Is that Yoko?

A bit of running at work this week but some silly meetings got in the way so I only got 2 days in. The I was off Friday and thought I'd take a bike ride down to Santa Fe Dam, go for a swim and ride home. Well, apparenlty they don't get too many folks swimming on a Friday morning so they make the swim area smaller... a lot smaller. In fact by the time I got out to where it would be deep enough to actually swim it was only about 20 feet across so I stayed on the bike and just made the loop back home.. 17.5 miles. I had projects to work on around the house anyway.

Saturday we took the kids to San Clemente to the beach. After burying the kids in the sand I decided to take advantage of being at the ocean and go for a swim. So I put on the wetsuit and headed out. The water wasn't really cold enough to need a wetsuit but I need to get used to swimming in it.

Here's me headed out.

You have to look close, but I'm there. I swam and thought I had gone a good ways and headed in. When I got on shore I realized I had only gone a few hundred yards. I'm gonna say it was extra tough because the afternoon ocean was so rough, the reality is I'm not the swimmer I wanna be.

The wetsuit was comfortable and I didn't feel like it was a hinderance and helped keep me afloat.

Junia took a self portrait.


Tomorrow I'm going to try Santa Fe Dam again. There's always a bazillion people there on the weekends so they have the whole swim area open. And with that many people it should feel just like teh triatlon event.

Running in the heat

This week's training consisted of a lot of running... well, a lot of running for me anyway. Two days of 6 miles and 1 day of 4 miles at lunch time. It felt pretty good. I can't remember ever running 6 miles in my life. It was 90-95 degrees each day.

Work got in the way of my bike ride on Saturday morning so I ended up going out at 7:30pm. It was beautiful, a full moon and clear. I did my normal 20 mile loop out to Santa Fe Dam. The wildlife this week consisted of the bats flying around under the bridges under Huntingto Drive and the 210 Fwy.

Swimming consisted of a pool party throwing kids around in the pool.

Wildlife this weekend

So, I got a call from Larry The Neighbor about 1:30 last Thursday afternoon, he said Uncle Leo was trying to take on a bear and two cubs in the back yard. He got Leo out of the yard and over to his place to keep him safe.

I headed home from work, by the time I got there KC had gotten home to find the police and animal control in our driveway. She go Uncle Leo and he was covered in something sticky...and boy did he stink! Not like a skunk... but stink. By the time I got home she had him washed off, then he went off to the groomer on Friday.

Apparently the bears came over to play with Uncle Leo after hanging out in Larry's jacuzzi.




Then Sunday the kids and I were playing Uno out by the pool, I looked over at the pool and saw a big spider floating...dead. I, of course went and grabbed the camera. Wen we scooped it out of the pool Ethan wanted to scare mom with it...I said that would be a bad idea.

Here's the spider with Junia's hand for size comparison.

Training
Training wise, I still had a good weekend. With a 10 mile ride/4 mile run on Friday. 3 mile run on Saturday then a 6 mile ride, 1/2 mile swim and 2 mile run on Sunday.

Wildlife and a pre-race

Wildlife
Well, the training plan at night around home has taken a turn. I was out for a ride a week or so ago about 8:30pm and rustled up a deer and a few miles later something came out at me, it was either a raccoon, skunk or possum. Kinda startled me and I rode faster.

When I got home Uncle Leo was barking at the back wall. When I called him in I could hear something up in the avocado tree. Of course I grabbed the camera and a flash light, I kept looking around and then I saw it.... a brown bear. I tried to get pictures but didn't get close enough for the flash so none of them turned out. They would have been great of the guy peeking over the wall at me. I ran back in side and grabbed the video cam, by the time I got back out there the bear was up on the wall. I need to get a video capture to post a video clip. The bear stayed up there for about 10 minutes then hopped back up in the tree to get some more avocados. I think I need to put some chips out there so he can make guacamole.

The result is I'm not as into running around here late at night and I've kicked in the noontime runs at work shooting for at least 3 times a week.

Pre-race
I joined the team from work for a pre-race out at Zuma where we actually did the whole course. Turns out we did about 75% of the swim, the whole 18mile ride and 4 mile run...and I made it.


