WEEKEND RECAP

my own Hollywood sign

oh man, this weekend was gnarly. coach had me doing a 90 mile hill ride saturday followed by a 14 mile run sunday (yes, the numbers are gettin' up there). i had already psyched myself out that i was going to bag the hills part if it rained saturday but still go out and try to ride 90 staying flat. i just couldn't imagine riding a trainer for that long, and missing my ride was NOT AN OPTION. i don't really have the proper rain gear, but i'd wear long fleece cycling pants, my waterproof running jacket, and my cold weather booties over my cycling shoes. as long as my core was warm, i thought i'd be ok. then as i checked the weather friday night, it looked like there was going to be a break in the rain for most of saturday!! some reports called for rain starting at 3pm and others called for it to start even later. if we started by 7am, we'd have a good shot at staying mostly dry. wooo hooooo!!!!

mexican chocolate syrup

gravy and merinade powder

the night before, i mixed up my latest Hammer Perpetuem concoctions. last weekend i tried the General Foods International Coffees Mayan Chocolate powder, but i didn't like the actual coffee flavor or the caffeine. so i went down to one of the Mexican markets in my neighborhood, and i found a syrup version of the Ibarra chocolate i wrote of in a previous post. it's made by Nestle and they call it "Abuelita," which means "granny" in Spanish. funny, since the illustration on the front doesn't look like any abuelita i know. oh man, it's friggin' good...i just wanna mix up some Champurrado for all you readers out there, then you'd know just how especially rad this chocolate is. only problem is that now that i have it in syrup form, i wanna drink a gallon of chocolate milk every hour on the hour. if you've been following the blog, you'll know that i'm working on savory flavors too. went to the store and raided the gravy and merinade powder mix section, but the one thing i noticed was that a lot of them has MSG in them. that scared the crap outta me...what's that gonna do to me after 140.6?? but i did find a few that's ingredients weren't too horrific. this time i tried the Weber White Wine & Herb marinade powder. um, yeah, not so much. i think it had some vinegar in it. i can only imagine what sort of gastric distress that would put me in while going 140.6. it was fine for the ride, but not for the "A Race." i also tried some chicken bullion, but not any old bullion. i found Superior Touch's Better Than Boullion Chicken Base (sorry, no pic). once again, i have struck gold!! this stuff is a cream paste, way better than those sad little cubes out there, with actual chicken meat and juices in the ingredients. however, it has to be refrigerated after opening, so maybe not so practical for travel to Brasil. but the flavor was perfect, perfectly salty. the chicken base tasted just like chicken soup, but then i recalled that they'll have chicken soup on the run course, so i better look for some other options. went to their website, and it turns out they have a gamillion different flavors!! i'm gonna order the Organic Mushroom and give it a try. so back to the ride...


i planned to meet Iron Maiden Juliet at Wilderness park at 7am. yeah, that was the plan until i was about to exit the freeway and realized i'd left all my gel flasks back at home in the fridge. no way i could ride 90 miles without my nutrition, so i had to turn around. i felt so bad. every time i ride with Juliet, i've been late. last ride, i got stuck behind a car fire on the freeway. it's so "the dog ate my homework." we finally got going about 8am, but then realized all the gates to the bike path were locked. i guess when it rains, they try to limit access to the river path to prevent idiots from trying to swim or ride the rapids. another rider leaving the park at teh same time pointed out an opening in a fence and we were on our way...

until we got to the next path closure, but we just kept climbing over the fences and handing bikes to each other. nothing was gonna stop us from getting our 90 miles in!! made it to the beach, and i was just amazed that we'd come from the snow covered San Gabriel Mountains all the way to the crisp air of the Pacific. by then it actually started to get warm, and i started peeling layers off. the jacket wasn't compact enough to stuff in my jersey pocket, so i had to wrap it around my waste which drove me mad for the rest of the day!!! riding through Seal Beach and Long Beach was pretty mellow through posh neighborhoods and winding, oceanfront bike paths, but then we went through Wilmington on our way to the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Wilmington is a sort of industrial wasteland filled with wrecking yards and oil refineries and overlooks the Port of Los Angeles shipyards. kinda nutty to be sharing the roads with big ass semis. i was anxious to get through this part as quick as i could!! and then we started to climb...

again, i mapped out the ride on mapmyride.com, and i knew that once again, i was gonna hurt after this one. we started to climb up PV Drive East, and i just tried to focus on my pedal stroke. didn't hurt that i could see a view clear across the city back to the snow covered San Gabriel Mountains. we'd come from all the way over there, and we still had a lot left to go. we made it to the top in about 15 minutes and had the funnest decent down the switchbacks to PV Drive South. now along the coast, and mostly rollers for the next 5 miles, i just took in the stunning cliff-side views and the clean ocean air. then came our next climb, a shorter but steeper one. Juliet had a tough time on this one, but i encouraged her to keep going. at a certain point she bailed as i finished a loop at the top. after a pit stop at 7-eleven for a refill on Gatorade and a gratuitous Snickers bar, we made it back down and around the peninsula. on the northern end, i stopped again to take in the cliff-side views of sailboats out in Santa Monica Bay and still the San Gabriel Mountains in the far distance. oh man, we still had a long way back to the car!! my nutrition felt solid, so i knew i could make it. just needed to stay positive and stay in the moment. if i obsessed too much on how far we still had left, i'd be done. one mile at a time, and next thing i knew, we were nearly back to the bike path which meant 15 miles left. on the horizon, i could see the ominous rain clouds moving in on us, but i knew we could beat them. in the last 7 miles, we met up with a couple on the bike path and road alongside them back to Wilderness Park. the wife decided to make a life change and started cycling a year ago. she's shed 40 pounds and is loving the bike. the husband has been totally supportive of her transformation, ad for the 18th wedding anniversary, all she wanted from him was a trip to Torrey Pines in San Diego so she could give climbing a try. i just love stories like that, people transforming their lives through healthy diet and exercise rather than starvation and surgery. talking with them made the last miles go by super fast and next thing you know i'm like a rental horse on the way back to the stable, flying back to the parking lot!!! 90 miles, we did it, my furthest ride so far. best was that we thwarted the rain clouds. MWAH HA HA HAAAAA!!! well at least for saturday....



it poured all saturday night, so i got the poncho out to be ready for the 14 mile run the next morning. i met Juliet at Griffith Park at 10am, and we headed out for two flat loops. turned out to be an "open water run" and soon enough just about everyone else out that morning ran for their cars. but we stuck it out as the park flood patrol looked at us like we were nuts, and we laughed at how insane we must be to be out in this crud. squishy feet and all, we got our mileage done, 14 miles for me, and 15 for Juliet. luckily her husband had met us in the park and saved us with warm, dry clothes followed by a huge Denny's breakfast. Denny's. i never eat at Denny's or eat huge egg breakfasts, but damn it was good.

awesome weekend. feeling strong as base training is coming to an end. talked to coach about the next phase. he says february is gonna bring the highest volume. that's gonna be rough considering i'm gonna be on the road for most of the month, but i'm psyched for the challenge!!! yes, yes, y'all, it's just gettin' started....