Karl Etzel's pseudo-blog

September 13

Quick update, good news from the doc - no broken bones in the arm. Also looks like there are no sprains, just some really traumatized muscles. I have the go ahead to resume riding, which I will do shortly with a climb up Hwy 9. So if I can get the pain to die down then it will be go time on October 8 at Whiskeytown!

September 12

Finally done, here is the race report.

Also a couple more pictures from Vic:



Thanks to everyone for reading, and I'll try to keep this page up to date as I head through the end of the season and Interbike. It will be my first trip to Vegas, we'll see if it lives up to the hype. I can't say I'm excited about Vegas, but Interbike is good times. I have not been in years so it should be fun.

September 8

Here are some pics from the weekend's race in Whistler, hope you enjoy. Still working on my report, which I'll post in the journal section of the calendar in a few days.


Here I am headed to the start line during the callout. Bummer that so many layers of rain gear obscured my sponsor's clothing for pretty much the entire race.


A shot of the pit in the middle of the night. By this time there was a lot of wet gear to hang around the pit and a few parts that got scavenged from Jon's Moots.


Age group winner Randy Profeta, who had the pleasure of racing with his sons. He let us know at the awards dinner that dad was the fastest of the bunch!


Me and Marianne right before I rolled out for my last lap and she headed to the airport to catch a Sunday flight home.


My last time heading out to crank out lap number 13. In a few moments I'll be shivering like mad as I freeze on the descent. Big fun!

September 6

Well it is nice to be warm & dry. By now many of you know that we spent much of the 24 hours this weekend racing in the rain, which turned a lot of the rooted parts of the course into unrideable terrain, at least for me and lotsa other folks. I am back in Portland, doing laundry, drying gear, and resting for the long drive home tomorrow. I have a very sore right wrist from one of my 2 crashes, but other than that I am not terribly sore, maybe because I walked so dang much of the course over the second half of the race. On the upside, I did not quit and kept going the entire 24 hours, with only a few longish pit stops. My early laps were respectable times, around one hour ten minutes, but after lap 6 things went south quickly.

Overall I'd describe my feelings on the race as "extreme ambivalence", if that makes any sense. Some things went well, some very poorly. It was undoubtedly the hardest race I've ever done, and I'm trying to refrain from making too many judgements in my currently tired state. I felt a sore throat coming on last night but have saturated every cell in my body with vitamins so I seem to have warded off sickness.

I'll get some pics posted in a day or two, thanks for reading.

September 2

Almost time to stop talkin' and start pedaling! Got the last minute stuff on the bike almost done, number plates on, tailight mounts installed, all that is left for tomorrow is to swap a set of tires on my spare to the 2.35 Ritchey Z-Max Milleniums. I'll run the 2.1 ZED Race as long as I can then make the switch if/when the weather turns things ugly.

We had the rider meeting this evening, it was good to meet Monique Sawicki and her husband Ron. Ron has to drive down to Vancouver tonight to pick up a thrid pit crew person, that makes for a long evening. As long as Monique stays upright I expect her to win going away, and to beat many of the men. I sure won't be at all surprised if she beats me. Given how she rode at the 12 hours of the summit I'd be stoked to match her on laps.

I rode the course one last time today, this time pretty much straight through to guage my time. Looks like right below one hour for me, at least at a reasonable pace. I cleaned 2 of the 3 really nasty drops on the course, and several other racers I talked to will be walking the third drop with me. It is actually hard to walk down, but if you try to ride it and blow it things you have a long fall on a hard ground. I'll take the 15 second hit each lap.

Vic Armijo of Team Bigfoot will be posting updates to the site, so check the home page for the link.

That's it for me, the next post will be Sunday evening to let you know what happened. Wish me luck!

September 2

Catching up on yesterday, I spent the morning setting up the tent at the race site and I am glad I did it early. I was able to drive the car right up to my spot and take care of everything before the race staff got in there to set up the rental tents. With so many folks flying in a lot of them cannot bring pop-ups so you can rent one and have it set up on site. Good thing, because this morning I awoke to the sound of rain on the window.

