the RV ( recreational vehicle) and head to Yosimite for a week. We stayed at Indian Flat RV park, next to Merced River off HWY 140. It was 9 miles from the main gate to the park entrance. The closest place I could find with full hook ups. It seemed to take almost all day to get there after stopping for grociers and last minute stuff. But we arrived on Friday evening to a nice big river and a lot of pines tree's. Yosimite Valley was awesome, so many hiking/running trails and all altitude. The Yosimite floor was at 4000' elevation. But everywhere we went would top out at 9000'. SO most morning I would ride to where we were going and the wife would meet me there so we could walk around and do some sight seeing. The views were just incredible. One day we went to Galcier Piont. It over looked the Valley floor. You were standing in front of Half Dome and El Capitan mountain.



This is pic of the first long ride while I was there. It ended up being 4 hour ride. And I never got out of the small ring up front. This was the ride to glacier piont. Started out at 3500' elevation and toped out 9000'. Talk about oxigen deprivation








This picture was on top of half dome. I ran up to the back side and climbed to the top. It was 4 hour long run. I was totally wiped out after that for 4 day's. All I could to was hoble the next day.

This was the Vernal waterfall on the way back.

Where did all the motivation go?

Seems like my training is frozen in time. Cant seem to find it anywhere to do anything extraordinary or exiting. The motivation just isn't there. No I'm not lazy! Well maybe a little. Okay dammit a lot lazy these day's. Feels like hibernation time has come. I am looking forward to the first rain ride. Maybe even another snow ride this year if nature so intend to so.

So last night all I could muster up was 14 jars of home made Grape jam. About wore me out. I wonder if I can consider it a recovery workout. Smashing grapes is no walk in the park! I think I went anaerobic a couple of times:) I'll have to wear my heart rate monitor next time.

year 2007 overview

As I think about everything that has happend this year (2007) in a perspective of how my perfomance and or life living has gone. Ealry in the years I had set goals of where I wanted to be.

1. Be a good husband
2. Win some races
3. Get in shape
4. loose some weight
5. Not get hurt
6. Be finatiolly sound at the end of the year. (basically dont be broke )

Allthough I ran thru some tuuf points thru out the year with physical burn out. It happend after my second 24 hour attempt this year in June. I just couldn't seem to get it together training wise. I just couldn't seem to finish any of my key workouts and began to de progress on my fitness at one point. Its real hard to keep a high volume week after week without the proper rest. Although it deosn't stop me from trying. Although I am getting better at doing more low intensity stuff. And that means not hitting hard every work out all year. I had good results in the beganing of the year with all low heart rate stuff.

The reason I wright about it know is that sometimes it takes me a while before I can look at the situation open minded without being to emtional or rational about it. When I have a bad day I always feel like I have to make up for it someway or another to justify or top make me feel better.
I'm very thankful for having a loving and supportive wife. She encouranges me all the time and gives me great support in my training and racing.

I'll write more later

Dinner is served.

Looks like hunting season is officially over for me. I think this Buck might be my biggest one yet. 5 shot's later. The damage was done. 2 missed shot, 2 broken legs. And a neck shot that went through his head and out his ass...lol

The best part was dragging him out of the canyon. Talk about max aerobic workout:)

Can you say Buck Burger!!!

This is what I've been doing in my off Time.

Sing alone with me..

you grab a line and I'll grab a pole hunny

you grab a line and I'll grab a pole babe

we all go down to the fishing hole

hunny babe and puppy!...dueet de deeee

We have puppy sun bathing, yes that is life vest on the dog (hilarious I know), and a smoking 120 horse power force engine in the back ground to push us around the lake at 40+ MPH

The deer were laughing at the puppy in the with the life vest on.

