I promise, I'm going to organize better next year. This was the scene last night as I spent about 6 hours trying to add up receipts and mileage in getting my taxes together. I'm the one who just jams all their receipts in a drawer and just sorts it out the second week of April. This year at least I'm not doing it last minute; I'm actually getting my taxes done this week. I decided to go to a professional this year, but I still had to organize everything before I brought it to him. It was pretty painless, and I've already got my 2006 spreadsheet going no more big drawer of crumpled, coffee stained receipts.

In other news, the Pullems have their own blog now. So now there's another place to see pictures of my incredibly cute nieces.

Coffee Ride: (def) A ride that is leisurely in pace with no structure or plan other than to include two things, coffee and riding bikes. Also referred to as a cheese and crackers ride or Vitamin Cottage women's team ride.
The advantage of the coffee ride is that you don't have to worry about riding hard or keeping your watts up and you can take time to take pictures of interesting things you see on the side of the road.
Like this odd lawn ornament. I'm not really sure why you'd want a giant lady laying on your lawn.

The best thing about today's coffee ride is that it was on a Sunday. I never get that. Most of the time I only get to do these easy rides on Mondays or Fridays and I don't get stop and drink coffee and read the paper because I'm always having to get right back to work. So it was nice today to have enough time to waste to make an hour and a half ride take over 2.5 hours. The only bad thing about today's ride was the wind. Notice the flags sticking straight out as I pass by the Garden of the Gods.

Sharon came down today to drop the hammer on the Saturday morning world championships (aka the group ride).

Sharon enjoyed the ride, but was real hungry when we got back. I think she felt kind of hammered after riding so hard.

Then Mike and I spent the evening at the mall. I felt like I was in high school again, the mall on Saturday night. We even went to Orange Julius. I don't think I've had one of those in 15 years, and then I remembered why, it didn't taste good at all. It tasted like a creamcicle in a cup. I think I remembered those tasting better than that.

Anyway, I did get yelled at by mall security. Apparently you're not supposed to take pictures in the mall. Again, I felt like a teenager getting yelled at by a grown up in the mall. He was very serious about his job. A couple minutes later we saw him breaking up a group of 13-year old girls loitering around the Chick-fil-A.

Countdown to California: 14 days


It's official now. I'm off to team training camp in 2 weeks time. I'll be spending a week in beautiful Santa Barbara, CA with a few of my Vitamin Cottage teammates. We'll be enjoying the sun and fun while we try ride off all the winter beer and cookie pounds before the season starts. Unfortunately I'm going to have to miss the first team race of the year at VOS because I'm going directly from the team training camp to the CTS Spring Training Camp in Buellton, CA (which is conveniently only about 30 miles from Santa Barbara). Buellton/ Solvang (pictured above) is an awesome place to ride and where Discovery and a few other teams do their winter training camps every year. I did the CTS camp there a couple of years ago and had a blast. I'm looking forward to getting the heck out of Colorado and spending some time with Bfisk and The Hammer.

So the good news, I'm going to spend over 2 weeks in California in the middle of February. The better news, I don't have to drive. More good news, I'm turning around 4 days after I get back and going back to California. The bad news, I'm going to have to drive this time, but when I go back it'll be for almost a month. In March I'll be doing some racing and another then another camp. So I'll be very busy.

So that's almost 6 weeks in California between now and the end of March. SWEEET!

The bad news: I woke up in the middle of the night totally sick with what I'm going to guess was food poisoning. The good news: The advantage of getting sick like that is now I'm only one pound over race weight. I'm actually feeling much better today, but I'll tell you, I thought I was going to die for a while there in the wee hours of the morning.

About the only exciting thing I did today was go over to Eric Baar's to have him take the measurements for my new track bike. We'll that's pretty exciting. My track bike is way too small, if you can believe that. I had it made several years ago before I was as savvy a track racer as I am now (you know, two-time National Champ ;-)) . Eric owns Ground UP Designs and is making frames full-time now. He's made some bikes for some pretty good track racers before like J-me Carney and Jo Keisinowski, so I'm looking to go real fast in 2006.
Today my ride was pretty good. I went on the infamous Tour De Sewer (that is sewage treatment plant). It doesn't smell great at the start of the ride, but once you get out of town it's a nice flat day.
I came home to this in my room. Looks like someone got in to the yarn. Actually Steph gave the cats a ball of yarn to play with... and they did.

My new Super Phone. Not only is it a phone, but I can check email, surf the web, synch with my Outlook calendar, and I'm pretty sure I can launch the space shuttle from it if I have to. I wasted a good part of last night trying to figure it out, but I think I've got the hang of it. Well, I'm not actually sure yet if I know how to use the actual phone feature of my phone. No one's called me yet, but I have figured out the important stuff, like how to check Beth's blog.

