Bike-to-Work Week!

May is National Bike Month, and this week, May 12-16 is Bike-to-Work Week. If you needed a motivator to get on your bike this week, now is the time. I typically always ride the mountain bike through some nice double track but have been enjoying the road bike lately since it is quicker. Fuel prices are getting higher ($4 for diesel), another good reason to bike this week.

Salome "The Jug" Canyoneering

After the Coconino pre-ride, Kacy, Steve and I went canyoneering in the Jug, just north of Roosevelt Lake. It started raining in the morning at our campsite, mostly sprinkling here and there. We decided to ditch the trip and head home, although on our trip out of A Cross Road, the clouds began to disapper.

The canyon is more like a theme park than a technical canyon since there are a few slides and only one rap. The water was the highest I have ever seen it before. We had some fun going down a few of the slides.

A nice shot of the trail.


A shot of the canyon.

Sedona to Flagstaff to Sedona

I managed to score a ride to Schnebly Hill with my friends Kacy and Steve on Sunday night, arriving around midnight. The plan was to get picked up the next day somewhere in the vicinity, perhaps Munds. Here is the profile of the ride.



I woke up at 5 am the next morning and got moving down to Sedona around 6am. The sun started to peer over the ridge pretty early, although I immediately shot down some super fast singletrack, later hitting up Munds.
As mapped out in the Coconino Dirty Century, I turned around after reaching 179, headed back up Schnebly to the vista point while playing leap frog with the slow moving jeep from the Pink Jeep Tours. One of the best views in Arizona...

After crossing I-17, I rode over to Mormon Lake on forest roads. A shot of Mormon Lake.


Next was on the for Arizona Trail and north toward Flagstaff. The wind started to pick up, around 10-20 mph and 30 mph gust. It was very, very slow going.


Some new PVC pipe makes it easy to jump over some of the barbed wire during this section of the trail.


Enjoying the view despite the wind. I was moving around 4-5 mph during this section of the ride due to the wind.


More AZT near Fisher Point.
I cruised into Flagstaff at 4pm to eat some Subway and arrange my pick-up. The chosen location was Sedona since they were hiking Parson Springs.

I finished my $5 foot long sub and rode out the urban loop. I have less than an hour so I decided to take 89A back to Sedona. Since it was a Monday, there was very few cars. A quick question: how many of you have dreamed about riding the 89A Oak Creek section up and down on a road bike? I know I have for years. What a great road, especially when taken on a bike; my speed topped out at 41.7 mph while taking this section of the road.

Final stats from the ride:
101 miles
13 hours total time, 10 hours moving time
11,725
Thanks again to Kacy and Steve for the ride!

South Mountain Epic

The graduation party went on until about 2 am so getting up at 730 am took me a little longer than expected. I ended up getting to the Safeway near Pima Canyon at about 930am.I ended up riding solo until about 230, hitting up:

DC-East Loop-Javelina-Mormon-National-Telegraph-DC-Secret-Corona-Geronimo-Euclid Rd-24th St-National-Beverly-DC

Is it even possible to peak in more than one sport at once?

Photo from the NY Times

There is a good article in today's NY Times about triathlons.

When you are training, said Gary S. Krahenbuhl, an exercise physiologist and emeritus professor at Arizona State University, improvement depends on physical and biochemical changes in muscle cells and in nerve-firing patterns. And those changes are very sport-specific, he added. The result, Dr. Krahenbuhl said, is that “changes that facilitate performance for one event may actually undermine performance in another event.”

and the article continues by stating that

Even body musculature can trip up triathletes. Swimmers need large muscles in their backs and shoulders. Runners and cyclists want small, light upper bodies. Cyclists need large quadriceps muscles. Runners don’t, and in fact they don’t want any extra muscle weight on their legs.

Some interesting conclusions about the ability of triathletes to perform in all three sports. I find that swimming and biking are beginning to become my favorite of the three disciplines, oddly enough. My running has been plagued for the past 2 years by an Achilles injury. The weather this early morning was great for a quick 3-mile run today. Now I am off to go swim, fix my bike, and then head up to Phoenix for my brother-in-law's ASU graduation party at 5pm. Hoping to hit up South Mountain on my way back home tomorrow early morning.

Brick

Great day for a brick workout.I woke up this morning to do a road ride, 72 miles from my house to Oracle and back. After the ride, I put on my running shoes for my 2-mile hill run at 90% of race pace. Things felt great most for most of the workout except for a little sore spots in my legs from the workout yesterday (100 pull ups, 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, and 100 squats).




Next on the agenda..... finding some time to go up an pre-ride the Coconino Dirty Century. I have been trying to rally up support for a carpool, but people's schedules and injuries seem to be indicating that I am going to have to fly this one solo, maybe sometime during the 14th-16th of May.

I'm kind of a fanatic

April mileage is in.... 874 miles. Plan is to roll in May with a big bang this Saturday on the road bike, touring style.

Also, I have added crossfit exercises to the weekly swimming, running, and biking workout and all I can say is ouch. This week, I did a more difficult version of this leg workout and I have been sore for two days. I am still checking out the benefits of the exercises, but so far, I really like I have read and seen from them.