Jan 6th- Jan 10th, 2010

Wednesday, Jan 6th, 2010:

Slept terrible tonight, due to the so called bed in my room, which is basically too short and soft.

Joined "The Wednesday Ride" from Le Buzz with SWHC. It's a nice double pace line tempo ride on Old Spanish Trail, Pistol Hill and back at Houghton. Thanks (!) to Jon and Jo on the tandem, we barely went under 30 mph going back to town. My SRM is working sweet, thanks Dan, and it's pretty interesting to play with the draft distance and see the effects on the wattage. Staying very close to the guy in front of you hardly requires any energy, sometimes even a bit of braking, while it takes short bursts of +500 watts to close a 10ft/3m gap, going 30mph/48 kmt. Days total: 105 km/3.30 hrs.

Thursday, Jan 7th, 2010:

Had another terrible night of turning and trying to find a way to rest, but with little success - gotta find a better way of sleeping or I will soon be exhausted and in lack of much needed recovery.

Drove to the East end of Broadway this morning and hit the beautiful trails with Brett this morning. We did 55 min./appr. 12 km on the soft undulating trails, between giant saguaros, ocotillos, barrel cacti, prickly pears and a plethora of other sticky manifestations.

Did an easy 2 hr. spin on Old spanish trail in the afternoon.

Friday, Jan 8th, 2010:

Jon came by at 7 am and I helped him translate some business meeting via Skype, translation is a bit more demanding than I thought!

Afterwards we went to a breakfast place called Mimi's to get some food, and boy, did we ever get food! The waitress was kind enough to mention my accent and when she discovered I came from abroad, I was greeted a BIG four pack of muffins to bring home. I said thanks and instantly made a firm decision not to touch those caloric bombs and offered them to Jon in the car, but he refused and told me that I would eat them eventually...

Ran 9 km after a few hours of heavy digestion and rode 70 km easy on old Spanish Trail in the afternoon.

Jon picked me up at 5 pm in his 1973 Porsche convertible and we stocked up on beers and steaks and headed for the Roberts mansion for Happy Hour and dinner. UK Susy was there as well, indeed a happy and amiable person, and it turned out it was her birthday!!! Well, just another good reason to celebrate I guess. I had the biggest T-bone steak ever and every two pounds of it was just sooo delicious. Might go into meat comatose tonight...

I borrowed a futon from Jon and we threw it on the floor and hopefully this will make me sleep a lot better.

Saturday, Jan 9th, 2010:

Despite, or because of, passing on some serious lethal gas, from trying to digest the exorbitant amount of meat, I slept like a baby all night, until the alarm clock bellowed at 6 am. Coffee, oatmeal and then off to the Shootout with George and Kathryn. As expected, the group went crazy as soon as we hit Valencia and I had a hard time keeping my position in the group. All of a sudden a guy to my right hits some gravel and he literally comes careening sideways through the peloton, taking my front wheel out. How we all manage to stay upright I don't know, but that sealed it for me and I voluntarily went to the back of the group and made sure I had good clearance to the guy in front of me. Eventually gaps opened up and soon I was rear guarding one of the many groups getting shelled from the main group. Along the way we swallowed up all the drop offs and catched up with the front guys at Duvall Mine Road. I went up White Canyon Road, but stopped at the steep slopes of Madera Canyon, as I reckoned I would be a pitiful sight trying to ascend the steep section with my 39/23 (next week I did it though, but it wasn't pretty). Went home by myself getting 155 km in nearly 5 hrs.

Watched Play offs with Brett in the afternoon.

Todd Mion came by at 8 p.m. and picked me up, to go to Curtis birthday party in the Foothills. I was pretty tired when we got there and it only got worse as I tried to taste all of the delicious snacks that Stella had prepared. I think Curtis was the only one to get really drunk, but then it was his party after all. Rob took me home at 1 a.m. and I found Brett sleeping the living room, because the neighbors had had a pretty loud party going on all night. Brett had called the Police and then things seemed to settle down so he could return to his bed.

Sunday, Jan 10th, 2010:

Met with SWHC at 8.30 a.m. to go up Mt. Lemmon. I did 30 min. @ 288w and then added another 10 min to get 40 min. @ 280w. I was doing fine with the 23 as my "go-gear", but when I tried to go easy afterwards, I was hardly able to turn 70 rpm. It's way more than Darien though, as he rides a fixed wheel bike with 52/15 , gear 90, which seems painful for the knees, but hopefully it'll make him a stronger rider. Or a knee replacement candidate before he's 50...

We got a new resident in the house today: Jenny Trew from Canada, who got married 10 days ago and decided to leave the cold and dark Ottawa and her newly wed husband, Chris, to come and take advance of the brilliant weather for riding her bike. She's coming from a swimming/triathlon background, turned to track racing on the velodrome and is now a sprinter on the Canadian National Team. She did the Tour of L'Aude (Female Tour de France) last year and then went into some serious overtraining, which she's now trying to recover from.

Kathryn has moved to George's house way out on Ajo/Kinney for the time being, so now it's Brett, Jenny and me left to take care of the house and get the training, eating and resting don.