Command Central.

I hate riding with out training data, but I've been doing it a lot the last couple of months so maybe that's why I went a little overboard today. Today was the first time I've ridden with a power meter since mine crapped out in February while in CA which was the same time my cyclometer crapped out too. Riding without power is kind of like riding in denial, you always think you're faster than you really are. The power meter never lies. Turns out my power meter didn't record today afterall, so good thing I have all the back up data from my heart rate monitor and cyclometer. See, I was thinking ahead and I didn't even know I was thinking ahead.
I did my intervals out on Gold Camp today, that's nothing new. In fact, I tried to figure out how many miles I've actually ridden on Gold Camp over the years. It's really the only hill to do intervals on in town, and I ride it at least once a week, and that's usually up and down and up and down like today. You gotta figure that's at least 8 miles a week on it (probably more), times let's say 40 weeks a year, times the last 10 years I've lived in the Springs. That's like over 3,000 miles on this one stupid hill.

Next I will try to figure out how many miles I've done on the Manitou Shuffle. I'm pretty sure it's in the tens of thousands seeing as how it's my recovery ride, warm-up ride, add-on miles ride, and coffee ride.

I was driving home last night and it was making me crazy how slow people were going. I couldn't figure out why everyone was going so flipping slow. Then I figured it out.

Why it's pygmy goats, of course!

Who knew show goats were in such high demand. Seriously there was a caravan of pygmy show goats headed down I-25. Perhaps I should consider a new hobbie. Anne can have her mini-horses and I'll have my pygmy goats and we can travel around the front range showing them... but to who? Who goes to these shows with goats, isn't that the real question?

Stazio World's Race Report

We raced again today at the famed Stazio race course. I think I've done this crit course about a million times. Sometimes we do it clockwise, sometimes counterclockwise, sometimes with the finish on the hill, sometimes with the finish on the flat just to make the race that much more thrilling.
It just so happens to be Beth's favorite course which is good because she got second today. Unfortunately we got out foxed by a foxy Syrea from the Rio Divas, but in the end we took 2nd, 3rd, and 5th (or 4th if you don't count the girl who shouldn't count). So it was a good day and another good team effort.
Here Beth checks her B.O. level before the race. It was ok.

The boys did well too. Jon got in the break and ended up 3rd, getting beat by some guy named Scott Moniger. I heard that guy's won a few races. Jon was real hungry when he got home, which is why he's making snacks in his shammy.

Deer Trail Road Race Report
Ahh, the joys of racing out in the eastern plains of Colorado. Lots of flat roads, lots of wind.

I was a little concerned about the weather today as this is what I drove through on the way to Deerlick.
Fortunately by the time I got there it only looked like this. It actually was fine for the race, other than a few sprinkles we were dry, but it sure was windy!
In the end, Beth was all "get some of this" as she handily took the sprint and won the race. It was an awesome team effort. We had a plan, we executed the plan, and we took the win. We also got 4th and 5th for good measure.

The boys did well too as they won the men's 1/2 race. So it was a banner day for those dressed in purple and orange.

Oh yeah, and Deerlick is the home of the world's first rodeo. Yeehaa!

Light Rain and Windy

39°F Feels Like 29°F

Updated Apr 28 10:00 a.m. MT

I think the weather has ADD this week. Sunday it was 80 degrees, Monday it was 40 degrees, yesterday it was 75, and today it's snowing....
Since it's gross out and I don't want to ride in the cold, I'll just put up a picture of my ride with Mike yesterday when we were in shorts and short sleeves.

We went up to Denver today for a little team presentation to the Vitamin Cottage store managers. It was pretty cool because they all seem pretty excited about the team this year.
Here Jon gives his impersonation of Superman changing in the hallway before we went in.

Vitamin Cottage has been a great sponsor for the team over the years and they proudly display photos of the team and jerseys we've won over the years in the halls of the corporate offices. Here's one of my national championship jerseys hanging on the wall. That was very cool to see. I guess I'm going to have to get it in gear if I want to put another one up there.

Finally had a good workout today; the first good one since I've been back from California. Legs were good, lungs were good... it could have been the sweet tail wind up Gold Camp, but after 2.5 weeks I'll take it.

Here's the deer I almost t-boned on the way down.
and the little birdie that landed on my leg.

Ferris Bueller
Jon Tarkington.

Separated by birth, or the same person???

Skittles
No comment, the picture is enough.

Meet Buddy the Squirrel. He lives in the tree in our back yard.
He spends most of the day lounging. That is when he's not foraging for snacks.
Or checking his email while enjoying a refreshing diet coke.