The course is awesome, a nice combo of some fast packed "nature trail" type stuff with some true BC singletrack - log bridges, rock gardens, and one very rooty section that is going to be real interesting when it is wet, cold, and dark. The course seems to be a little short, but if it is raining (which they forecast) I don't think folks will mind seeing the pits more often. There are two fairly gnarly drops and one additional tricky section on the solo section of the course that really require your full attention. Only one real climb on fire road back up to the start/finish, for my skill set I'd like it to be about 3 miles longer but oh well. I should get a few more pics posted tonight, in the meantime SoloGoat (aka Ernie Marenchin) has some photos up on his blog. I rode with him & Dan from Speedgoat yesterday, one of the best parts of these big events is meeting folks from all over.

Most importantly, Marianne got here last night. She could not miss a week of work to drive with me so she flew to Vancouver & came in on the bus. She's my biggest supporter and I'd hate to imagine trying to do these races without her. She is playing with her camera right now and getting all prepped for photographer duties.

Ok time to go eat some more....

September 1

Just a quick update for the morning before the activities get started. Got up and ate a whole bunch of good food, scrambled eggs, Mueslix, granola, energy bar. Took a drive around Whistler Village to get oriented and figure out where stuff is before everyone is out & about. I always like to get comfortable with an area, it just seems to reduce stress once it comes time to set up pits, get registered, etc. So I found the staging area for the race and I'll head over later this morning to drop off all the big items for the pit, like the tent, chairs, cooking gear, etc.

Here are a couple of shots from the balcony of the condo where I am staying, now don't you wish you were here?



I'll post notes on the course later on tonight.

August 31

All I can say about the drive from Portland is wow. At least, the last hour and a half of it. The road north out of Vancouver snakes along the edge of Howe Sound, formed by the meeting of the Pacific and Squamish River. I did not get any good photos, Canadians do not seem to be into the "scenic overlook" thing, or maybe they just have so much beautiful scenery they'd never get anywhere if they stopped to look. Here are a couple of shots I pulled off the web:


You can see the road on the left side of the sound in that first photo.

Pulled into Whistler about 4:30, got the bikes unloaded and then hit the IGA to pick up fresh food that I was unable to bring along for dinner. I like to travel with most of my food, so I have one less thing to think about when I get to the race and so I can have exactly what I want. Getting fueled up for a solo 24 takes a lot of eating, you want to have just the right stuff. I generally hate to eat in restaurants, it seems rare that I get a good value, especially in tourist areas. Enjoyed some excellent salad, whole wheat pasta and fresh bread for dinner then caught up on email. Tomorrow I'll get more acquainted with the area and try to get in two laps on the course, mapping out the tricky sections at a nice comfortable pace.

August 30

No pictures today, it was a pretty mellow Tuesday hanging here in Portland. I got some work done and made a few phone calls. Also got my Interbike media pass application sent in, I am really looking forward to scoping out all the new gear and sharing the info with the 24 hour community. There is a lot of hype in the bike industry on stuff that really is not of use to us enduro racers, and there are a lot of products that are well suited for our needs but get little attention, so I plan to sift through it all and find the stuff that you will care about.

The weather was gorgeous here today, it looked like rain early but we never got wet. Spent almost 2 hours on the bike, just getting in some skills drills, a few hard hill efforts, and some isolated leg repeats to keep the form polished. I wiped out on some singletrack last Sunday (in the process of avoiding 2 riders coming up the trail) but I had no stiffness today in the knee or hip that took the brunt of it so that was good. Tomorrow's drive to Whistler is a mere 393 miles, a little nicer than the 660 I did getting here from the Bay area. I'll stop in Seattle to pick up keys to the condo that I am borrowing from my father-in-law's very gracious friend, Bill Levings. I just hope the famously bad traffic in Seattle is not too bad.

