Cleave

Glad that chasm54 is okay after a low speed off.

Hermes and Racer Ex photos of snow ALMOST making me wish I hadn't given up skiing in 1989.

If Racer Ex didn't have bad luck, he might not have any luck at all. BTW, I keep an eye on chain sales and keep a couple or three new ones in my garage inventory.

Cookies? I do miss cookies and I'm on the lookout for good recipes for gluten free cookies. Any like that in your recipe index card box, Heathpack?

What a week. First work almost put the kibosh on going to VOS. Then my Dad's less than routine 2-day angiogram turned into a 4-day hospital stay. (He home now and he feels fine.) Then my wife hit someone who ran a red light. I know that sounds weird but the other person really was at fault according to a witness who was right next to her. Very long explanation, but my wife is fine. Car should be ready for going to VOS. All of this while working in a very rainy Everett, WA. How many TSS points for walking at least a mile from your car in a parking lot to your temporary cubicle digs in a factory office while lugging a 15-20 lb backpack and holding an umbrella trying to keep it from turning inside-out?

So, between getting sick last week and this week's calming events, tomorrow I am going to try my first hard effort on the bike in two weeks. Going to skip what would have been the opening to my race season -- a local criterium on Sunday -- so that I can get some uphill training.

Racer Ex 

Glad your Dad is OK Cleave. Going to miss VOS; spending that time in Napa for Mrs. Ex's Dad's 80th. You have my proxy. Go at mile 2.

Might have to roll down there for some other race as an excuse to hang win AZt.

Heathpack 

Heading down to San Diego today to ride openers for tomorrow's Fiesta Island 20k TT.

They sent out the start list last night- four women in the Cat 1-4 field (which is the only women's field that counts for the SoCal TT Series, men can race age group but women cannot). Myself and Nemsis, and then two others whose names I did not recognize. So of course I have googled them.

One is about my age, but much more experienced- 30 races just last year, cat 3. Good results but not too many wins or podiums. Her best time at Fiesta is similar to mine, but that's an old time from over a year ago and it looks like she raced much more in 2015 than in 2014, so maybe she has way upped her game, who knows? No race results since July, though. Hopefully she is out of shape.

The other one is 29 years old with yikes over 60 races last year and 5 wins, it appears she just upgraded to cat 2. Sheesh. The only bright spots are: 1) I find no race results for her since September and 2) her best time on the course, from 14 months ago, is only 30 seconds better than mine, which is a doable gap. Of course she has had a lot of racing success in the past 14 months.

I guess tomorrow would be a good day to bring my A game. I've kind of gotten in to the mindset that I can just go out there and do whatever and at least come in 2nd. Good field to knock that laziness-inducing idea out of my head. At the very least, it should be interesting.

happybday29475

Largely agree; having skied there (cut my teeth doing laps on KT-22), and also here, both CA and UT skiing are in many ways better than CO. CO highlights include Steamboat tree skiing, Vail back bowls, beauty, abundant sunshine and good snow and weather. Skiing here is generally easy, with not much difficult skiing anywhere, with a few exceptions including Silverton. We do have this thing called the I-70 commute, where traffic jams have gotten so bad that weekend day-trip skiing from the Denver area is no longer worthwhile.

Whistler in Canada is my all-time favorite resort, but it suffers from commonly ****e weather and snow. But those mountains...

valygrl

Yikes, Cleave, scary times with your dad - hope he is out of the woods and ok now.

Get ready to kill in heathpack!

shovelhd

Good luck, Heathpack.

LAJ

Positive thoughts, @Cleave. Hope things turn out as designed.

LAJ

Do well, @Heathpack! Just make them cry.

Heathpack 

@Cleave, yes on the gluten-free cookies BTW. Triple Coconut Chocolate Dipped Macaroons. They are calorically devastating however & don't ship well. Maybe post-TT a few will magically appear one day.

IBOHUNT

A little more than an hour on the trainer and 4 hours of shoveling the 31" of snow yesterday.

Good luck @Heathpack

happybday29475

1:45 outside yesterday in Z2...oh and it was sunny, windless, and 60 degrees. It was my first ride outside since the surgery 7 weeks ago. Hooray for Vitamin D! (amongst other things)

Racer Ex 

My friend booked a trip there one January and ended up mountain biking. Almost no snow.

Finishing up my ride up the Zoncolon today. Weights or skiing tomorrow. Bike is back up and running.

LAJ

Thumbs up, @rapwithtom. Moving along in a rather crisp manner.

revchuck 

I seem to be bouncing back pretty well from the moving-enforced layoff. I didn't ride today, but the two previous days went better than expected - yesterday's ride included an unplanned hour-long SST interval. Pw:hr on those rides was <1%.

Planned SST intervals start next week, 3x10' tomorrow. Shooting for 10-14 hours/week on the bike for this build.

IBOHUNT

Spent 8 hours shoveling and plowing yesterday. Managed to break a tie rod on the Massey and the winch cable on the 4-wheeler. The cable was an easy fix. The tie rod will have to wait.
Did not get the workout done I was supposed to

Heathpack 

How much snow did you get??!

IBOHUNT

~32"

Heathpack 

Yikes.

Racer Ex 

I can be there in a couple of weeks with the plow.

sarals 

I spent the last four days in SoCal at the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) Convention. TSS off the chart. I walked over 20 miles, and I did two ***s, one 4 miles the other 3, and faster than I intended! My legs are just plain whooped, and my feet are worse. My lower back isn't too happy, either.

I had breakfast with Heathpack and Mr H Saturday morning! You don't know much I wished I had TJ with me and could follow Heathie down to the TT and enter it.

I ran into the race director of a NCNCA series, Red Kite, while at NAMM. He's a rep for Mackie and some other associated pro audio gear. He offered me a job. I wish!!

IBOHUNT

Yeah, people are still trying to dig out.

PM you the address . Bring those Q rings with you. I'll return them at some point in time.

sarals 

I needed to see this. Terrific video, in all respects.

Bandera

With temps rising toward 70F I set off for the "test climb" on the winter/wet bike and with my unique gift for mis-reading the weather encountered the in-coming cold front's gusting leading edge on the descent. Did you know that the front mudguard/mounting strut can produce a thrumming harmonic that sounds like a enraged ferret just as 120RPM are achieved in the 12T? New stuff just keeps happening......

-Bandera (Training for Retirement)

Hermes

Skiing last week...leg workout on Friday, trainer over / under on Saturday and easy ride with upper body gym work on Sunday. The over / under was more like an under / under, at / under, slightly over / under and killed it / under.

Heathpack 

Rest day for me. But I took a walk at lunch. Then walked home from the train station. 1:05 walking intervals.

Why? So I could have a very caloric peanut butter cookie for dessert.