Team In Training :: Training for Tour de Tuscon

Coyote plus Anderson Lake hill

view of the reservoir from the top of the hill

view of the valley at the edge of morgan hill, from the top of the hill at anderson lake

Rode the full length of Coyote Creek trail. Added on the extension out and up the killer, twisty, steep hill to Anderson Lake. I had to stop a couple of times to get my breathing under control. Hy..per..venti...lating. Dizzy. But beautiful at the top. Then back the whole length of Coyote and then added on a 4 more miles. Almost made it to 40 but had a hair appointment as a hard stop to get home for. I ended up doing 37.5 miles.

Friday after work

Ride from home down to the 87 bike trail to Santa Teresa. Turn around and come back. Light, easy even if it was full of exhaust and views of the highway. Reminder: don't do this route again.

Quick after work

Rode the rolling hills of Foothill from Bicycle Outfitters at Loyola Corners to Alpine and back. Nice ride, good workout, not too long. Rode with Kiersten and then off to grab dinner.

Santa Cruz

After yesterday's heat, we wanted to do an easy ride today. Sheila suggested going over to the beach. It would be cool and we could do something easy. In one of my cycling route books there were a couple of rides over in the Santa Cruz area. We decided to do the Aptos one...It was cold and foggy when we got over there.

The ride started out ok—down the hill to the beach, along the beach—it got bad when the road then went straight up the hill. This is less than 2 miles into the ride. We were still cold and not warmed up to do hills. It was awful. I had to walk up the last part of the first hill. The map gave a 7 mile out so we took it after climbing more hills to get back to the car. Of course by then we were warmed up. But this was supposed to be an EASY ride.

We got in the car and drove to the start of the OTHER ride in Santa Cruz. Labelled easy. We started at Natural Bridges and rode down West Cliff drive, through downtown and the boardwalk area. Past the boardwalk and the rides and around to cross over the river. We crossed and rode around the beaches until we hit East Cliff drive. We rode this along the cliffs and through really cute neighborhoods. We continued up some hills, down some hills, around the beaches and finally down a long hill into downtown Capitola. We stopped there and ate — peanut butter and jelly, apples, pretzels and trail mix. Then we turned around and rode back. Still foggy, still cold. Wore my coat the whole way.

This ride took forever but was only 21 miles. It was quarter of five by the time we got back to the car. It took us over 4 hours to ride both parts of this ride - plus a drive from Aptos to Santa Cruz.

I had not intended to lose my whole day doing this....yikes!

Canada Edgewood

Today we had a team ride. Canada road at Edgewood down to 92 and back. Then from Edgewood down Canada into Woodside. We turned at Woodside, then up Whiskey Hill road to Sand Hill and then Portola down to Alpine. Alpine to Arastradero.

enjoying the rest stop, awesome watermelon and teammates
On Arastradero we stopped at the preserve for a planned rest stop. From Arastradero we went down to PageMill, up the PageMill hill and turned into Foothill - which at that point is actually Junipero Serra. This went on and then we crossed Sandhill and the road became something else. We rode through Menlo Park / Atherton into Redwood City and back to Edgewood. By the time we got to Edgewood it was super hot (95 degrees in Redwood City according to the paper) and we had a 2 1/2 mile climb to go. I had to stop partway up the hill and then went a bit further but had to be SAGed the rest of the way up it was so hot. I finished the ride by riding from the crest of the hill back to the meeting area at Edgewood and Canada.

Another shot from the rest stop
Highlights from the ride—we practiced pacelining for most of the ride so we kept a moderately easy pace that we all could do. THis was fun!
I led several of the lines up the hills on Canada.
We stopped several times to regroup at the top of hills, grab a bite and stretch.
We practically had a party at the rest stop with the pretzels, gatorade and water and the awesome watermelon brought to us by our honorees. These folks rock!
There are too many stop signs in redwood city for a decent bike ride.
Naps are good—2 1/2 hours of dead sleep after a stretching, a shower and lunch.

Week 5

Rest on Monday.
45 minutes of hard intervals on the Precor Ellipse on Tuesday.
Yoga on Wednesday.
Nice ride on Foothill with Kiersten on Thursday.
Yoga on Friday.

Good week.

Yard Sale:: Day 2

Up again at 6 to deal with the people who come early and lo and behold they never showed. It was cold and overcast from the fog that had rolled in and we had slower stream of people than saturday. Made less money but sold some big things as well.

After it was all done we went to eat with Rose and her new SO. Mexican food and lots of water.