August 29

Well well well. Will wonders ever cease? I am actually updating this "blog" for the first time in a loooong time. I am currently in the home of my good friend Jon Puskas (Ironman, cross racer, wannabe ultra-MTB racer, and fellow Wenzel coach) in Portland at the half way mark of my trip to Whistler. I'll chill here tomorrow, take care of some work, and get in a couple of hours of training to keep the form sharp for race day before heading to Whistler on Wednesday. 11 Hours in the car today and my butt is sore. Good pratice for the race I guess. I'll start with the new rig I built up for this race. Yes I finally got full suspension. Scored a good deal on this Fuel on ebay and built it up with great support from the folks at Ritchey components.

It's a sweet bike but the top tube is a little longer than my HT, so on the super steep uphills it is harder to keep the front wheel properly weighted & tracking straight. Maybe I'll just have to do yoga this winter to get more flexible, although I am already pretty good in that department. Stay tuned to the site for a more thorough review of the Ritchey components. You'll note the skiny tires on the bike, I do a fair amount of road riding on this setup. Those are Ritchey Tom Slick 26 x 1.0 tires, which I have been using for a long time to rack up miles on the pavement.

Here is the Saturn all loaded up with the bikes & gear ready to roll out. Hard to believe so much stuff is needed for one bike race.


The drive was uneventful, a little rain in Oregon (first rain I have seen in about 4 months) but it didn't slow me down. I'm just glad the overturned tanker was on I-5 south and not I-5 north. Otherwise I might still be on the freeway waiting to get by.

May 17

Check out the journal section for my story.
Here are some photos Marianne shot:

Home sweet home for the weekend in the Laguna Seca parking lot. Marianne spent a lot of time here, me not so much.

Into the pit...

And out of the pit.

A crowd favorite, the staircase at the footbridge over the (auto) race track.

How it looked on the way out at around 6 am.

One last time under the finish tower.

What the front of the bike looks like after 192 miles in the dirt.

Still smilin'.

The best part, being on the podium.


May 16

My legs hurt. So do my feet, my hands, & my back. When I got out of bed I had to brace myself on the wall like a drunk. But I made it. 16 laps, 192 miles, I think over 30,000 feet of climbing. Good for second place in the championship category (which is still separate from the regular solo category for some strange reason and does a longer, more difficult course). Look for the full story in the Journal section soon.

May 13

Wow I didn't realize it has been so long since I posted anything. I have been so busy with site updates & getting ready for the race that I totally lost track. There hasn't been much to report in the way of training. Mostly it's been rides of 60-90 minutes, spinning with a few hard efforts thrown in to keep the body "awake". I had a good ride on the trainer early this week with some isolated leg work, and a nice spin up Kennedy in Los Gatos. Today will be the same, one hour with a hard effort or two thrown in, then a massage & some stretching. I've finally been sleeping better, no more waking at 2 a.m. I also dialed in my spare light, this year I got the Cateye EL500, which from my testing the other night will make a very workable backup in the unlikely event my L&M Arc fails me.
I am ready to get going, I've been waiting for this race for too long and am eager to see if the training has paid off. My goal for the race is 16 laps, which would be 192 miles. Last year I did 12 laps but I also slept for like 4 hours. If I can just stay on my bike and out of the pits I think I can hit 16. If I have a great day, maybe more. I'd love to break 200 miles, it would make me feel like a legit ultra-endurance guy.
Well that's it until after the race, look for my race report next week in the new online Journal section of the ride424.com.

