Lust Ended!

For two years I’ve been lusting after this bike, and the girl, but I’m dating the girl and didn’t have the bike so I had a BIG problem. But yesterday I was able to quench my lust, end my starvation for the ultimate machine, score a super sweet bike for a super, super sweet price. Now sitting in my living room is my new Scott Plasma 3.

Non drive side Delight

Soon I’ll be slapping the Dura Ace drive train parts on it from Trisports.com, a Profile ProSvet base bar then I need to chose some extensions and saddle. The Sickest Bike ever, will then be ready to roll. I’m not going to lie to you, I’m going to crush some dreams on this bike in races. Dreams that people have of having the baddest looking bike in transition. Not anymore hombre. You’re bike is suddenly going to look like plain Jane. Sorry man.

Drive Side Deliciousness.

On another front, yesterday was another day of James making me suffer on the bike. We climbed a good deal of Mt. Lemmon. One of us wasn’t suffering nearly enough if he had time to shoot pics. Here are a few showing you how awesome Tucson can be in the winter, crappy roads aside.

Mt. Lemmon near Geology Vista

Blue Skies over Tucson

While he may have given me a lesson on climbing, I was able to show him how to intimidate drivers on the descents. We caught a car, I was able to scare the driver into pulling over because she wouldn’t drive downhill as fast as we were descending. I did that to her twice. Poor lady will probably never drive up Mt. Lemmon again.

Coach Brian Suffering on the Climb

The opposite of Winter

I’m not a big fan of summer,  spring and fall yes, but not summer.  Tell me your woes about spending all winter in the gym running or having to ride the trainer 2-3x per week. Or how it sucks swimming indoors all winter.  No sympathy here. Why?  Because it’s going to be 102 this week, thats why.  While the rest of Canada/Minnesota/North Dakota, it’s all the same,  is finally shovelling the last of the snow away, we start heading indoors to run, bolt our bikes to the trainers and wish we could swim anywhere but our 90F outdoor pools. It’s getting hot. And more sunny if that is possible. And hot.  Did I mention 100+ temps for 3+ months.  It’s like Canada…..in reverse. I feel sorry for any idiots who live in the midwest or other frozen parts of North America in the winter then come here for the summer.   It just looks like I’m in Minnesota in the winter while I’m in Tucson for the summer.  Pale, white, almost ghost like because of all the sunscreen I have to use. It’s like a reverse tan. Get up, put on sunscreen, grab other bike, try to go ride outside, turn around because it’s hot, ride bike pre-bolted on trainer for 2 hours. Then go swim in the bathtub.  Yeah.

Why do I live in Tucson?  It’s the other 9 months of the year with near perfect outdoor weather.

Foiled

By a dead battery in my car from going to the pool.  I do have one day of round two completed and am heading back into the pool today after a 3 day layoff.   (Big props to PepBoys for getting me in and taken care of less then a hour before they closed)

But that battery hasn’t foiled my other training.  Over the last 10 days I’m averaging 58-60 miles per rolling 7 days for running and about 2.5hrs cycling.  Yesterday’s ride was a leg crusher, an easy 15 miles rolling from the house up the climbs on Ajo then crushing it along Ajo until Sandario.  Tempo for the next 20 miles including several climbs that range in lenght from .5 miles to 2.5 miles and lots of rollers. Cruised the last 8 miles home.  4:06 for 80 and my average watts climbed from 120 at the top of Ajo up to 185 when I hit the river path some 40 miles later.

Yesterday was a bit surprising for the ride, my wattages where around mid last season watts.  Amazing what happens to your fitness when you only for once take 2 weeks off of riding then two more weeks with only a couple of hours total compared to 2.5 months off the bike.  Typically I start riding again sometime in January after not touching my bike from late October after I finish racing. 

This is the first season since 2002 that I haven’t taken 2-3 months off the bike and 3-4 months out of the water.  I have noticed that my run frequency and volume are down by 1.5x per week and about 8-10 miles per week consistenly over the past month and a half.  In the long run though, staying on my bike and in the pool should bode well overall in triathlon. I’m willing to lose 1 minute on the run to gain 1 minute on the swim and 3-4 minutes on the bike in early season half races.

I love running, especially here in Tucson where we have so many great trails to run.  Just this week I’ve run Starr Pass Loop, Phone line trail out and back,  and one of my favorite runs Pima Community College XC trail loops.  Pima is a 3.25 mile rolling loop with 4 major climbs on it and numerous false flat uphills.  You can run it in either direction but running it in the harder direction takes about 23:XX minutes and running in the opposite direction takes about 21:XX miutes. Amazing what some really long uphill sections will do.

In the past few weeks running we’ve seen numerous deer, some Javelina, road runners, mountain bikers,  rabbits, hikers, hawks, dudes walking around with bows and arrows wearing camo and orange hats (hunting season is bow and arrow only here), and heard a pack of coyotes howling after catching what I’d guess is a rabbit.  It didn’t seem prudent to go chase them down and ask what was for breaskfast. 

Happy New Year everyone!