Today I needed to ride at least 100 miles for training to get ready for Ironman Couer D'Alene.  The Taleo race team had many riders taking part in the Mt. Hamilton Road race from San Jose to the end of Mines road in Livermore.  I decided to ride out the the race site and then ride the ccourse backward to the junction to get in my miles and also cheer on my teammates.

Started from home around 8:30 and got the the finish area around 10am - first 35 miles done.  Now I rode onto the race course and climbed the 7 mile climb and kept going as group after group of racers were speeding along the course heading toward their finish.  so of the racers looked strong and smoooth and others look gassed as they had done some major climbs when i saw them.  I hit mile 50 mile turn point and kept riding hoping to see Deb and Traci, 2 of my teammates who were out riding the course also cheering on our teammates.

We met up and I turned around with them and started heading back towards the finish. About 10 miles later, Deb's seat Broke!  we were riding along and it just snapped off.  since the race was still going on, a car with bike racks heading towards the finish line stopped and Deb got a ride back.  traci and i started riding back again, another 10 or so miles.  We were going along at a good clip, picking off racers who had been dropped from their groups.  At one point, i reached down for a water bootle, couldn't get my hand on it and looked down to get it.  When I looked up, Traci had gapped me.  she is really strong.  I couldn't catch her and just settled back into my cadence and continued on my merry way.

Pretty soon a group of 5 guys come by me and I jump on the last guys wheel. The 2 guys in front are doing all the work and I am sitting in back just watching their race.  the guy i was sitting on, looked back at me a few times expecting me to pull up to the front and help push the pace, but i told him i wasn't in the race and was just along for the ride. He didn't like this and rode to the front of the group and tried to pick up the pace.  I just sat in and rolled along.  the last few miles of the race is downhill and somewhat technical.  the group I was following was going downhill kinda slow for me, so i sped up and passed them all and put in a pretty good distance between us.

The finish is slightly uphill and after the  dwonhill portion i sat up and pulled over as far as i could to the side and let the group come by me to race for the finish.  it was fun to watch these guys go for it after 50+ miles of racing.

I stopped at teh finsih area, spoke to some of my teammates filled my water bottles and then headed home.  this was really hard becuase now I had been out for 6 plus hours with stops and Deb's mechnical.  The wind had picked up and it was hot.  those last miles were hard and not much fun, but great mental training for the races to come.

I made it home a little after 4 and collasped on the couch.  WHAT A DAY.

I should have gone on a little run, but forget it.  Live to fight another day.  

10 mile time trial - "the race of Truth".  I arrived at the venue early enough to get a decent warm-up.  I had planned on riding out to the race site, but my start time was early and the ride was over 30 miles.

My start time was 8:18.  With a time trial, they line you up at a point and count down 5-4-3-2-1 and then go.  I have only done 1 other time trial like this and the first one, they had you clip in and someone held you up and then let go when it was time to start.  This time, I had one foot on the ground and when the guy got to one, I started.  The timer said no-no-no and i paused, put my foot down and then he said go.  So I lost 10 seconds and all my momentum.   They send us off in 1 minute intervals and I  could barely see my 1 minute man in front of me.

My goal was to catch him and maybe even the guy in fornt of him!  I am moving pretty good, about 22 miles per hour with a slight cross wind, but the air was crisp and cool.  I begin moivng closer and close to my 1 minute man and then see my 2 minute man in front of him.  My 1 minute man passes his guy and I follw past about 30 seconds later.  We then hit the climb to the turn around.  I hadn't ridden the course so I had no idea really how long the climb was.  Fortunatley, they had marked the length to the turn in several palces so I knew how much further.  Unfortunatley, i couldn't close the gap to my 1 minute man and he made the turn about 200 yards ahead of me.

Now it was down hill and only 5 miles to the finish.  i could see the guy in fornt of me but just couldn't close the gap.  Pushed hard and finished in 26:58 but my official time because of my false start showed up as 27:14.

Fun race!