Happy Birthday Steph! Well yesterday was Stephanie's birthday.

Last night we went out to do all of Stephanie's favorite things for her birthday. Since Mike is still in LA, we had to have “birthday date night” without him. First, we went to Poor Richards for the best pizza in town.

Then we went to Josh and John's for ice cream. It was deelish.
Then we went to the Peak to watch Brokeback Mountain.

The best thing about the Peak Theater is that you can get adult beverages while you watch your independent film that ultra conservative Colorado Springs is too afraid to play in any of their main-stream theaters.

Wouldn't it be nice to be young and carefree agian? Here are my nieces playing on the swings. Jordi (2.5) seems to have gotten the hang of the whole swinging thing, while Caroline (7 mo) still needs a little work. Today wasn't a great day, a bad ride and a bad Broncos game, but it got a little better when I got some new pics of my nieces from my sis in Kentucky.
Someone's ready to party! Only living 300 miles from Pittsburgh, they're probably just Steelers fans.
"Look Ann-Ray (aka aunt Renee), I can climb all by myself." (Jordi and I worked on this diligently this past summer.)

"Grandma stop squishing me!" Jordi says as she says goodbye to Grandma at the airport. (Hey, that's my mom).

Here's my good friend Brad Huff Superfast Secretariat racing the pursuit at the World Cup in LA. Brad was 6th in the pursuit and the best from the US. Good job Brad Huff!

So after all the snow last night, Steph had to clear the walk. Notice the lack of shovel, instead Steph uses a dust pan and broom. I think maybe we should invest in a shovel.

I had a little help getting through emails this morning. Look how fast I'm typing, my hands are just a blur.

I was working fast to finish up work a little early so I could get out and do some errands. I went to the bank where they were giving away free diet cokes and cookies. What a score. And it was a mini diet coke, for a mini like me.

I also had to run up to Scott's to get set up for my sweet new crankset. Scott owns Sibex Sports and can make almost anything out of titantium. If you want it light and you want it custom, Scott's your guy. Frames, forks, aerobars, he's making some cool stuff these days.

Dang! It started snowing about mid-day today so I was relegated to the trainer to do my workout.
Once I was finished, it looked like this outside. It looks like it's going to be trainer city for a few days.

News Flash! Genevieve Jeanson calls it quis after getting the boot for testing positive at Tour de Toona last summer. First Tammy Thomas, now Genvieve. The competition are dropping like flies.

Today I stopped by the CTS home office for some inspiration from the big guy. No, not Lance, the other big guy, the Godfather of the Springs mafia, James Herrera (that's my boss!)

James showed me his new super phone. I want that!

Of course, everyone at CTS is always hard at work. Koop and Amy Creed take time out of their ultra busy work day to chat with me about all the goings on at the office. Notice the cup of Starbucks in Koop's hand...which I, of course, generously brought him. Here's a tip, never show up to the office empty handed (if you want to stay on the big guy's good side).
I didn't bring any coffee for Lehman though, he never drinks the stuff. Crazy I say, just plain wacko. Who doesn't drink coffee? Jim did show me his new Blackberry, hmm it's between that or the Treo James has. Decisions, decisions.

Tim on the other hand was very excited to get a cup of coffee in the middle of the afternoon. He was so psyched he gave me a cookie.

Up the hill, down the hill, up the hill, down the hill. You get the idea. If this looks like the same hill you've seen before, you're right. We have a great climb in Colorado Springs to train on, the problem it's the only one. So it's the same hill day in and day out. Remember before when I was so psyched to be doing intervals, well by the 3rd week of the block I've just about had enough of this climb. By next week I will be cursing it.
Whenever you're out on Gold Camp you're bound to see someone else doing intervals. Here's Kate getting ready to do some Power Intervals (clearly before she started as she is still smiling).

Tonight while Jessica finished her Chipolte, she and I had a good discussion about power and training. We figured out a revolutionary performance marker; every rider should at least be able to ride at their body weight in watts. All I know is that I'm in big trouble if my weight ever reaches my watts at LT.

I've decided that when I have nothing to say for the day, I'm just going to put up funny pictures of my bed head or cute pictures of my nieces. I chose the latter today. This is Caroline, she's 7 months. Do you notice the family resemblance? ...No, I mean those thighs! She's going to be a sprinter for sure. I'm having a fixed gear tricycle made for her so I can get her out on the velodrome as soon as she can walk.

Nothing happened today. It was a typical Monday, work, work, work. Monday is typically my busiest work day of the week because everyone calls or emails to check in after the weekend, so it keeps me busy. In fact the only time I left the house was this evening to go to the grocery, which by the way, the whole time I was there I was on the phone with a client. So it wasn't ever like I stopped working tonight. It's good though, I got lots of ideas while I was there because we were talking nutrition most of the time.

