Holiday Weekend

It was a great holiday weekend of riding. Got in a 52 mile road ride on the single speed cross bike in Montrose Friday with TR and a nice grunt up to Lizard Head/Trout Lake on Xmas Day. Sunday I went down to Cortez and rode the triangle on the Dean road bike with 43 miles tallied. Santa Claus was good to me and brought me a pair of Specialized Defroster winter cycling shoes. These work great!

Snow Running

Wow; what a busy last few days. Lots of time on the rollers inside due to the weather and lots of time spent shoveling snow and plowing snow amongst my other worldly duties like house work.

I was motivated enough to get out and do a 5am snowshoe run this morning for an hour before work. Snowshoe running is a great work out and safer than running on a snow packed highway with plows cruising by you and the potential for a driver to slide into you. Drivers seem startled to see a bright light pointing toward them when it's on their side of the road for some reason. LOL!! Another 6-8" of snow fell overnight so the depth of the snow was perfect on the snow packed roads of Rico.

I spent an hour plowing my driveway, cul-de-sac area and Mike Guskeas driveway area last night and will be repeating that process tonight it looks like. We have received about 12-16" of snow in Rico since yesterday morning. That is the one thing that took awhile to adjust to living in the high country; lots of wasted time spent shoveling and plowing snow. It is what it is. Only 4-5 months of it to go!!

The Weekend Vehicle

The weekend traveler vehicle is really taking shape as of late. Now during the winter is a good time to really dial it in before our cycling events start back up; which will be soon as the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo is soon approaching. I have recently built a bed in the back of the van that fits Laura and I nicely at a size of 4' x 6'3" and now just received on Friday an awning system manufactured by Rhino-Racks out of Australia. We have been looking around for an awning system that mounts directly to the Yakima roof rack system and Rhino-Racks has it dialed in. Only took about 15 minutes to get it all together and mount right on the crossbars of the rack system. No drilling, screwing, bolting or mangling of the van itself. This awning is 8' x 6'5" and I also ordered the extension that makes it even larger or acts as a wall. Now if the snow stops I can go over to Moab soon and try it out.

It's Winter!!

This is what I went out to on Saturday morning. Fun times plowing and shoveling. Winter has finally arrived in full force in Rico. Usually I would have the Subaru in the garage but I have been working on the van that is parked in the garage. That is the Jeep on the left and the Subie buried in many inches of snow.

2011 Racing

Well that time of year to start thinking of what races to do in 2011. There are so many and so little time. Here are a few definite races early in the year;

February-24 Hours in the Old Pueblo (Tucson)
March-Sedona Big Friggin Loop
Moab Rim Ride
April-12 Hours of Dawn till Dusk (Gallup)
May-12 Hours of Mesa Verde (Cortez)
Grand Loop Race
June-24 Hours Enchanted Forest (Gallup)

There are a bunch of endurance stuff too in between all of these I want to do so I will just play it by ear and finalize races as the months come up. Should be another good year of abusing the body. I may throw in some running stuff as well like a marathon. We will see.

Recovery Time

I needed some recovery time on the bike after being sick so I headed to Moab with my sidekick Nacho in tow for some fun and to meet TR. I didn't feel 100% but as the weekend progressed I felt better and better. Or that may have been all of the beer I drank? Laura opted to stay at home and hang out with the other dogs Lucy and Shady. Both Saturday and Sunday were sunny and cool but perfect riding weather. We were the only ones camped out anywhere near the Sovereign trails. I think the cold weather and chance of rain (20%) scared everyone off as for both days we saw less than 10 people out on the trails. It was like the twilight zone. The trails were all ours for the riding. Saturday was a good day with less miles than planned but after being sick I didn't want to push it too hard. We totaled 41 miles, 5.5 hours total time covering the Sovereign Trails, North on Copper Ridge Jeep Road to Baby Steps/Klondike loop, across the highway to Mill Creek Road and looped around Monitor and Merrimac and back on Cotter Mine Road to Willow Springs Road and back to camp. Sunday was a shorter ride with a loop on Sovereign before heading back into Moab to gather some groceries to bring back home to Rico. Bummer was when I got back that Laura wasn't feeling great and may be getting what I had the last two weeks.






Left the snow for some dry desert.




Nacho on the back bed snoozing while driving to Moab.

A perfect day to be on the bike.

Monitor/Merrimac area.

Nacho looking for some beer.

Van Nation.

On the Sovereign Trail.

Sickly

So, as soon as we get back from vacation I get sick. I did feel it a bit during the Thanksgiving break with a bit of a sore throat but nothing major to hold me down from getting out in the cold and riding everyday. Well as soon as we got back I was hit hard. After a couple days I succumbed to go tot the doctor which I never do. The diagnosis was: bronchitis, sinus infection, fluid behind my ear drums and a severely irritated throat (strep throat test was negative). It felt like I was swallowing glass. So I was forced to miss work for a full week. Bummer for sure. Now I'm on day 4 of antibiotics and feel better but the cold symptoms and ears still feel funny. I hope to feel better by the end of this coming week as I tentatively plan on going to ride the McDowell 60 on December 11th. If I go it will be a quick trip leaving after work on Friday and getting very little sleep before the race and returning on Sunday. Burn and turn!!!! LOL!!!