With the 2007 race season in the books and my off-season nearly complete, it's time to plan ahead for the 2008 season. Some races I'm planning on doing have yet to finalize their dates, but below is what I'm planning on doing.
The big change is that my main goal will shift from qualifying for Xterra USA Championships (which I did :D) to qualifying for Xterra World Championships in Maui. It's the next logical step, but it's going to be a tough battle.
To qualify for World's, I have to be top 3 in my age group at one of the regional events during the season. That'll be harder this year, because I'm racing against James, who wound up 8th amateur at last year's World's. I don't have to beat him, but I'll have to get close if I plan on making top 3 at a regional.
Anyway, here's the schedule. See you out there.
3/1 Vision Quest Endurance MTB Race
3/30 Xterra REAL. Granite Bay, CA
4/20? Xterra Castaic. Castaic Lake, CA
4/26 Arizona Xtreme Off Road Triathlon. Mesa, AZ
5/18 Xterra West Championships. Temecula, CA
6/22? Xterra Tahoe City. Tahoe City, CA
7/27 Crested Butte Bank Trails Triathlon. Crested Butte, CO (tentative)
8/3 Xterra Snow Valley. Big Bear, CA
9/7 City of Los Angeles Triathlon. Los Angeles, CA (tentative)
10/5 Xterra USA Championships. Incline Village, NV
10/26 Xterra World Championships. Maui, HI
I might throw in some MTB races in place of hard workouts in the early season as well as June and July since there isn't much going on in the triathlon world during those months. I'm also contemplating as early season 10k as a fitness test in mid-March.
That's all for now. Back to the books.
E
Friday, November 30, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Don't Stop Me Now.....
I don't think I know how to relax. Seriously. Thanksgiving Weekend came and went and I find myself needing a vacation from my vacation. Here's why:
Tuesday (11/20):
Working on a Physical Chemistry assignment all day. Got in a cool 1.5 hour night ride with some guys from SoCal Trail Riders. They showed me some singletrack I didn't know existed and I had a great time riding with them.
Wed:
Up early, breakfast, dropped off my assignment, packed up my Jeep (and my cat) and headed up to Mom and Dad's in "OC" for some of Mom's bomb-ass cooking. My friends say she could cook dog food and it would taste good.
Thursday (Thanksgiving):
Up early (again) and got in a 1 hr 44 minute ride in Chino Hills State Park. I ran into an older friend of mine that I hadn't seen in 5 years. It was great to see him, but I was saddened to have him tell me about his heart attack and subsequent pace-maker installation. He still rides, but mentioned that he has good days and bad days. This must've been a bad one, because he got dizzy around mile 4 and had to go home. Poor guy...
Friday-Saturday:
"Slept in" until 8, packed up my gear and headed out to Fullerton for "Le Tour de Tryptophan". A 24-Hour MTB ride around the famous Fullerton loop. Proceeds go to benefit Pro MTB'er Tara Llanes, who had a bad crash in September and fractured a few vertebrae. She was initially paralyzed from the waist down, but has since regained some mobility. There's to much for a full race report, but I did 9 laps with the winner completing 17 and setting a new unofficial record. Animal.
Sunday:
Woke up REALLY early and got to the Turkey Tri at 4:30 to volunteer. I was helping with bike course set-up and take down and, thankfully, they let me drive the truck instead of climbing in and out and lifting heavy stuff all day. I managed to smack my head on the rear view mirror and give myself an impressive scrape on my forehead. It's pretty. Gonna go watch "The Amazing Race" and then pass out.
Plans for next season are coming, I swear....
E
Tuesday (11/20):
Working on a Physical Chemistry assignment all day. Got in a cool 1.5 hour night ride with some guys from SoCal Trail Riders. They showed me some singletrack I didn't know existed and I had a great time riding with them.
Wed:
Up early, breakfast, dropped off my assignment, packed up my Jeep (and my cat) and headed up to Mom and Dad's in "OC" for some of Mom's bomb-ass cooking. My friends say she could cook dog food and it would taste good.
