Keeping it rollin'

Spending the week in San Francisco sitting through a training class was tough. It was cold on the city streets but a good time to recover and hang out with some friends that I have not seen in quite some time. Looking back...snacking all day on that "crap" in class was probably a good thing and I am more stoked than ever to be living in SoCal...We are all so blessed here! My weekend plans proved this to me even more as I tried to keep it rolling with another good block of training.

I managed to get back in time to get in a good swim and ride Friday night in the dark and then meet up with Luke and Trevor on Saturday morning for my first ride up Palomar. These guys are so cool and strong on the bike... I was stoked for Luke to lead us out on such a cool loop. There was still chalk on the ground from when the Tour came by just a few weeks ago...pretty motivating to know how fast the pro's were climbing this mountain. We had a cold start but we warmed up quick!


I had could not hang with them on the climb up and had some strange issues going on with my feet. Totally numb! I later found out it was from my new saddle and it looks to be resolved. I can say it was a real pleasure to hang with such nice guys and it was a memorable day. We lost Luke on the decent and we were sure he had a flat until more than 30min went by and then we saw a fire truck heading up the hill...AHHH!!

We started climbing back up and soon enough saw Luke heading down with his pockets full of tubes. Just when we got back to the cars and I was out out of food and water... I realized I locked my keys in the car. I could hear Corby saying, "classic Slater move". We headed for some food while we waited for AAA and Luke got got me a burrito. Thanks Luke! We were all SO hungry at that point! I cant wait to get back to conquer Palomar someday.

While I was in SF I still had the VQ race rumbling through my mind and I was itching to do another Endurance mountain bike race. I was planning on doing the Hurkey Creek 8hr solo this year but when I found out it was going to cost me over $200 I started looking around at some other Endurance MTB events. I have done Hurkey Creek 24 Hours of Adrenaline on a team for the last two years so I also wanted to try out something new....laps are also a great practice but there is just something about a point to point race that adds so much more adventure...minutes later I found myself registered for the Julian Death March race in just a few weeks. Looks like a killer race!

Without a "formal training plan" or race schedule I was planning on just learning the Julian course and meeting some new people this weekend. It was a perfect time to meet up with Kevin and pre-ride the course on Sunday. . . but after getting up at 4:30am only to face many "issues" on Sunday morning I ended up going back to bed at 6am and just sleeping in. Bummer!

When I woke up I realized how much I needed the rest and decided to go for a paddle....That was nice! Jason and Seth were going for a local ride on the trails but my legs were just wanting easy spin so when Sean told me he was going to take out his new Rocket for a PCH spin I was all over it! Coach Clancy is going to be dominating the dojo in a couple of weeks at our Oceanside 70.3 race and now has the rocket to drop a few more MPH's on his bike split too... There is just some guilty feeling about spinning down PCH at near 30mph with a low heart rate...TT bikes are fun!

Somehow my body came around and I managed to join Sean for a transition run after our ride. He was putting in a solid 13miler and I was running in a new element. I set my HR watch to only display my HR and ran at a very, very easy pace. It was awesome!! No pain in my foot and a super fun run. Maybe I can run more than 2-3 times a week now ;-)

Learning slowly and keeping it rollin...