May 4

Yesterday's ride was just what the doc ordered - a 40 minute spin to the car repair shop to pick up my wife's SUV. It sits in the driveway most days (we drive the econobox as much as possible, esp. with gas at $2.60) but had a minor oil leak that required a simple fix.
Today I did a few hard efforts climbing up Fremont Older on my cyclocross bike, which I will have on hand as a spare at Laguna Seca. Not ideal, but that course is mellow enough that I could crank out a lap or two on it while the MTB gets fixed in the event of a mechanical. The best part of today's ride was coming back down the hill, some wanker on a Trek full suspension rode down with me and at the bottom looks at the cross bike and asks if it works ok off road. Duh. If you could see the trails at Fremont Older you would know why I was laughing. You could wheel a shopping cart up most of them. Think sidewalk with a layer of dirt on top. I am always amused by the guys on 26 pound bikes up there sporting 4 inches of travel. Oh well. The legs were ok, still a bit tired from the weekend's adventures. I'll probably have a nap this afternoon, I seem to have a mild case of training induced insomnia. I have been waking up at around 2-2:30 am and have been unable to get back to sleep. I hate wasting time so I just get up & start my day's activities, but I am exhausted by around 3 in the afternoon. After my 8 hour ride Sunday I only got about 5 hours of sleep Sunday night. Not a good balance. I've seen a few recent posts on some of the training forums about this so I know I am not the only one. Hopefully the taper time helps to fix it.

May 2

Hard to believe it is May already. This past weekend was a killer, I did Spectrum on Saturday with a good friend from the cross team, and the pace was fast enough to get me a high quality workout but friendly enough for me to hang the whole way without any real stress. The pros were all at the Madera stage race this weekend so that kept the pace a bit more relaxed. It was still a big group, made bigger at times when several rides out in the Woodside area converged. At at one point I looked up the road to see a line probably 100 riders long 2 abreast snaking down Portola Valley road. Climbed OLH on the way home and came down Hwy 84, sitting behind a car and a pickup almost the whole way. That made 4.5 hours total.
Sunday did a MTB epic of sorts, came to just over 8 hours. I headed out over Fremont Older and got a flat 40 minutes into the ride. Got back underway, then descended dirt to Steven's Canyon road and cruised up to the end, climbed Indian Creek & connected to Page Mill and took the pavement up to Skeggs. All the trails on the north end of the ECM OSP were closed down so I wound up coming back up Timberview, which has some pretty steep sections. Headed back south on the pavement again to Montebello OSP, descended the canyon and met a nice guy named Fred from ROMP. He showed me a natural spring in the canyon to refill on water. Sweet! This is good to know about, as there are no other water sources for miles around. It can get brutal hot on some of those climbs in summer so it is nice to know about a water spot. With the water topped off I headed up Table Mt trail, which was really worked in some spots due to all the rain we have had. The stream crossing at the bottom was fun though. Ground my way up Charcoal road, took Saratoga Gap to 9, then headed home, but I only had 7 hours in so I went for another road loop around Saratoga to hit 8 hours.
Today I gotta drive to Concord to pick up a tent I found on craigslist, it will be nice to have a true family tent for the races as well as car camping trips. I also have some bike maintenance to do after yesterday's ride as well as a bunch of work on the website. No riding today, I'll probably give the legs a nice rub down & do some stretching. From now until race day it is all about recovery & keeping the form sharp.

April 28

Finally catching up (again), been working on general site updates so much that I just haven't had time for the blog. The new stuff on the site should go live sometime in May, keep your eyes pealed. Today is an off day, perfect timing as it is raining. The last few days of training have been good, rode up to Woodside & did OLH in a very poor time, surprising since my time up Page Mill was pretty good (for me) last week. Also did another set of isolated leg repeats to the top of Hwy 9, and did seated sprints yesterday with Redwood Gulch thrown in at the end. That road is brutal, it hits almost 20% in several spots.
This weekend will be rough, Spectrum ride plus climbing Page Mill on Saturday, with an 8 hour MTB epic on Sunday. Then it is taper time! Woohoo. TV here I come.

April 24

Easy spin today, did the C Otr roas race loop at a comfortable pace with only a couple of efforts thrown in. With this series of storms coming in the wind was pretty fierce. I'm starting to feel some energy again so hopefully things go well for my last hard week before I start my taper to Laguna Seca.