Thursday (Thanksgiving):
Up early (again) and got in a 1 hr 44 minute ride in Chino Hills State Park. I ran into an older friend of mine that I hadn't seen in 5 years. It was great to see him, but I was saddened to have him tell me about his heart attack and subsequent pace-maker installation. He still rides, but mentioned that he has good days and bad days. This must've been a bad one, because he got dizzy around mile 4 and had to go home. Poor guy...
Friday-Saturday:
"Slept in" until 8, packed up my gear and headed out to Fullerton for "Le Tour de Tryptophan". A 24-Hour MTB ride around the famous Fullerton loop. Proceeds go to benefit Pro MTB'er Tara Llanes, who had a bad crash in September and fractured a few vertebrae. She was initially paralyzed from the waist down, but has since regained some mobility. There's to much for a full race report, but I did 9 laps with the winner completing 17 and setting a new unofficial record. Animal.
Sunday:
Woke up REALLY early and got to the Turkey Tri at 4:30 to volunteer. I was helping with bike course set-up and take down and, thankfully, they let me drive the truck instead of climbing in and out and lifting heavy stuff all day. I managed to smack my head on the rear view mirror and give myself an impressive scrape on my forehead. It's pretty. Gonna go watch "The Amazing Race" and then pass out.
Plans for next season are coming, I swear....
E
Monday, November 19, 2007
Decisions, Decisions...
It's been two weeks since I last posted, but I've been really busy with school.
The 12 Hours of So Cal was this past weekend. I raced on team "Blood, Sweat and Beers" in 3-person open with fellow Xterra racers James (http://www.va2ca.blogspot.com/) and Luke. A well organized event with a steep, challenging course. Oddly enough, I liked it! We managed to score ourselves 2nd in our class behind the factory sponsored team Cytomax/KHS; a team made up of professional MTB racers. We did 11 laps between the three of us, while the KHS guys put together an amazing 15 laps! Wow!
Luke went first, I went second and James went last in the order. We came up with the order based on night riding skills since James and I haven't ridden at night much and the first racer would have to do the most night laps. Luke doesn't slow down much at night since he does night rides once a week. I need to get more night riding in so I don't slow down so much when the sun goes down.
Speaking of laps...one and two went really well and I felt good; hammered after such a hard effort, but strong. On lap three I came down with bad stomach cramps that hurt so bad I was unable to push very hard. I did my best during my down time between laps three and four to alleviate them, but they hit me even harder on lap four. Luckily, we were in no danger of getting caught from behind and we weren't catching first, but lap 4 was really hard.
Overall, we had fun. My g/f camped out with me and the boys and hanging out around a campfire after the race talking training and racing with my team mates was cool. I even won $20 in the raffle. If you're contemplating an endurance MTB event like this, I highly recommend this one. The race director did a great job and I'd race another one of his races again. It would be really cool if our team could get together for all three 12-hour races at Vail in 2008 and go for the series win.
http://www.12hrsoftemecula.com/
Next up? Volunteering for the Turkey Tri 11/25 at Bonelli Regional Park (www.make-u-fit.net) and taking 2 full weeks off from training before starting back up the first week of December. Im posting my plans for the 2008 season next week, so keep your eyes peeled.
E
The 12 Hours of So Cal was this past weekend. I raced on team "Blood, Sweat and Beers" in 3-person open with fellow Xterra racers James (http://www.va2ca.blogspot.com/) and Luke. A well organized event with a steep, challenging course. Oddly enough, I liked it! We managed to score ourselves 2nd in our class behind the factory sponsored team Cytomax/KHS; a team made up of professional MTB racers. We did 11 laps between the three of us, while the KHS guys put together an amazing 15 laps! Wow!
Luke went first, I went second and James went last in the order. We came up with the order based on night riding skills since James and I haven't ridden at night much and the first racer would have to do the most night laps. Luke doesn't slow down much at night since he does night rides once a week. I need to get more night riding in so I don't slow down so much when the sun goes down.
