July 9 - First Mile in the Pool!!

On a quest to escape the "summer" in SF, Knupps and I skipped out on the captain's run at Ocean Beach and drove down the 280 to sunny Palo Alto. Forty five minutes, and some 35 miles later, we were putting in the laps in Stanford's gorgeous pool. Not sure whether it was the long-course 50m pool, the sun, or the proximity to the ribbing I took in Stanford's water polo pool (see reason #5), but things started to come together - and I logged a 1600m workout. It still wasn't pretty, but it was my first mile in the pool.

We followed up the pool workout with a killer run to/around the Dish - about 8mi total - including the notorious 3.3mi loop with over 600' of elevation. I definitely forgot how hard that run was... Thank god for the friendly Canadians in San Mateo who offered hot dogs, bananas, honey, nutella, peanut butter, toast, pretzels, and home made banana bread to replenish our glycogen levels.

Check out the video below... Oh, and 6 weeks to race day!!!

July 4 Weekend - Lake Tahoe!!!!

I took the training up to Tahoe for July 4th weekend to celebrate Independence Day in style - complete with hiking gear, skis, bikes (yeah I finally figured out the bike rack), and of course - board shorts and Rainbows. Didn't get a chance to use the skis (we did see some fantastic pond skimming at Squaw - complete with a gnarly tandem wipeout into the safety fence), but got in some great hiking and biking, paired with the requisite amount of celebratory drinking and phenomenal company.

Check out the videos...

Saturday hike up to the snow-covered summit of Rubicon peak - 9183' - just over a 2mi hike with 2300' of elevation:

And the "ride" down:

On Sunday, I rode down 89 towards Emerald Bay... those rolling hills definitely pack a punch at 6300'...

The parting view of Chambers Landing: