my weekend in pictures

had a long weekend...not only enjoying the Monday holiday but full weekend of long work, family, training and food. Not always in that order or preference . . .

Friday, I got in a nice ride with Ryan at Aliso Woods. Greenery everywhere and the dirt was still wet and tacky. Ryan showed me some new trails I had never seen before and after almost two weeks off of the mountain bike I got to experience the most technical trail I have ridden in Aliso within the first 30min of the ride. Good start!

Ryan telling the climbs to "come see him!"

multitasking downhills and con-calls

Then it was off to work for the weekend... Friday night at 7:30pm until sometime Sunday at about 11pm. I was closing out a project that we had started almost 18 months ago with data center designing and nerd-o-metrics. Of course, I got to take a good break somewhere in the middle and a much needed nap but it was a good experience to have a solid plan that our teamwork knocked out like clockwork. We basically migrated a bunch of legacy infrastructure gear like the stuff below


into some pretty new scalable, virtual and a few other catchy word type redundant gear routing up to 15 terabits per seconds. I have noticed that after a solid "life" accomplishment I usually knock out a pretty good effort in sport...I guess the zeroing of stress and celebration of pulling something off that you have been working on for a while is like a tail wind when the plan works out...and you don't get fired.

I use to do installs like this all the time...long before I started racing. There are so many similarities between the two (developing a design/plan, teamwork, details, etc) and I think if I have any mental toughness it was developed during the years I was working around on stuff like this. You never know what God has you working on and it maybe overwhelming to see the big picture too soon. I would never imagine riding for 6 hours just three years ago and now it is just "a session" and usually just one of two or three for a big day of training. Funny how that works.


I was still a bit behind on sleep so I decided to hit Sunday with no plans for training. I just wanted to see how I would feel and enjoy the nice 80 degree temps and clear skies. Monique and I headed out on foot and I ended up getting in a 11.5 mile progressive run. Felt good! Then I hopped on the bike for a 140K ride with some hot laps in the canyon. I like to ride my bike.

I rode into the dark because of the late start but watching the sunset I had one of those moments. . . Happy. I rode home in the dark and then bagged a 3K swim, gym session and another 30min run. Good day.
Monday, we were up to head north and spend the day with Moniques parents. I love them...They just dont make American folks like they use to. I thought we were going to meet up with Paul Romero but I had my days mixed up! Still a little behind on sleep and brainpower. We packed our mtb and headed for some local trails. New trails found. We have only ridden here once before and made a left at the first trail. Big difference in the choice!

This time we turned right and right into a 4.5 mile non-stop climb of over 2,100ft. Hello! We rode until we were pooped (not very long) and then bagged a swim on the way home. Lots of good stuff to explore out there in the future. Solid ride and I am having to deal with my rest day when I am not riding with M anymore. She is getting too fast!


We also got into the Park City Point to Point Race (PCP2P) that is going to be held later in the year. There was about 9 of us who got in before it sold out and it looks to be the perfect vacation bash to end a killer year. 78 miles of 90% single track trails and 14K of climbing with friends. . . add in some T-runs and compression socks and then I will start snapping more pictures ;-)