Around 6, Sheila and I went out to Coyote Creek and rode the whole trail. It got dark on us and I had about 4 miles to go as the sun was going down. Had to remove the sunglasses—which is bad since they are prescriptions. So either way I couldn't see and almost wiped out a couple of time. Made it back as the sun disappeared. Just in time, but really pushing it.

To work and back

Rode to work this morning and then home this evening. 13.65 miles each way. Traffic, a few underpasses and over pass grades and a lot of stop lights.

My route goes from home, to Lincoln, to Park, through the Rose Garden district and back into Santa Clara behind the university to Lafayette. Down Lafayette—the scariest part, under the railroad tracks, across Central and then over 101 (thank god no exits or freeway entrances) and then on to Agnew. Left on Agnew and pick up the San Thomas Aquinos trail out to Alviso to the baylands trail. Turn from one trail to another to the park and dump out on Carribbean to yahoo!.

After work, repeat in reverse.

Keeping up

Did yoga on Monday and about 40 minutes on the Precor in the gym on Tuesday. Intervals in short spurts before guitar class.

Another long ride

Rode the whole Coyote trail on the new bike. Much easier than last week and less hot! Did the ride in about 2:30 hr. Not bad but I do despise the back half from where we park and Hellyar park. Very bumpy and short stretches.

los gatos to saratoga to cupertino and back

started the day today with a nutrition clinic - how to eat and ride and not "crash" physically. then off to the ride. 26 miles through los gatos to saratoga to cupertino and down stevens canyon road and up, up, up mt. eden. whew! what a hill. then down—more scary than up, fast and furious and a brief moment of panic at the speed and the curves and then reign it back in. the ride was superb, not too hot, with nice folks, great coaching and just a few kick butt hills.

Alviso: My favorite place to ride most of the time

Alviso is the place to be.

After work :: Los Gatos Creek trail

Rode Los Gatos Creek trail tonight after work. I really wanted to ride to work this morning but I was so tired from riding yesterday evening I couldn't get out of bed in time to ride. The ride was good - but way too many people on the trail. Riding on the roads has gotten me used to not having to worry about running over walkers, runners, dogs and rollerbladers. I can't believe how many people run and walk with headphones on totally oblivious to people coming up behind them.

Riding and going nowhere

I had guitar lessons tonight and didn't manage to get out before work this morning so I dragged out the stationary trainer and tested that out. Bike on trainer, tv on something that lasted and hour and away I rode—in place. Worked up a good sweat, managed to have a nosebleed and still rode for my hour. It was a good way to get a workout in even though it was dark outside. We move up to longer distances this weekend and up to 30 + miles next.

Skipped my training

Strength training day. Oops - I wasn't able to actually do anything today what with parents here for one last day and company coming over in the evening.

Alviso Sunday

We rode out at Alviso today. The schedule said ride for an hour - so we did the Alviso loop and then went out around the town to make an hour. Light ride compared to the day before but a little wind and extremely bumpy. Tested out the new camera.

Week 2 :: Time Trial

Our ride today was the Alpine Road loop. Only 12 miles but hills and a final long 3.5 mile grade up hill the last part of the ride. This was the hardest 12 miles I have ever ridden. I suppose in a couple of months it won't seem so bad but it sucked! I kept asking why I was doing this as I was going up hill very slowly - pretty much going nowhere fast. But then I remembered our honorees and what they have all dealt with or are dealing with right now and I pedalled a little more and finally made the end.

Easy riding

30 minutes easy before work today. More like 45 with the stoplights. It was hard not to keep going because I was just getting warmed up.

1st day photos

our honorees talk about their leukemia

photos from our first training session

Day 2 - Coyote Creek

We rode for an hour today, down at Coyote Creek. We got out by 9:30 but by the time we were done it was starting to be really hot. I ended up only doing a little over 10 miles in the hour. That is pretty lame. I need to keep working so I can get faster. Sheila went about a mile or two longer than I did. Coffee afterwards. I ordered a new little camera to take with me on rides. Much more reliable than the Pencam and better quality and megapixels than the old 1st generation elph.

First training ride

We had our first training ride today for the fall TNT season. Kickoff was Thursday night and it was incredibly inspiring. The ride today was relatively easy—except for one long giant grade of a hill that was rough. I'll get there eventually. Am in pretty good shape for the flats but the hills...

We did a tire changing clinic as well and everyone had to remove a tire, take it off the rim, remove the tube and then put it all back together again. Fun.

We ended up doing a total of about 16 miles with some hills around Foothill Expressway, Arastradero, Fremont and Concepcion over in Los Altos. Not too bad.