April 23

Today I was Mr. Forgetful. I had Naval Reserve duty in Monterey and took my riding gear with me for the weekend. I planned to ride the course of the C otr road race with a fellow officer who is getting ready for the Wildflower triathlon, unfortunately I got out of the house with all my gear except cycling shorts. Luckily I had a pair of gym shorts, which were workable for the 1-1.5 hour lunchtime ride we had planned. As we were leaving the office I managed o leave my HRM on the desk, by the time I got to the car & realized it I was running late and did not want to btoher going back for it. So we rolled out in rain gear with a slight drizzle but nothing major. A block away I realize I have left my water bottle in the car. Again, why bother going back. It was only gonna be a little longer than a cyclocross race, and I have done those before without drinking so I figured I would be fine. It drizzled on use the whole way so the lack of water was bearable. We did the C otr road race loop and added in the climb up Barloy headed back to Laguna Seca. That was a nice climb, about 13 mintues on my MTB with the slicks. It rolls up for about 3 miles, with a flat spot or two to enable recovery. I later found out the rear tire was only at about 40 psi, I guess it has a slow leak. I thought it felt squishy on the climb but figured it was just my legs complaining about the effort, so I ignored it. I knew I wasn't damaging the wheel so why bother.
So that was my workout today: riding in the rain with no water to drink on a half-flat tire, with no HRM, wearing gym shorts. It was a great ride. I really got some good leg speed work in since Mike was on a road bike. Just goes to show that if you keep a good attitude you can have a quality workout even when a few things go wrong. This is so important in racing, I see way too many people give up when they hit a few speed bumps. Stay at it, you never know what else can happen.

April 22

Started to crank it back up today, did 2.5 hours with some hard efforts thrown in. Can't say I was flying, I still feel a little flat, but the next 2 days will be short on the bike with some weight room work thrown in because of other commitments. I am looking forward to some good core workouts, I can really tell that my lower back has not been getting the regular gym work that it is used to. I really hope I find some good legs next week, as I need to get in one last hard week of build up before starting my taper to Laguna Seca, the closer the race gets the less chance there is to really make a difference in my fitness. I'll probably massage the legs in front of the boob tube tonight to chill after writing some more code this evening. Three cheers for code writing! I was up at 4:30 a.m. (maybe why my legs were flat) working on some stuff but didn't accomplish everything I wanted.
I'm testing out a couple of different chamois creams, Bag Balm & Udderly Smooth, I'll add my comments to the article in the training pages once I get a few good rides in with each. I also got my backup light for LS today, the Cateye EL500. Haven't ridden with it but in my darkened garage it looked pretty good, and the switch is nice & big for gloved hands to operate easily. I want to also check out the L&M LED light, I saw them at the factory the other day & they looked sweet. Talk about a nice place to go to the office, they are right on Cannery Row, where a gazillion people go for vacation every year. Pretty cool.

April 21

Today was another recovery day, two hours easy spinning. Went up to the office of a teammate to pick up my sweet Sycip team kit, they look really cool. His office is right next to my old employer, Cypress Semiconductor. It brought back memories riding the old commute route. Not good or bad memories, just memories.
I am still working on the write up of my Sea Otter driving experience, I drove one of the official's follow vehicles for the men's pro road race so I got an interesting look behind the scenes at a major event, and had a lot of fun doing it. I'll finish it up this weekend for sure.
One of the things I do during these hard training periods is give up alcohol. I just find that it is an extra stress on my system that I don't tolerate so well on top of 15-20 hours per week of riding. Unfortunately when my dad left town he also left a 6 pack of my fave beer, Spaten Optimator (a really nice German double bock) in the fridge. So that stares at me every day. Then a neighbor gave me a 6 pack of Fat Tire for helping her move some furniture. All I can say is those beers are gonna taste good on May 16th.