Today I did the group ride. We went to the Air Force Academy as usual, but it was windy as all get out up there. A small group of us peeled off to go a little longer and do some more climbing at a nice "endurance" pace. However, when the group is Kellie Emmett, Katie Compton, and Alison Dunlap climbing is not so much "nice" endurance for me.

I had to finish the ride with a little climb up Gold Camp to get in my full 4 hours and do a Tempo effort. When I asked who wanted to go with, no one wanted to follow.
Except Kellie, of course, who said Heck Yah!
Kellie was a good pace setter for me to do my Tempo interval up Gold Camp, although I'm pretty sure she was NOT at Tempo while pacing me up the climb.

Later I went out to dinner with my friend Dave who was in town to teach the mechanics clinic at USA Cycling. Dave works nuetral support for Shimano now and lives in CA, so I haven't seen him since last year. Clearly I am excited to see Dave, or maybe just to eat dinner, cuz I was real hungry when I got back from the ride.

That's what I'm talking about!
Broncos: 27, Sucky New England: 13

Today's events culminated with a Broncos win. You'd think as a New England native that I'd have some mixed feelings about which team to root for today. No question, the Broncos. Having had to grow up in New England in the 80's the only team to root for was the Patriots, and they completely sucked then so I was not a fan. I feel betrayed that they chose to get good only after I was in Colorado for 10 years, plus they cut Drew Bledsoe, and Tom Brady is just a pretty boy so I hate the Patriots.

Before the game my day was filled with the Saturday morning World Championships. Having to miss the unofficial team ride (well it's not official if I'm not there) up in Boulder, I did the next best thing, the World Championships of Colorado Springs. Believe me they were all out there today going for the big W in the sprint to PPIR.

Let me stand on my soap box for a minute and make a little statement to all the Colorado Springs group riders out there.... It is not a race. No one cares who wins the sprint. There's no money, prestege, or rainbow jersey at stake, so please be safe. DO NOT GO IN TO THE OTHER LANE TO SPRINT. YOU MUST OBEY THE TRAFFIC LAWS AT ALL TIMES. AND THERE IS NEVER, EVER A REASON TO RIDE IN THE ONCOMING LANE. IT'S JUST PLAIN DANGEROUS.


On to lighter stuff. This evening was a rush. At approximatley 5:13 pm Steph and I did the quickest errand run in the history of errands. We had to go to Target to get me a humidifier so that I don't wake up talking like Kathleen Turner every morning. We did very well not to get distracted by all the cool plastic stuff there like the above froggy humidifier. Then we went to Noodles to pick up some dinner, all to be back home in time for kick off at 6pm so we could watch the Broncos whoop up on the Patriots. (Time back at the house, 6:02pm)

Best part of the errands was that we went out at my very favorite time of night in Colorado. It's just before dark when the mountains are all black and the sky is still a very deep blue. It's cool. I tried to capture the visual with the cool night effects of my camera...I'm still working on that.

Friday night at the house. It's like like a frat party here.

Honestly, nothing amusing happened today. It was work, work, work all day, a little ride, then update the blog and get psyched up for the Broncos game tomorrow.

Now that was uncalled for!

I can't believe how hard that workout was. I had to do these insanely hard intervals today. The hardest event I ever do is the pursuit. It's about 4 minutes of lung-searing, leg-frying effort. Today I had to do basically that 5 times. The first effort was pretty hard, but I made it through. After the second, I got the trash can and put it next to the trainer because I thought I was going to hurl. The third effort almost made me cry (and for those of you who know me, I never cry, well, except when I watch Beaches). I came back a little stronger for the fourth and then completely tanked for the last one. I feel completely wasted.

I am completely unfunctional now. I am struggling to make coherent sentenses and had to lay on the couch in the fetal position for a while this afternoon. You know, I'm a coach and I assigned one of my athletes a similar workout this week, and I just want to say I'm sorry, because that workout is completely uncalled for.

It's about 7pm now and I'm going to bed. I think I'll just watch a movie while I try to fall asleep.

My new TT wheels came in today.

Yah, I wish! No Mike actually is gainfully employed now and this is his first task for his new gig, gluing on about a million tires. He's wrenching for the Spike track team and he's getting all the stuff ready to go to the world cup race in LA next week.
After gluing tires all day, Mike got a little strung out from sniffing glue. Here he's shown on his downward spiral to smoking crack. (no mom, it's just a joke. that's not a crack pipe it's a adapter for a disk wheel).

Later Kate came by to pick up her TT bike. Here she ponders how much faster she'll go at the VOS TT next month. .... not very, since I had Mike fill the seat tube with concrete and only tighten every 3rd bolt when he built it (no sense in helping the competition get faster).

That's all I've got for today. (You know, even after huffing glue all day I don't think Mike thinks I'm as funny as I think I am.)

Thanks for stopping by.

- Renee