Thursday, July 7, 2011

I've been so bad about blogging for the last 2 weeks, or however long it's been since we got home from California. It was a great trip, and we followed it up by picking Charlie up at El Paso International for a long weekend of desert activities.

We started with a road ride followed by trying to keep up with him for a brick. I thought this altitude was supposed to slow him down! Maybe it did; I'm just that slow. And can I comment on his trail running, you know, as a triathlon coach and regular gait analyzer? He glides over those rocks like it's nothing, so his upcoming stage race shouldn't be much of a problem.


A few trails outside of our closed national forest are still open, so mountain biking was an option after all. The bike shop owner where we rented surprised us in accepting our offer to come along for the ride, and ended up being our tour guide. Here's some scenery for you. And the view of the mountain is nice too :)



I would've gotten more pictures, but was doing too many white knuckle descents to get out the phone. They were scary due to my extreme lack of mtbiking ability. We were excited that CBD brought some rain for us (see those clouds?). It sprinkled on us on the way home, but ended up being more tragic than it was worth: another forest fire was started by the lightening. Ugh, will this ever stop? We're a little late getting started on monsoon season, but have had a couple of minutes' worth of rain at the house in the last month.

We were sad to see Charlie go after his short stay. This week we've found ourselves wrapped up in something else: the Tour de France. I think I mostly watch it for the commentating by Phil and Paul, and for getting nervous for Cavendish at the end of the sprints. I like him.

I was amused at Contador yesterday when after crashing, he threw his bike off in the ditch like, "get this piece of $*** out of here." If I was that spectator I'd be on that thing riding off into the distance before he could turn around. I'll take his toss-asides.

It's around :40 in this video if you missed it (and poor Janez Brajkovic).



Side note: For some really good analyses of TdF power data, see my favorite sports science blog.

Besides visitors and tours of France, we've started picking up the training around here, and that includes a few bike commutes to work on the very wide but very dirty shoulder of the highway that's not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. It really only takes me 15 or 20 more minutes than usual, so if I can just get everything together, it's not overly inconvenient.

We're leaving tomorrow for Roswell again, to do the Bottomless Lakes Triathlon. It's super short, but we swim first, just like I like it. The only stress I'm having is from reading about this Bottomless Lake, which is 90 feet deep, but clear. I keep telling myself that I've done Ironmans in deeper, with shark potential to boot. This won't make me panic. THIS WON'T MAKE ME PANIC.

Next week we host a long weekend again, but filled with some different activities. Jenny and family will be here to check out the desert and see if it's up to Jackson's standards. I'll report back on that.

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