Spider Monkey on the Loose

I officially begin my training and racing season this Saturday with the Willow TT. Sure, I'm 46 and out of shape but I shall not whine any more. If I am willing to enter there is no excuse for anybody! One more thing, I won't be hiding, I entered the 1-2 field! I must be the favorite!

Home

I made it back to the "D" around 5:30 am today. James and Jeanne came out to pick me up. We all went back to bed for a few hours.

We decided to see if the Black Widow would fit James this afternoon. With a couple of adjustments we determined that James has a new TT bike! He is pretty psyched but I am restraining him from going too crazy. He has to get used to the bike if there is going to be any real benefit by the first TT.

Back to PHX on Monday.

Desert Life

After the ride mentioned in my last post, I had a pretty rough recovery. I ate, showered then made an attempt at going to the library, (they have places to sit down there.) I was so blasted that I felt that a short nap was necessary. After that I was well enough to move on.

I did the same course on Sunday. This time I packed twice the calories. I made it to Saguaro Lake six minutes faster than Friday and felt great. Continuing from there I climbed Usery Pass and rode down the other side to Mesa, around Las Sendas, down Power Drive by Red Mountain before heading back to Saguaro Lake for more water. The difference between the two rides was quite noticeable. I got home in about 3.5 hours after riding about 62 miles and normalizing 211 watts.

Monday, I went back to work. Things are still pretty new and it had been almost two weeks since I had flown the new airplane. I sat down and it was as if I had never been to training! As James would say, it was "horrible!" To make things worse, the jet acted up every single day of the trip, (4 days in all). If it wasn't the plane it was the passengers showing up early and forcing us to work at crazy fast speeds to get the flight out.

The good thing was that I got to see the Cubbies play at Wrigley in Chicago. I am now a Cubbies fan, sort of. Tigers first but I am hooked! Wrigley is just crazy cool with the old scoreboard, grandstands on the buildings and on this day Michael J. Fox led the chorus of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

At the moment, I am sitting at Sky Harbor airport waiting on a flight to go back to see Jeanne and the kids. It is going to be fun but I already dread the flight back on Monday.

Getting back to the bike

I rode out of Fountain Hills today bent on making it to Saguaro Lake and maybe even Usery Pass. This video is taken on the climb a lot faster than I took it. I was moving along at 10.2 mph pulling 290 watts all the way up. It just kept going and going. When I got to the top I turned around and went back down hitting 43 mph. Incredibly, I had some dude in a pickup truck, (why is it always someone in a pickup?), lean out the window and yell at me for riding on the road and not in the bike lane. I just shook my head. The speed limit is 45! At those speeds I darn sure wasn't going to ride on the loose gravel and all the junk that lives on the shoulder.