Here's what the deer were saying "Look at that Mom!, is that a bullit proof vest the dog is wearing, We got to get one of those for Daddy"

Here kitty kitty

Last night I am going to consider my official ride back to training again. I rode for 2 hours an although my knee started to hurt some I would off kept going if the temperasture didn't drop so much climbing up Gloria grade. I had arm and knee warmers on but after sweating some I got cold quick. So decided to turn back and go home. It was good long enough ride to know Im feeling better day by day. Even got up at 4 am to train for 2 hours before going to work. Did 1 hour running and 1 hour gym work. Feels good to be going back to training. ALthough it has been nice doing other stuff.

Only a few more day's left of deer season. I got 1 buck early in the season, lucky I guess. Becasuse I have been going regularly with no luck.

Days are fying by

It seems the day's are flying by now that it get dark early. I have'nt been much traing at all. I might of rode my bike a few times in the last few weeks. It is a well needed brake. The first week was tuff not riding, hell even the second week was tuff not riding. But After 5 years of hiting real hard Im tired. And I dont want to get burned out like I hear happens to a lot of endurance athlete's. Although I dont think that will happen, I like to ride to much. I have been constintly thinking of trainig and racing a lot, too much? Maybe. But its what I like to do. Plus you cant get good by sitting on your ass! But it has been hard these few weeks just chillin and doing other things. It's been good catching up on a lot of things and getting ready to train again. Its hard to turn the mind of and chil out for me. I just cant seem to sit still long enough. I can only managa about 10 minutes of doing nothing before I explode, I have always been that way. I have to be doing something. I will start up again in the next few day's. I might have one more race in me.

Fore Sale

2005 Santa Cruz Blur LT

Full XTR components

Disc Brakes

Recovery

It's only been a week since the 24 race and Im feeling real good. Not only physically but mentally about the outcome. I did my best I could on that day and look forward to racing again. I know Im recovering good because I already want to start riding and training again. Again thats good for me. I did a three hour ride on Sunday and still have a lot of fatigue in the legs but felt good otherwise. I wasn't breaking any records out there just cruzing. I did some thinking on pacing and where mty heart rate was during the first hours of the race. Its so hard to look at my abilityi of what I can do and what I should be doing. I felt it was real high, a lot higher than I wanted it to be. Did it hinder my performance come early m0rning? who knows, there are so many variables. But I think it did have some effect on me.

24 hours of Adrenilan Worlds Race Recap

Well it's finally over. And another 24 race in the books. I would have to say this was one of the most difficult races I have ever done on a bike. The temperatures were in the hundreds. People were dropping like flies out there. Even the elite riders were DNF. People were dehydrating only after 2 or 3 laps and stopping.

On these longer races I will tapper longer than normal. So I took about two weeks too get ready. In those two weeks I had low volume and very little intensity's. By noon on Saturday the temps were already in the 90's and climbing. I tried to start out slow but my heart rate went sky high the first few laps. I tried to get it down but there just wasn't enough cruising section to do that. I stayed focus on the job at hand, fuel hydrate and be smart. After the first few laps I caught Natt Ross. Witch shocked me, my first thought was I must be going to hard. So once I caught him I stayed with him until my derailleur shattered and my chain snapped in half. By the time I got going again he was gone and never seen Natt again until he passed me at 6 am the next morning. The first few laps are always tough for me. Then things will mellow out. But not this time. The temps were so hot it was hard to get enough fluids and calories without getting sick. But I managed to keep a constant 500 calories an hour the hole time. And tones of fluid. But in the end it just wasn't good enough for a top ten. Instead I came in 16th overall in the Elite Division. I'm very proud of that and will take it.

I want to thank my one and only Amanda (my wife) for all the help and support. My Mom's and Dad's. And my Aunt Nita for the cheers. And a big thanks for Chuck Martin for wrenching on the bikes. It wouldn't be possible without all of you. Thank YOu!

And a big thank you to all my sponsors: Santa Cruz Bikes, Granite Construction, Smith Optics, Hayes Disc Brakes, Fiberwise Pasta, Carb Boom, Sock Guy, and Fox Shoks. You guys all have awesome products that have help me get great results.