Honestly this squirrel is starting to freak me out. He'll come right up on the table while I'm there, and he'll follow me wherever I sit. He won't even flinch when you try to shoo him away. Sqirrels don't carry bubonic plague do they?

In other news, Jessica and I experimented with our own sports drink concoction of power gel and electrolyte tabs. The gel dissolves fine, but the electrolytes just leave a chalky residue. I don't recommend putting this in your camelback, although it tastes just fine and makes a great mixer.
***note: this was an experiment prompted by an athlete question and we of course wanted to find the answer because we honestly had never thought about it before.

Last night Sally, Clay and their roomate Logan came over for dinner. Mike was quite impressive, he cooked everything, and it was real good too. We even had buffalo.
Later, we had cake. Sally likes cake a lot.
and Clay assures me that the color of his painted toes is "man steel" so there is no need to worry.

Rode with Katie and Mark today for what seemed like a long, long way out east. It wouldn't have been that far to drive though...
...in my new car. It's gigantic compared to the Saturn. I'm going to need some curb feelers so I don't bump in to stuff. The best news is I can see over the steering wheel and reach the pedals both at the same time! I don't even need a booster seat like in my old car; however, I may need a step stool if I'm going to put anything on the roof.

Spring is springing here in the Springs. Trees are blooming, birds are chirping, the wind is howling, and overall things are going pretty good. The best news of the day is I finally got my new car. We'll officially it's newsed, meaning new to me, but used by someone else before me.
No, this isn't it; this was just one I test drove. I found it a little cramped for leg room. So, if you want to see a pic of my new ride, you'll have to tune in again tomorrow.

Happy Easter everyone. I didn't do anything today but lay in bed and a little laundry. It was awesome!

p.s. I love my nieces to pieces.

Renee

I'm now obsessed with shopping for a car. That's all I can think about, but apparently some people think that I should go for a mini-car like Syrae's mini cooper. But I'm going more larger car, like an Excursion or a Hummer. I'm going for that dichotomy of car and driver.... seriously no! I'll likely go for some economy type good gas-mileage car. I'm getting close, decisions will be made soon or I'll be jumping from my 3 foot window.
I did race yesterday though, funny thing is some of Anne's British friends stopped over after the race yesterday. They really do have to do something about the dental care system over there.

(Crap.)
(Piece of Crap. )

So this week I have started the unenviable task of shopping for a new car. Oh how I detest car salesmen. The first place I went to, this one guy we'll call "Lee" (his name) tried to sell me on a car by pulling out the brochure and reading it to me. I could have done that! He had a bad comb-over and bad clothes and actually uttered the phrase "what's it going to take for you to drive home in this car tonight." To which I replied "I don't know, let's get another bottle of wine and we'll see what happens.".... maybe that last part was something else I was thinking of, I can't remember, it's all a blur. Regardless, I really dislike this whole car shopping process.

My new bike came in. I picked it up yesterday while I was in Golden.

The frame is a little big, but I think I'll grow in to it. I'm planning on a growth spurt this summer.

Ross got his new bike too, but his looks a little small for him. Hmmm...

Another office park crit update: After the camp session ended this morning, I headed up to Golden to do a little race. I'm not sure what the name of the race was, but it was in some office park we race every year. The race is usually called Sara Kay, but it wasn't today. It was called something else, but the outcome was generally the same; we all rode around in circles and Kori won.

It was actually very cool to get to race with my team for the first time this season in Colorado. This isn't actually my team, but the men's team, but just imagine all these guys are girls and you get the idea, except there were only 3 of us, not 4 in the race today.
We raced really well as a team today and did a lot of good things in the race. The best thing was that all 3 of us made the break and were able to dominate the tactics of the race. In the end I led out the final stretch before the finish and Beth and Sharon pulled off some good sprints to finish 3rd and 4th. Especially impressive was Sharon's 4th this afternoon after racing over at AST earlier in the day in which she got 3rd. Even more impressive was Sharon's awesome 2nd place at Boulder Roubaix yesterday.

Less impressive was George Hincapie's fork which broke in the middle of Paris Roubaix.

CTS skills camp update. Today was the last day of camp, well it wasn't really a very long camp. It was just the weekend.

we did some riding...
and we did some pumping up of tires...
and we rode by the Garden today... if I had been a bit quicker taking this photo you would have seen the Garden of the Gods in the background, but you can't since I wasn't.

Today was day one of the weekend skills camp we're doing at CTS. It was kind of wicked frickin' cold this morning, but at least it wasn't snowing (like the said it would). We did some drills this morning out at the park.
How do you do a track stand Jason?
No, not like this.
"You got what stuck to the bottom of your shoe?"