Labor Day Ride

My friend Sean and I went for an early ride today. It was a new place for me with a nice combination of fire road and single track trail. A loop with uphill fir the first half and a fun downhill on the way back. The view at the top was spectacular up above the smog.

It didn't really ruin my life

Really mountain biking I think has kept me sane, somewhat.

And gets me away from technology sometimes.

Sunday Ride

Listened to music on my ride today. "Stop this train", there's no stopping it, does it get easier if we just accept that?

Birthday Ride

Went for a bike ride for my birthday. On my brothers old bike, it is his birthday too. Went to a place he and I used to ride. It is a beautiful day.

Looking for a place to swim

Today I went for my ride around the Universal Studios lot which has been my mode of exersize for the past few weeks. Still dealing with a little tenderness on my knee.

I thought I'd look for a place to swim but as you can see the beaches were closed.


I got in about 7 miles total riding today and it felt great. The So. Cal. weather is perfect: not a cloud in the sky, not too hot out. I have found a spot on the lot that is like a park, apparently some folks play softball there, but it's a good uphill ride for 1 1/2 miles to get there. Once there I usually drop the bike and do some push ups, sit ups and such, today I gave it a shot at running and did 3 laps around which I estimate to be about a mile. I've been wearing the floves (VFFs) while riding so it's an easy transition to run. Kinda nice running on the grass though some spots were a bit squishy from all of the rain over the last 2 weeks. Overall the run felt good, just don't want to over do it.

After riding around past the Desperate Housewives, Spartacus Square and the Old West I headed back to the office. When I got there I looked down and discovered that I had caught some grass between my toes while running.

I think I'll be adding in that run as a regular part of the routine.

I came across this article from a study on Barefoot or in minimal footwear.... and interesting read.

Hillbilly Hill Adventure Race

This year's Hillbilly Hill race was the day before we left for vacation and proved to be a fun challenge again this year. Temperatures were down from the 103 degree start of last year, it was maybe 75 at the start this time out. The field of racers was a little smaller this year with 11 entrants.

As usual it was a rolling start with Trevor counting down to 5:30pm.


I kind of teamed up with Reid as we seemed to take the first bike portion and the run up to the waterfall at the same pace. He and I got to the waterfall with 4 racers behind us, and not too ar behind two others. I was feeling prety good because they were all guys I was a long ways behind last year. So either they slowed down or I was a little faster this year.


Rog was coming up the trail as I headed down. I was able to run down the hill at a pretty good pace but still stopped for a photo.


I made good time down the run and on the paved road part of the bike ride and pulled ahead of
Reid. By the time I reached the summit of Hillbilly Hill I had gotten a ways ahead of Reid and headed down the back side of the hill. The road was hard packed and light sand, not a great combination. I came around a corner about 1/4 the way down and saw Wade and overreacted a bit to make sure I stayed on my side of the road and went over the bars. I ended with a Pete Rose style head first slide along the side of the road.

Wade stopped to see that I was OK as I got up. Some road rash on my left knee and elbow and I jumped back on the bike to find the chain off the front sprocket. I got off and had to fight to get it back on track, in the meantime Reid blew on past me. I was able to get things going again and finished the ride down to the Hillbilly Gate and was able to keep Reid in sight. The ride back down the hill I was not able to catch up to him but did make up some time.

Before I got in the pool Trevor took a picture.


I was successful on one of the 3 "Adventure Skills" which took 1 lap off of the "Adventure swim" which meant only 13 laps. I got in the pool on Reid's first lap and somewhere along the line he let me pass.

Here's Rog with his soccer ball skills test.



And getting washed off while doing pushups.



My total time was 1 hour 32 minutes which is 22 minutes faster than last year. It felt good.


Even with injuries. I did win the trophy for most blood.


After 8 years Danny finally came home with first place.... well, he didn't get to take the trophy home, it stays in Trevor's garage till next year.


Now it's time to start training on the road bike.

The Next Race

Tonight I registered for the LA Tri-Express on April 26......doh! That's just over a week away! Actually I've been planning on it but had to work some things out at work since I'm supposed to be on-call. Since I haven't been on the road bike since September I'll be doing this one on the mountain bike even though it's a road race. I entered in the category for mountain bike so hopeully that will even things out.