The swim. Went better than I expected. We all went into the water together and out the 150 yards. We floated and gathered together while Scott gave us all some tips then started swimming up the coast past 3 lifeguard towers. Some of the others turned around and swam back, I headed to the shore. Felt pretty good, 14 minutes.


The ride. We set off in two groups, me in the second a couple of minutes behind. Once we got out of the parking lot and onto PCH I just kick in and started going. The course seems a lot less hilly than the rides I've been doing up to now so I was able to get some good sped going and I caught up to some of the folks from the first group and finished the ride in 20 minutes less than I've been doing 28 miles out here.

The Run. The run is down the sidewalk along the beach..... which means flat. That works well for me.

Overall it felt good, and very encouraging to complete all of the events in one shot. The fear of drowning is subsiding but the swim was still a lot of work... more practicing to do.

Back to Training

So, since back from the trip up the coast I've been back to my normal training routine: 20 mile ride on Saturday and some riding, running and hapkido during the week after the kids go to bed.

Knowing we're taking the kids to a movie tonight and I won't get a work out I decided to have a little run at lunch time. Conveniently there's a locker room and showers at work....and surprisingly clean and private, I took off for a 2.5 mile run around Universal Studios.

Now, the nice thing about working at Universal is I get to run through the backlot, maybe people think I'm famous as I run past the tram cars for the tour, I always wave just in case. Running past the Desperate Housewives set was tough because the food services folks were out there BBQing. It would have been fun to run down New York Street but that's just a bunch of rubble now since the fire.

Fortunately I have control of the A/C in my office and now I'm just sitting trying to cool off.

Here's a map of the run.

Training Break - Morro Bay

Family vacation this year was a camping trip to Morro Bay. It also turned out to be a bit of a training break... we'll call it "recovery time", that makes it sound like part of the training plan.

We set off or 5 days and 4 nights of camping with the Turners. First stop was the Summerland Beach Cafe for brunch. It's a great restaurant just south of Santa Barbara with omletts, french toast and all kinds of yummy things. From there it was about 2 hours to Morro Bay.

We got to camp and started pulling everything out to set up. Both Mark and I forgot a hammer and had to use a crescent wrench to pound in the tent stakes. There was a guy sitting outside his fancy RV that offered a hammer, I told him I had my multi-tool that was working just fine. He seemed to find that funny for the rest of our stay.

There were some one-star people staying at the site next to us (the other side from the Turners) that it appeared wre building some type of shelter out of plywood. After the ranger came and told the people they couldn't build a shelter and asked them to leave Ethan and Jason decided thae shelter would make better firewood and started bringing some over.


Junia and Brandon held hands by the fire.










On Monday we went to see what this rock deal was all about.



Ethan and Jason thought they should find their own rocks and carry them around...










Then we went to a park for lunch with a great view of Morro Rock.










That night after dinner we made another fire, roasted marshmallows and made a traditional camping dessert of S'mores.









Tuesday we set off to Hearst Castle. The kid's pondered how we could get a Neptune Pool at our house.











Ethan liked the gold on the front door.

Then we drove up the road and saw the elephant seals, it wiped Junia out.










Back at camp Junia was fully recovered and ready to go, there was no chance of a rest time so me and 4 of the kids went exploring around the campground and over by the water and found our excitement for the next day....canoing!

With 10 of us we needed 3 canoes, it seems the Turners had a bit of trouble getting out from shore. We were able to get out a ways. We found the water wasn't very deep, in fact only 1-3 feet so we didn't really need to paddle we could push the canoe around.


And we did manage to see some sea lions swimming about.

The kids then enjoyed the natural history museum. which seems to be run by a bunch of tree hugging green people, oh, that's the rangers.






And here's the kids in our tent.... I did discover that if the door was large enough we could park our Ford Escape inside. It's pretty big.









And finally, here we are getting ready to come home. Ethan looks happy here but was very sad to leave, he cried himself to sleep the night before knowing we would have to leave.












We're already looking forward to the next camping trip.

Fathers Day at the Beach

We went to the beach for Fathers Day. The kids had fun, Ethan really enjoyed flying kites with Luke and playing in the sand.



