The next big thing...

is my new bike! I'm now the proud owner of a 2007 Lemond Versaille road bike. Christine and I tested a bunch of different models and brands while we searched for the perfect bike do our next TnT event. We are going to be riding our new bikes 100 miles at the, (and I quote) America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride. Take a look at this Map. Crazy. We looked at a lot of brands including Giant, Trek, Specialized, Scattante, and Bianchi. I also looked at Fuji and Schwinns. The Lemond was the one that I liked the best and it was on sale. Not bad when you can get a $2,100 bike for $1300. It's purty...see














I picked it up late Friday night after getting "fitted" by one of the bike technicians at the bike store. First step was to buy pedals and shoes. It's important because the height of the shoes and the position of the clips affects the position of the rider on the bike. Next step is to adjust the height and lateral position of the seat. Then they look at the position of the rider in relation to the position of the cranks. It's best to have your knee be 1 tiny centimeter behind the crank to be in the optimum driving position so that you don't waste energy pushing out on the pedal when you should be pushing down. The final step involves positioning of the handlebars and sometimes swapping out the top stem so that the rider isn't so stretched out reaching for the bars. Of course with so many variables, one item affects the others so it ends up being an interative process. After about an hour, I was all set but it was too dark to ride!

Christine and I got to the bike store way too late so consequently, she wasn't able to get fitted on her bike. I was pretty bummed because we had planned our first ride at Lake Miramar the next morning. Sadly it was not to be. So we ate some pho.

















I took my new baby out for a ride on Saturday afternoon. I had planned a ride around Lake Miramar because it is pretty flat and is exactly a 5-mile loop. Geared up and took a ride. It was awesome. The bike is so fast and light. Spec says that it is less than 18 lbs! Damn, my dumbells at home weigh more than that. Using the clip pedals and shoes took a bit of getting used to but not too bad. 5-Miles came too soon so I decided to take another 5, making a total of 10-miles.

Good times.

I would have kept going but the next day was the Carlsbad 1/2 marathon.

Speedy Gonzales

Had another great training session at Lake Miramar today. I got great sleep the night before, which for those that know me, realize how rare this is. I also prepared by drinking lots of water of the last few hot days and did a lot of stretching of my shins throughout the day. This was also the first tryout for my new kicks, the Asics Gel Nimbus VIII's.

Lake Miramar is a 5-Mile loop and the regularly scheduled Tuesday night training session involves alternating 1/4-mile regular fast-paced walking with 1/4-mile sprints. Today I clocked in at my fastest speed ever. I had three consecutive sprints of under 3-minute quarters. The times were 2 min 49 sec, 2 min 45 sec and finally 2 min 44 secs. This is less than an 11-minute mile! I'm pretty sure that is a new land speed record for Mexicans!

I got great feedback from Coach Peggy and really felt pumped up after the session. It feels great to make such good progress. Last week, I struggled to break the 3-min quarter (ie 12-min mile). I have a week to bask in glory as Coach Peggy is now going to increase the sprint distance to 1/2-mile segments next week to work on my endurance. Yow.

Back on track...

After a long weekend away doing very little exercise and eating mucho rich food, including my first french fries in a year and a half, I'm hoping to get back on track this week.

Monday: Met up with the TnT regulars at Balboa Park for a nice 4-mile session. Tried to work on my form a bit. Kat, somehow talked me into doing some sit-ups after the walk session. Some little torture she calls "bug-crunchers". She took pity on me and we only did one set although she threatened more sets in the future. The session started at 6pm and I since I get out of work at 5:30pm, I don't usually get a chance to eat beforehand. After a big walk, a man hungers. Erika threw out the idea to get sushi. Kat had to be somewhere at 8:30 so we had an hour to find a place. We ended up going to Whole Foods and eating it there. I was a little dubious of eating sushi from a supermarket, even if it is from a health store but it was pretty good. I hadn't been in the store in a while and didn't realize that they actually cook in the store. Had a nice little picnic on one of the outside tables and then called it a night.

Tuesday: Rushed to the Lake Miramar TnT session. I got there a few minutes after 6pm and saw two teammates, including Mentor Kathy, at the meeting location. Parking was at a premium and it took me a few minutes of driving around to find a spot. In the meantime, my teammates took off without me! In fairness, they hadn't seen me. They had a decent head start and I decided to do a little speed walking to see if I could catch them. They were pretty quick, but I was able to see the distance closing slowly but surely. I caught up with them around the half-way point, 2.5 miles in, and was kinda proud of myself. The rest of the session we walked at a nice clip. Kathy has one of those hi-tech watches with a GPS in it that tell you how far you've traveled and what pace. We walked a total of 5 miles at a pace of 15.22 min/mile, my fastest yet. I got a late start so I was even faster than that! Burned a little over 600 calories.