Taper in progress!!

Thanks amigo for the push to post.

So the last few day's have been nice, just chill'n. But before that I was putting in some good weeks of training, did a lot of climbing through out the week. I was putting in about 25000 feet a week, just to get ready for all the climbing for the race. Know that the body is all good to go and all the fatigue is gone I think Im ready to kick some ass at the 24 hour race this weekend. I feel good and ready. There will be a lot of good compition there but my only fear is myself really. I say that because it's usually myself thats kick's my own ass. So I have to keep a level head and stay in my own zone. If I can do this and keep it steady and strong intel day break the next day I will be in a good spot. Where that will be? Who knows. But as long as I can finish the race and finish healthy I'll be good with that.
The wife and I talk last night about nutrition and what I wanted to eat and what drink mix did I have in mind. I am going to be aiming for 3000-600 calories an hour is my goal. Mix it up with Carb Boom Electrolite mix, SPiz, and energy bars, chips, coke, and what ever else sounds good. I have a plan to have pancakes and eggs early morning. I will try to stay mostly liquid for the first 4-8 hours being that my intensity is real high and its hard to eat solids when my heart rate is so high, so when it levels off some I will start to eat more solid food.
My rides are all ready to go and are going to be real fast. There all washed and polished and ready to rip up some dirt.
I have been packing up the new motor home I bought three weeks ago. A 1988 winabago super chief! I m looking forward after the race to take it out camping. I will be heading to the race sight tonight to set up my solo pit and park the motor home in its spot for the next few day's. I have'nt decided if Im staying out there friday or not.

when to do what?

Being a self coached athlete is good and bad. I have been wondering if I have been doing the right training lately. The way I see it though if I have a bad day out training or racing I have no one to blame but myself. I have been questioning my training technique this past year with my spotty result. Although I have some great results I still wonder if I do the right stuff at the right time. Since my Cool 24 hour race I have been struggling on and off to get going and get some good result. I just feel half ass. Just can not seem to get going. Although I'm still training I just don't feel fast or strong most of the time. This doesn't mean I'm going to quit but my observation of myself and how I see it whether I'm right or wrong. I just can't seem to get anywhere close to where I was in May. I guess when they talk about peaks during the year I must of had one hell of a peak for sure. I m trying to be patient but my patients is wearing thin.

As I was looking at the result at downiesville classic I noticed Dezmin Wilder had a good race with a 2:12, now thats fast... Good job Dezmin. Also I seen Yuri had a good race also, kicked my ass again, THANKS:). I will be racing both these guys in September at the 24 hour Worlds, I just hope I can shake the Laguna Seca curse I have been caring for the last 2 years.

I took Sunday completely of, watch the tour and slept a lot. And took Monday of also. Before I would of felt bad but screw it. I work 45-50 hours a week and train my ass of, I deserve a good brake now and then, at least that's how I'm justifying it..! I didn't eat the house down so that was a plus.

The tour has been very exiting. I feel sorry for Vino, he would of been a big threat but not with 14 stitches in his body. And Micheal Rogers from T mobil, that crashed hurt. So with some of the big names gone and Rasmussen going for over all and everybody is real close I think Saturdays time trial with be a big deciding factor for the overall, as long as they don't crash. Oh ya and Robbie Mcewm is out, that sucks. Seem like if you crash your pretty much toast depending on how bad.

Downiesville Classic

I eneded up doing the Downiesville race at the last minute. I wanted to see where I would land in the over all standings. Well I was a little disappionted and my performance. But I am glad not to be injured or hurt. The course can be unforgiving on the dwon hill section. Well it looks like I have a lot of work to do. Yuri Hauswald, and Brock Dicky kicked my ass pretty good. Even though I did come in before Brock, because he had tire issues only. THe Santa Cruz Blur held up flawlessly again, I just wish I could of been stronger.