April 20

Nothing exciting to report today, I am pretty wasted lately and had to cut back training the past 2 days. I left the house feeling motivated yesterday so the plan was to go up Page Mill, descend west Old LaHonda, then climb Alpine & descend Page Mill to get home. Half way up PM I had ruled out Alpine, so at the top I just turned to head south on Skyline, descend 9, & head home. Right at 3 hours door to door. By the way if you are ever headed to the Bay area and want more info on these climbs, look here. My time up PM was not too far off my normal time so that was a little encouraging considering how I felt. There is no point trying to train hard if you aren't really recovered adequately to get a quality workout. Many athletes spend their lives in this no-man's-land of inadequate training intensity coupled with inadequate rest.
Today I took my bike for a walk to Los Gatos to see how the other half lives. If you need to shop for a Bentley or a Ferrari, the LG will take care of you. Found some nice windy residential roads off the main streets then came home & took care of some equipment issues for the 24HOA event.

April 18

The busy weekend set me back a little on updating my blog, so I'm just now catching up. Actually the weekend and the squirrels in my back yard set me back, because they gnawed through the phone line & my internet service was dead all day. Even in Silicon Valley, the world capital of communication technology development, a couple of hungry squirrels can throw a wrench in the works.
Let's see, where did I leave off. Last Thursay was a short hard day, with repeats on Tollgate, a road that probably hits 18% in spots. It is just up Hwy 9 so it's a nice short but hard workout. Friday I was at Sea Otter (report forthcoming) and I rode last year's 24HOA course to test out the new rubber, Ritchey Innovader 2.0's. They are one notch up in grippiness from the Speedmax, and they seemed to handle the conditions at Laguna Seca really well. They are also rally light, which given the mellow course at LS can be taken advantage of without any worry about durability. They definitely roll fast up the grind, a fire road climb to the finish that is proabably 2 miles, maybe a little more. Saturday was off, Sunday I felt wasted so I packed it in early and did a 2 hour spin. Today the motivation was lacking for anything big so I went up to Fremont Older OSP and did the loop to the water towers & down Toyon. Played around abit doing balance drills. Nothing too hard but a good variety pack of riding conditions, some fire road climb, a few steep loose sections, and some easy spinning on the way home. Ok off to work on my Sea Otter report.

April 14

Another short post today, did the Valley ride last night & came off way too soon. It was demoralising but hey, that's what training is for. I just kept reminding myself that the guys (& a few gals) dropping me have trained all year for a different kind of fitness, and have probably already got half a dozen races in their legs. It was definitely a productive workout, and was exactly what I needed. Better to have a fit body & a bruised ego than the other way around. Now it's off to do a few hill repeats on Tollgate (it hurts just thinking about it) on teh MTB with the slicks, then ride the course at Laguna Seca tomorrow on top of checking out the bling bling gear at the Sea Otter expo. Saturday will be an off day before a 4 hour day on Sunday, which will open with the Spectrum ride.

April 13

Quick update for this morning, did isolated leg repeats all the way to the top of Hwy 9 on Monday, two hours of spinning yesterday. Tonight I will join the Valley ride, a mid-week barn burner that more or less is a race for me, gotta get in some good speed work. One mistake a lot of endurance guys make is to leave speed work out of the training regimen. A plus of being in a cycling hotbed like the Bay area is the abundance of group rides, I just cannot get that intensity out there by myself. I can ride for 10 hours all alone with no problem, but the top end intensity requires someone else to feed off of. Been doing a ton of website updates, none of it is visible yet as I am still testing it but all I can say is stay tuned, there will be some big improvements to ride424 in the near future. I'm now one month away from 24 HOA at LS, I have 2 more weeks of intensity & volume build up then 2 weeks of intensity with volume ramping down. Ok back to work....

April 10

Took my first step out of the dark ages with a test ride of a Yeti FS rig, the ASR. Yeah, I am still on a hard tail. Hey it works, and has been, with zero maintenance, for 7 years. Gotta love titanium, the wash & wear, bombproof bike. I will say that I am starting to come around though, with the Fox suspension on the rear end set to activate the RP3 I could barely get the shock to actuate even during big ring sprints when I was trying to make it bob. On the rocky sections at Santa Teresa park I definitely felt more control, even uphill, on the FS rig. Given that I have no loot to spend on a bike it is kinda academic (last year's Colnago tapped me out on bike purchases for a bit) and I will be testing a lot more bikes before acquiring anything, but it was fun to ride something new. I also wanna check out the Scalpel, NRS, and the Truth as well, those all seem to get good reports. With Sea Otter next week I should get a chance to play on at least one of them.