Springlake is a really nice, small venue in Santa Rosa, which is a 70 + mle drive from my home.  I carpooled with 5 others up to the venue which made the trip up really nice and fun.  Bob Young drove us up along with Annette, Gale, Paul and Mollie.  all new swim friends.

The springlake mile had 3 waves.  I just signed up the morning of the race, but was lucky enough to have a previous fast time which got me in the first wave.  Swimmers with times of 24 minutes or faster.

I saw a few other guys that i recogmnized from the parkside mile as well as some young guns and gals who I knew would be fast.  the plan was to try and draft off of one other these swimmers to improve my time.

They sent us off a little late, about 9:15 am.  The course was laid out in a big triangle with about 500 yards to the first turn then approximatley 100 yards to the next and then back home. I tried to catch a draft off of several different swimmers but either couldn't keep their pace or they ended up being too slow.

I was top 20 at the first turn from what I could see.  the second leg was hard to sight and i ended up a little off course, which probably cost me almost a minute, but got back on course by  the next turn and headed for the finish.

As i approached the finish, a swimmer latched on to my feet and as i swam the last few yards, i could feel him touching my feet.  i sprinted the last 25 yards and crossed the line jjust 3 seconds ahead of him.  as it turned out, he was in my age group.

I swam a 22:12 which was 2 minutes faster than the parkside mile, but ended up 4th in my age group and 18th overall out of 120 swimmers.After the swim I hung out with the group and we planned to meet at several other swim events over the next couple of months. I had brought my bike up in Bob's van and we talked about my training for ironman in 5 short weeks.  I had spent some time the previous 2 days mapping my course back from Santa Rosa.  The challening parts of the ride would be over the ridge from Sonoma county to Napa county.  Trinity road is a 8 mile steep climb over the ridge.  the other tricky part was getting from napa into Vallejo to cross the Carquinez bridge, most of the route kept me on back roads, but this one stretch is on Hwy 29.  So I had approximatley 10 miles to ride on this Highway with cars zipping past me at 60-70 MPH.  It ended up not being that big of a deal becuase the wind was at my back and i was averaging about 30 MPH over this stetch and the shoulder was wide enough.

The ride was great other than the fact that it was abut 100 degrees.  I drank about 6 water bottles of electrolyte drink, ate and took salt tablets.

When I arrived home, I was tired but not totally wasted from the ride.  I drank lots of water and more electrolyte drink had a good solid dinner and went to bed fairly early.  Need my strength, tomorrow is UVAS triathlon and another early wake up call at 4 am.

I then grabbed my bike out of Bob's van, put on my Taleo bike clothing and headed home from Santa Rosa. 

87 mile bike ride after the Springlake mile. 

since I have to work in some long bike rides to get ready for Ironman Couer D'alene, I hitched a ride with Bob Young up to Springlake and rode my bike home.  this also would give me a good idea of the ride to glen Ellen in 2 weeks for Vanessa's graduation party at the ledson home.

I headed out from the venue to Hwy 12, a 2 lane country road which hugs the ridge between Sonoma and Napa.  My plan was to ride over Trinity road to Napa.  this road has served as a route for the Coors Classic stage race from the 80's and also the past 2 years for the tour of California.  they pick this road because it is a great climb and challenges the professional bike racers. The climb is 8 miles long with very little shade until the top, then it is tree covered for most of the way down the other side.

When in Napa county, the roads were in better shape and I had planned a route on Dry Creek road which took me all the way into the town of Napa.

I then finally had to get on Hwy 29 for my ride to Vallejo. The carquinez bridge was recontructed a few years ago and they installed a bike lane.  The ride through Vallejo was uneventfulo other than the flat tired I got gong over some railroad tracks.  I fixed the flat fairly fast with a couple of guys who were drinking their 64's down the sidewalk from me.  One guy was really nice offering to help me out, but i had it covered.

Got a little confused in Vallejo trying to get to the bridge and road through some neighborhood before finally finding my way.  Once over the bridge, it was no problem and I got home with no other incidents. It was a hot day, but I drank alot of water and Gatorade and aLso had salt tabs.  No cramping or headache so another good training day done!