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.

A short ride this morning

Took a short ride early this morning. Trying to get some hills in before the Hillbilly Hill race. Here's where I went, the first quarter of the ride is the start of the Hillbilly Race.

My Triathlon History

In 2006 a rash of stupidity came over me and I decided I should do a triathlon. I'm not sure where the thought came from and I'll never admit that it was rooted in me creeping up on 40.

So with 4 months to train I convinced my buddy Wade that we needed to do this and we signed up for race 2 of the LA Tri Series at Bonnelli Park. We both finished, that was the goal. Wade had a respectable time finishing 19 seconds out of 3rd place, I was 4th place in my category as well... but 19 minutes behind 3rd. (There weren't too many guys in the mountain bike category.) Both of us were hooked and signed up for the next year, though Wade was really hooked and signed up for race 3 of '06.

For '07 my training program was a little better... well, more consistent and I got 3rd place in the mountain bike category and got a medal at Bonnelli. We won't talk about how many entries were in the category. And a month later I participated in a little race another friend puts on and calls the Hillybilly Hill Adventure Race (http://hillbillyhill.blogspot.com) Of 16 entries I came in 15th, good thing my brother ran this one or I would have been last.

So now we're at '08. Someone at work heard that had done a triathlon and asked if I'd be interested in joining the team from work to do the Malibu Nautica Triathlon, again a moment of stupidity comes over me and I said yes. It was after that when I looked up info about the race. Turns out it's twice the distance of anything I've done before, and the swim is in the ocean.

So now we're getting serious about the training. I'm gonna need to be able to swim 1/2 mile, bike 18 miles, then run 4 miles. The swim really has me freaked out.