On a separate note, congratulations to George Hincapie on his fine second place at Paris-Roubaix. This is the closest road racers come to racing off road, it is brutal - 167 miles of pain in northern France over cobbled roads. Tom Boonen (former teammate of George) took the win. He is just unbeatable right now, and isi undoubtedly the next Belgian classics legend in the making.

April 9

Mother nature cooperated today with partial sun & dry roads this morning. The wind was whipping up pretty good so that added a little extra effort to the ride. Started into some intensity work again today with the Spectrum ride, it is always fun to jump back in with a fast pack. This ride started with about 15 guys but picks people up along the way, by the time I dropped off there were probably close to 80 riders. I was in a group that got gapped off at a light, I had heard the cops were cracking down & it was a sketchy run anyways with traffic so me & a bunch of folks stopped for the red. I got the duty of bridging up, the lead bunch was just leaving a light as they came into view. I expected someone to come by me but I wound up finishing it off to catch the group while my pulse hit 190, for the first time since cross season. After Thursday's sluggish performance it was good to see the legs & cardio system respond better. I paid for it on Arastradero & came off, although I planned to drop after this hill anyways. Rolled back home in the big ring the whole way feeling pretty good. Not sure what tommorow holds, I might ride the MTB down to Santa Teresa & test ride some Yetis with Trailhead bike shop, a great family owned shop in Los Gatos. If you are in the Bay area check them out, they know what they are doing and have a great attitude (which is to say, they have no attitude).

April 7

Today marked the end of my 2nd base period, I benchmarked my condition with a TT up Hwy 9. This is a perfect road for a fitness test. It is basically a 7 mile ramp that has a constant grade & low traffic. It is also a screaming trip back down, although with the rain & the highway workers out trimming trees I tiptoed back down today. Everything was flat today - the legs, HR, everything. My time was 2 minutes off my PR, right about what I expected, given that my pulse did not want to go above about 165. Normally when I climb hard I can peg it around 176 for that climb. The morning rain mostly dispersed although I got wet during the upper third of the climb. This is a really efficient workout for me, it's a 20 minute spin to the base of the climb and the total ride is 1.5 hours. Tomorrow is the first day off in 9 days so I am looking forward to it.

I'm getting my gear all ready for 24HOA at LS, I'm loving my new Sidi shoes. I will spend the off day tomorrow going through the toolbox & spare parts collection to make sure nothing is missing. No reason to let this stuff wait til the week before the race, I see so many athletes stress themselves out mucking with equipment at the last minute. Bad idea. I did my first 24 hour race on a very laid back relay team, I'll never forget one of the guys standing in the pit 1 hour before race start with his fork in his hand, inspecting his headset bearings!

April 5

Figured I would take the time to generate my own page, hope you find it interesting.

I'm 6 days into my second base period, necessitated by a 2.5 week vacation to Australia in the middle of the spring training season. I had a good build up prior to vacation, with my longest ride at 150 miles & about 8000 feet of vertical. I totally cooked myself prior to the trip, knowing that I would have a lot of recovery time. I managed to stay limber & active on the trip but I am still feeling some effects of the time off. The season's first goal, 24 HOA at Laguna Seca, is about 6 weeks away, so I will have time for another build up and then a nice taper. I'll keep you posted on how it goes. Right now the rides are all 2 hours of spinning with the HR kept in check, although I got a little frisky on Sunday and opened it up too much so the legs were a bit tired yesterday.

I was gonna race Sea Otter but realized it was the only race on my schedule which required a NORBA license, so it would be $85 to do that one race. I can't race Expert on a one day license and don't want to bother racing only one lap in Sport category. So I'll get my intensity work at the local Spectrum road ride for free.