From the start of the race my heart rate hit a 170 bpm. The hole time I was just trying to get the heart rate down. About half way up ht ehill everybody started to pass me. I kept thinking what the hell going on. My heart is sky high and seems like Im going know where. I hit the top of the hill and just kept it strong and not to get out of control. I was glad to finish strong and not wiped out as usuall. I do love this course. But maybe on a different day. I will now focuse on a month build up to the Worlds 24 hour race.

And your welcome Brock for the help. Anytime!

Im not grumpy, just tired

As my training has kicked into high gear so has my grumpiness. Ass I get home last night all I wanted to do was bite my wife's head off for no reason. Sorry sweety. That's one thing I have to be care full of when my volume gets real high. Amanda ask me why was I so mad at her. I wasn't mad at her at all just miss being home with my wife and hanging out with her. Its not to say I don't like training, I really do but it can be demanding at times, most of the time. Yes I know I don't have to train so much but there are sacrifices I have to make in order to achieve a high level of fitness. Like time with friends, family and loved ones. House chores, washing my vehicles. But this is a choice I have made and I want to do good out there racing. Plus all the chores get done later rather than sooner. Also when the training volume gets high and the fatigue starts to set in the grumpiness comes also. Seems like even the little things will seem like big issues. Oh ya and I forgot to mention also why I'm grumpy is that I'm know 2 days behind on watching the Tour De France, that will make anybody grumpy:). All the pain I go through you cant but wonder why doesn't it get any easier. How come it seem after doing all this training you still sweat the same, hurt the same. The weeks/months/years of doing the training it does seem at one point you could say, " wow! this is getting easy. So after 5 years of this stuff I haven't been able to say that at all. And don't even think about it like that anymore anyway since I heard a quote I think came from The all mighty Eddy Merx. He said " the pain never goes away, you just get faster". He sure knew what he was talking about. So as the pain starts to get high I hold that thought a lot. Im just getting faster ( I hope).


Yesterday I got off early enough to do the Loop. Arroyo seco rd to Carmell Valley over Laurless Grade to hwy 68 and reservation home. I think its around 85 miles or so. I did this route on Sunday afternoon. It takes 5 hours and 4.5 hours of riding. I had a few phone calls and 1 stop for water. Once you leave the valley here you enter into the oven in Carmel Valley. Always a lot hotter there. With and 1 hour 15 minute run n the morning put me at little over 6 hours of training. And the wife wonders why I'm grumpy. Although I know its all self inflicted.

With my training well into high gear Im feeling pretty good about how its going. Doing my build to the 24 hours Worlds on September 1st.

This weekend was a good sign that Im recovered and getting ready. With 7 hours on the mountain bike, and 5 hours on the road bike and 1.5 hours running for Saturday and Sunday is not to shaby. I feel tired today but not wiped out. My pace wasn't anyhting fast but steady. Still trying to keep my heart down, although at times I second guess this method, it just feels so slow and really not what Im used to. But I cant hammer all the time I know that, Although it fun but not productive in the long run for me. Im just trying to build up my body for the upcomming racing and trying to keep it consistant. I cant do that with a lot of intensity's.

Im thinking about downiesville this weekend but I have'nt made a final decision, depending on work and how I feel and if it deosn't get sold out. Also I see that the Distric Road Race championship in ford ord has moved intel after August 10th. I have found another race to for that weekend. Looks like fun, I will see if I can budget that in.

Well se how I feel depending on what Im going to do this week. Although I feel pretty good today seems like the second day I really feel the fatigue.

Ride, Ride, Ride.

