7 Months Down

It's been an incredibly long time since I blogged last. My schedule is partly to blame, between what became of training in the later part of the school year, on top of studying and finals and working. Then real work started mid-May and here I am in August finally finding a day off to blog. I haven't ridden today, so this blog won't be much about riding.

Definitely feeling pretty sluggish or maybe even discouraged, I haven't been getting the training I because of 40-50 hour work weeks and not a whole lot of commitment on my part. Work hours aren't so much the main problem, it's the substance of the work. Lifeguarding all day is a great way to get in or stay in shape, but by the time I get home, I already feel like having a beer or calling it a night without putting in the time in the saddle.

Another problem is distance: distance between work and home, and distance between home and mates. The way I was thinking at the end of the school year was that I could ride my bike to work and save a ton of money on gas. But as it turns out, 22 miles one way made me think twice: if I'm not at work for the 8 am shift, I'm there for the shift that ends at 7 or 8 at night. And then there's team mates. I can't stand riding in my girlfriends garage every night, and riding solo has got me down.

So far, since January 1st, I have missed a single day of riding. July 11th was the one day that I didn't plan out my day and turned a 8 hour work day into a 16 hour day in San Clemente. Which is okay in the grand scheme of things, but I was really looking forward to a year of riding with no missed days. I think the fact that I did miss that day has been another reason that I've been slacking on my riding.

I'm hoping that today's post will help me light the fire under my butt to really start training, not in the hope to be ready for a race soon since I have an open race calender, but in the hope that I can feel pumped about working out and so that when Fall semester comes at the end of the month, I'll be ready to train with my mates as hard as I can to get ready for the next collegiate season.

March So Far

Finding it hard to set aside time to keep track of my miles on this website, but I'm just glad to be getting on the saddle just as consistently as the previous months. So it's been almost 10 days since the last time I wrote, so some numbers are called for.

March 7: 10.18 miles
March 8: 17.39 miles
March 9: 24.31 miles
March 10: 11.42 miles
March 11: 4.33 miles
March 12: 15 miles ( USC Fight On! Duathlon)
March 13: 18.00 miles
March 14: 10.23 miles
March 15: 21.07 miles

March 7-15 total: 131.93 miles
March 1-6 total: 119.58 miles
March so far: 251.51 miles

Feeling pretty good about the mileage, kinda thought it would be a little higher than 250, but satisfied so far.

3/1-3/6 Break Down

The past couple days have been a blast, a couple days of minimum riding with a couple decent rides. Just a break down of the miles so far:

March 1st: 4.95 miles
March 2nd: 80.16 miles
March 3rd: 6.51 miles
March 4th: 12.46 miles
March 5th: 2 miles
March 6th: 13.5 miles

So far that makes 119.58 miles, which is fairly decent for a 6 day period, but only half of my rides were over 7 miles... So hopefully I'll get a couple more rides in the double digits, even if they're rides that I do later in the day/ evening.

To start, I can't believe I got away with not blogging yesterday. I mean, today is the first day of March, which means that since January 1st, I have been on my bike every single day. For two months. Two. Months. I can't believe it! Looking back on the past month, I haven't been keeping the best track of my mileage. I've been thinking that I've been feeling really strong and pretty confident on the road, and I'm thinking about putting some miles into some crits and actually keeping track of my miles.

So for the month of March, I'm going to stick to using my Garmin everyday while I ride. Also, I want to stick to actually writing everyday, if only to write about how I felt while on the bike that day and to keep a running total of the month, no matter how long or how short the ride is.

March 1st: 4.59 miles, 15 minutes, 294 calories burned, average hr 139.
Since I was riding at night, I stuck to Becca's neighborhood, which is nice because it's well lit and is relatively flat. The problem is that the loop is about 1.57 miles, which gets annoying after a couple laps. To be honest, I got pulled off the road by the Moore's, since I forgot to scrounge through my car for my tail light. Until then, I felt pretty good, just getting enough speed to feel smooth (max: 26mph, avg 18mph). I'm not feeling too bad is that my ride was short, considering tomorrow is going to be a whole bunch of riding.

Long Time no Blog

So it's been quite a while since my last blog. After looking, it's been 2 weeks. Luckily for me, I've been slacking on writing and not on cycling.

I've still managed to get in the saddle every day the past two weeks after my race at UCI. Since then I've raced again, placing fairly well for the race being a duathlon, and I've had a few hard rides, and that's actually what I have to look forward to.

Because I haven't really kept a day to day writing habit, I've lost some of the words I wanted to put down. My first is fairly upsetting: I heard about yet another local cycling fatality, and that's always terribly upsetting to hear. My thoughts and prayers go out to the Britel family, even if I wasn't lucky enough to meet Amine, I was still upset to hear of his passing.