Junia tried Uncle Rog's surfboard.

Hillbilly Hill Adventure Race

The big race was quite an adventure. The temperature at race time was 103 but everyone got off to a good start. The first hill was pretty killer in the heat but I made it to the start of the run, but then my legs had nothing. I walked much of the way up to the waterfall and dunked my head in. I was able to run back down to the bike and made up a bit of time there and on the bike to the Hillbilly Hill trail head. But then it was back in the sun, I got my bike over the fence and drug myself over. I made my way up the mountain with a combination of walking and riding. From the summit down to the Hillbilly gate I made good time and was able to get my body temperature down enough to ride up the last 1 1/2 mile uphill without discomfort.

During that last mile of uphill I was thinking that I had seen everyone... except Trevor. Could he have been that far out ahead? Then I saw him coming toward me and he yelled "I got a flat!" Well, now I new I wasn't last and how embarrassing would it be if I got beat by someone that had stopped to repair a flat tire? (turns out he actually rode back down to his house on the flat, changed the tube and then headed ack out to tackle hillbilly hill (added about 3 miles to his race.) I dug deep and got myself to the top of the hill and then bonsai down to Trevor's house. I got to the house and missed both freethrows so that meant had 13 adventure laps in the pool, and it felt good to be in the pool.

Here's the map of the ride:


And some details:
Distance: 10.2 miles including 2 miles of run
Total Climb: 1830 ft
Total Descent: 1812 ft
Seen on the race: 1 bear, 1 snake of some kind, 1 rat.

Total time was 1 hour 54 min.... so I cut 12 minutes off of last years time, so I feel good. Turns out only 2 of us from last year improved our times, Don took 27 minutes off of his time from 2007. I thought I'd do even better so I'm saying it's due to the heat, I sure felt a lot more optimistic after my performance on my pre-rides so I'll be evaluating my training plan and how I deal with heat.

The prize at the end.

Hillbilly Hill: race day

Today is the Hillbilly Hill Adventure Race 2008.
June 21, 2008

Temperature today I saw was supposed to get up to 113f.. The highest I saw on the thermometer is 110f..... close enough. Anything over 100 is just plain hot, and don't give me any of that "it's a dry heat" baloney.

There are a few challenges to face this year:
- the neighbor saw 3 bears near the wash today... well, they were in the neighbors yard and when they left headed to the wash.
- with the heat there's a good possiility of rattle snakes... If I see one, that's when I turn and head back down the mountain.
- obviously, the heat
- Rog isn't racing this year so I have the potential of being last.
- and the ever present hillbillies

I have been running and riding a lot more this year to prepare so I'm feeling pretty good. A six pack of Pete's Wicked will be waiting for me at the end.

Pre ride for the Hillbilly run

Day off today so after dropping the kids off at school I went for a ride. I figured the Hillbilly Hill adventure race is coming up soon so I'd give it go on part of the ride. So I took off from home and headed up the wash and over to the start of the Clamshell trail. It felt pretty good. When I did the race last year I spent a bit of time walking the ride, today I made it non-stop. Maybe not fast but I felt good. Well I felt good until I was coming back down the hill and came around a corner and there was a 5 foot rattle snake sunning itself across the road. I stopped and watched it for a few minutes, then started rolling some big rocks down the road at it. After 3-4 rocks he started off into the brush on the side so I hopped back on the bike and headed past there fast.

Felt good when I got to the bottom of the hill.

2008 Malibu Nautica Triathlon - Supporting Children's Hospital Los Angeles

So, training is going well for the Malibu triathlon. (Still freaked out by the swim.) One part of doing this race is that our team from work is participating in the Entertainment Industry Challenge to raise money in support of Children's Hospital Los Angeles. This makes it something beyond just me finishing a triathlon, I'm doing it also to raise awareness of a wonderful hospital. For me this is an easy cause to support because I have seen first hand the work that is done at CHLA as my son Ethan has received treatments there for his cerebral palsy.

My donation web page is at:

http://chla.kintera.org/triathlon/fredrenner

Thanks for considering it.