This weekend was going to be somewhat of a test to see if I recovered from prior racing and training. I think I am 90 % recovered. Thing went real good and I feel normal again, if that's possible. When I am out riding long I still feel worried about the chest pains coming back. I'm getting better every day at not worrying about it but it will take some time. I even think its a good thing to keep me slowed down for know.
With my new exercise program and keeping my heart rate at a certain range and nor going over that is all new too me. I did a 8 hour ride, 13,000 feet of elevation gain on Saturday and didn't go over my heart cap, I was amazed how fresh I felt afterwords. I could of did a lot more. I was tired but not wiped out like usually. Plus I didn't get that feeling of wanting to eat everything in the fridge. So maybe there is something to this. Who knows but I'm sure it works. Although its king of humiliating at times, I say this because Im going alone and I get passed by this girl and it took all I had not to try and keep up with her. Know that sucks. All I know is I couldn't keep up the pace I was going at and had to do something different. I'm not superman, although I try to be. I have been thinking about all the training and racing. How all the intensity fits into everything. You do need intensity but how much. When does it get to much. Its different for everybody. How old you are, how fit you are, well there are a lot of factors. But for me its seems like a month or so of intense workout/racing is all I can handle. Its like Joe Friel said once that you only have so many matches to burn through out the year, and once there gone that its. So for me at this point its all about getting back to basics and sticking with it. JFT babe! Keeping low heart and getting as big engine built. I saw a discovery documentary on Ice trucks in Alaska last knight hauling big heavy loads on the ice over lakes. Anyway they had this truck on there with over 600 horse power, first I thought of is I had that kind of engine in my body I could shred the peddles of the crank with that kind of engine...

MY focus right know is September race. Its not far away. Speaking of Laguna Seca. On Sunday spent some time at ford ord mountain biking with some friends. I love that place. It has everything. Single track, fire roads. Even a deer jump out in front of me going down trail 50.

I was thinking I don't write enough about my sponsors and there products. So I would like to write today about what bike I ride and why. I have been riding the Santa Cruz Blur for 5 years know. My first bike was a LT with full XTR, boy was on flying high when I got that bike. You cruised alone peddling over bumps and kept going. I remember before when I used to ride my hard tail on long ride and my sides with hurt for days from tensing up going over bumps. Then when I got the new Blur I couldn't believe how much a difference it made. I could ride longer, fell better after my rides and recover quicker. Well a few Blur later that's all I race and ride on today. Yes they are my sponsor this year, but I have been riding Santa Cruz Bikes for 5 years now and think they are an awesome product. Very durable, reliable, and hard to beet for comfort. I 2 cross country Blurs for my 24 hour racing and couldn't do it competitively without them. They cruise over bumps like nothing. Keeps me peddling for 24 hours strong. I never had any major issues that couldn't be workouts. And they have a great warranty if any issues come up at all. Thanks Santa Cruz Bikes!!!

Blood Results ar in

It turns out that the blood result were real good. There was nothing adnormal in the results. I did get wierd looks from the doctor when I told him about the 24 hour races. I didnt think he believed me at first.

Its been almost three weeks since the Laguna 24 (well 12 for me ) race and I have been starting to feel normal again. Still have some fatigue IO working thru but other wise I feel real good and no more chest pains. So I have been training but not as much as before and have cut down my volume for know. I need to get strong and healthy before attempting anything stupid. Im still sticking to my heart rate cap and do not go over that. Its real hard buit it will pay off huge in the long run. I will do tempo and long sustained work but will not go over the heasrt rate cap.

Watched the 24 SOlo race with Chris Etough working on his seventh World title. If you havent watch it you should. As a 24 hour racer I really dont get to see the other side of thing, so it was kind of cool to see what geos on in the pit. I had an IDea of what geo's on but it was an eye opener. I still have the Cd so If you wan to borow it let me know. Also one other thing I took away from the movie is when cris lost he said he has learned more from that race than anyother one, so It made me think about my LAguna seca races the last few years is that I learned a lot from those races. I just have to not repeat them.

I will be doing WOrld in September so that is my main focus for the next few months. Im going to race in the pro division so it will be cool to see where I land.