On a lighter side, I've been pretty happy with my past riding days, I've felt fairly strong with plenty of endurance. I'm hoping I don't eat those words on Wednesday when I go for my first century ride. Hopefully during that multi-hour ride I'll be able to find more to write about.

Race Day!

I mean, RACE DAY!!! Oh wow I had a blast today at UCI Zot Trot!! I don't know how to even start talking about it, but there will definitely be plenty of shout outs to this blog.

Before I get going on the race, I will say that I've still been spending plenty of time on the bike, even though I haven't been writing about it everyday: Saturday just a little test riding during/after my tune up at Irvine Bikes by Ethan Yotter, Friday was a freezing but successful bike ride at El Dorado, Thursday was a quick spin indoors, and Wednesday was a SOLID solo ride at El Dorado(and I mean SOLID because not even the wind was able to slow me down). Now, onto the race this morning!

Just had a moment because I couldn't say "early morning wake up" since 5am is now the rule rather than the exception. Spent a lot of that time sitting around waiting for Mom, considering I only got dressed and had a couple of bites of food to eat. Finally got rolling in the truck by about 5:30, grabbed Becca and headed out for UCI's campus. Got into the lot just before sunrise, chatted with team mates and did a few last minute check ups on the bike and shoes. Got to see plenty of smiling faces in transition, might as well shout out all of them now: Nelson Prieto, Veronica Gonzalez, Cheyenne Hayes, Kari Szentesi, Yeshua Farfan, Ben De La Torre, Mark Vishnnevsky, Wes Andreason, Robbie Grant, George Rivas, Ethan Machado, Torry Mendoza, Carleigh Smith, Sean Sommerville, Mark Donovan and his wife, and some competitors like Miles Sonnenfeld, Sean Davis, and Sean Butler. Also, wanted to mention Alex Freitas for making the ride down from Long Beach to join us for a little post race banter.

So to get started: Set up the bike next to Robbie, started unpacking a few things, towel for the feet, flats, glasses, hat, got the other shoes stuck on the pedals, did one last look over the bike, set the helmet in my aerobars, packed up all the loose stuff, grabbed my goggles. Walked Becca and Mom to a corner to set up with a camera, found a bathroom, and hopped in the pool for a warm up. The pool felt a lot like a jacuzzi, but felt good with a little 150 warm up (time got short). Pushed from that wall as #11 and took off!

Felt pretty good through the swim, caught two competitors in front of me, hopped out of the pool and took off for transition. Of course the transition was a ways away from the pool, but once I got there, grabbed the bike, helmet, shades, and took off. Initially, felt a little cold, which I thought was great, got the feet in, and started pounding up the first hill. The bike course went well, felt decent on the turns(could have felt a little more comfortable with the speed), and the U-turns were a pain, but had a lot of fun cranking through the course. Turned in after the 4th lap, still feeling strong and grabbed the flats.

First problem: not adjusting my laces last night. Had to spend a little more time in transition than I initially wanted, but got going pretty quick. Felt sluggish the first mile or so, which wasn't surprising. What was surprising was the fact that after that, I felt GREAT. Not FAST, but GREAT, which is an okay trade off. I think with a couple bricks and a little more running I should be set for the next few races. The run course was way more forgiving than last year, and was actually fun to run. Still waiting on a final race time, but felt pretty darn good, and like I said, T2 and the run probably were the only places I really could have improved by a whole lot. Of course I'll continue my riding to keep getting stronger and hopefully drop more time from it.

The last thing I want to talk about is my team mates. I've got to say, we've got a solid crew. Everyone was out there looking out for each other and everyone was exited to have friends out there at the race. Also, Cheyenne took a spill on one of the downhills with another cyclist, but like a BADASS, she got back on her bike (after being cleared) and finished the race. A final thought is that I'm really happy to have such a great crew to work with. Hopefully more blogging and definitely more riding soon!

One Week

Just starting to think that my first race is only a week away. I can definitely feel a little nervous, a little worried, but plenty of excited. Had a pretty good ride today, headed out to the UCI Zot Trot bike course with plenty of friends and team mates. Felt pretty good on the downhills, a little slow on the turns, but I think the race is going to be very fun.

Yesterday was pretty calm, just a small group ride for about thirty miles. Not really too much to say, just a fun ride along the coast. Actually looking forward to a little spin tomorrow. My thinking is to not really slow down the training this week, maybe relax a bit Friday and Saturday, maybe a little Thursday. Just looking to get back in the saddle tomorrow.