Details on the race are at: www.trievents.com

I'll be doing the race with my buddy Wade. He and I got into this whole triathlon thing together a few years ago.

Results

So they posted the results from the Renegade Off-Road Triathlon. Apparently I was in the water a lot longer than I even imagined.

I'm happy that I finished but would have liked to have done better.

Here's the stats:
Swim: 29.23
T1: 4:03
Bike: 1:46:39
T2: 1:23
Run: 45:57
Total: 3:07:26

Which put me in 83rd place overall.

Renegade Off=Road Triathlon

A beautiful day in Southern California, I was up early and off to Bonelli Park. It was perfectly clear as the sun came up. One of the great things about races at Bonelli is they are 15 minutes from home. I arrived just after they opened the gate and had plenty of time to check in, find me a transition spot and wander around to relax.

Here's the starting line about an hour before start time.


I chose a spot next to the fence so I wouldn't get crowded. That really didn't prove to be a problem as this was a much less crowded event than others I've been to.


KC and the kids arrived 15 minutes before the start to cheer me on.


On my way to test the water.


The swim was long.... well it felt long. I haven't trained for swimming, and haven't done that well even when I was training so I did about as I expected. There weren't many people coming out of the water after me, but I made it.


From the swim I headed to the transition, got changed, hit send on a pre-written Facebook status update on my phone and headed out on the bike.


The ride was good. Some pretty killer hills that I wasn't the only one walking up. The first lap was pretty strong and things started to hit me on the second lap and I walked a couple more of the hills. There was one point when riding down a path line with 5ft tall weeds in full bloom, I took a deep breath and could feel the polin enter my lungs. I kept pushing on and could feel my allergies coming on in full force.

Back to the transition I racked the bike, changed shoes, grabbed my visor and headed out.


KC actually got a great parking spot right out of the transition area so the kids were able to hang out in the car and watch the runners and bikers go by, including me. It was a great encouragement to hear them yell, "Go Daddy, Go!"


The run was 2 miles of some killer hills that I did my best to try to run. At one point my right hamstring started to knot up, a slow stretch and walk it was OK. Later the same thing happened with the left quad. I saw a guy limping along who said he had a knot in is quad so I guess I was lucky it worked out and I was able to run most of the last 1.2 miles. Not fast, but I was able to run.

Overall, I don't think I did as well as I had hoped, I wanted to finish in under 2.5 hours and I think I was over that. Official results are supposed to be posted tomorrow.


Overall it was a good race and I have a good feeling of accomplishment.

A little off course

7 days 11 hours till the Renegade Off-Road Triathlon. So far I'm feeling pretty good about it... well about the run and the bike, I really should have done some swimming. I'm going out there to survive the swim. Last Saturday the race organizers did a pre-ride of the bike course and I found out too late but read the e-mail to say they were doing it again today.

Well, I read the e-mail again last night and found that it's on Sunday but I did find that they posted a map of the course on the web site and since I'm playing guitar for kids in the morning I decided I'd give it a go on my own.



So I set out with a map folded up in my pocket and gave it a go. The first part was pretty familiar, actually it was the run path from the last LA Tri-Express I did 2 years ago but went on past the gate in into the camp grounds. Past there was right near the Brackett airport where it turned up onto a trail up the hill. I swtarted up one trail and pretty quikly figured out I was on the wrong one so I turned and headed down to get back on track. Up the hill it was very washed out and rocky, I got off once to navigate around. Once a the top it was a nice fire road down to a tunnel underpass to cross the paved road. This was about the 3 mile mark, I think it was just up the hill from here that I made a wrong turn.

I now think I was supposed to follow the first trail to the right, I went left and kept climbing and then ended up with a great downhill ride with mile 4 at the bottom. Then it was uphill for a full mile to what I think is the trail I was supposed to be on at mile 5. From there it was a fun, fast downhill to mile 6 where there is another tunnel to cross the pavement.

From there I think I followed the trail pretty well until past mile 8 when I got to the top of the dam. I took a turn and followed a trail across the base of the dam. Once across the dam I realized it was the wrong way and turned around to follow the paved road over the top of the dam. Once across I found the trail that follows the edge of the lake around to the finish.

Overall I made a 7.5 mile loop into 10.25 miles and I think I added in the steepest hill climbs of the day. Next week should be better marked and there will be other people to follow so it should be OK.