Speaking of laps...one and two went really well and I felt good; hammered after such a hard effort, but strong. On lap three I came down with bad stomach cramps that hurt so bad I was unable to push very hard. I did my best during my down time between laps three and four to alleviate them, but they hit me even harder on lap four. Luckily, we were in no danger of getting caught from behind and we weren't catching first, but lap 4 was really hard.
Overall, we had fun. My g/f camped out with me and the boys and hanging out around a campfire after the race talking training and racing with my team mates was cool. I even won $20 in the raffle. If you're contemplating an endurance MTB event like this, I highly recommend this one. The race director did a great job and I'd race another one of his races again. It would be really cool if our team could get together for all three 12-hour races at Vail in 2008 and go for the series win.
http://www.12hrsoftemecula.com/
Next up? Volunteering for the Turkey Tri 11/25 at Bonelli Regional Park (www.make-u-fit.net) and taking 2 full weeks off from training before starting back up the first week of December. Im posting my plans for the 2008 season next week, so keep your eyes peeled.
E
Monday, November 5, 2007
Midterms, Colds and 12 Hour Races, Oh my!
The title says it all. I have three classes this quarter and I took my first midterm last Thursday. I have one tomorrow and one Thursday (currently Monday) and I'm deep in the throes of my annual cold. It is cold and flu season, and no matter how hard I try, I always manage to get some kind of bug around the same time every year. I'm sure I got it from campus, since everyone's sick right now. Dorms are notorious for being breeding grounds for all kinds of nasty germs and I've been studying at the library quite a bit. I'm sure I picked something up from one of the desks on class and rubbed my eye at the exact wrong moment. I wish college kids washed their hands more or that maintenance wiped stuff down with disinfectant.
Anyway, the fires are mostly out and our friend, the marine layer, has come back. It's overcast and cool almost all day and I'm actually wearing pants every once in a while. As opposed to shorts you perv...
As for the 12 hour racing part, I few racing buddies and I are racing in the 12 Hours of Temecula. It's basically a relay where you and your team mates trade laps for 12 hours and the team with the most laps in the shortest amount of time, wins. I did a 24-hour race in March, and had a blast, hopefully this will be as much fun. http://www.12hrsoftemecula.com/
Which brings up the fact that I have lots of fun racing endurance events like the Vision Quest (http://www.warriorssociety.org/events/vision_quest_general_info.html) and 12 and 24-hour races that I'm seriously considering trying a 24-hour race SOLO! We'll see about that.
As for training, it's off-season, which means I'm all about 'burgers and beers. Look for upcoming posts to talk about plans for next season. I should start my prep in early December after a long break.
Ciao
Anyway, the fires are mostly out and our friend, the marine layer, has come back. It's overcast and cool almost all day and I'm actually wearing pants every once in a while. As opposed to shorts you perv...
As for the 12 hour racing part, I few racing buddies and I are racing in the 12 Hours of Temecula. It's basically a relay where you and your team mates trade laps for 12 hours and the team with the most laps in the shortest amount of time, wins. I did a 24-hour race in March, and had a blast, hopefully this will be as much fun. http://www.12hrsoftemecula.com/
Which brings up the fact that I have lots of fun racing endurance events like the Vision Quest (http://www.warriorssociety.org/events/vision_quest_general_info.html) and 12 and 24-hour races that I'm seriously considering trying a 24-hour race SOLO! We'll see about that.
As for training, it's off-season, which means I'm all about 'burgers and beers. Look for upcoming posts to talk about plans for next season. I should start my prep in early December after a long break.
Ciao
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Fire Update...
The smoke here in La Jolla seems to be letting up a tad and the weather reports the wind weakening and the normal, onshore flow returning by the weekend. The fires, however continue to burn. So far, 200,000 acres burned, 513, 000 people evacuated, 2,000 structures lost and the largest fire is only 5% contained; up from 0%.
The firefighting aircraft finally got off the ground once the winds subsided and, in conjunction with ground units, the firefighters seem to be making some headway and have saved several neighborhoods. SDFD lifted evacuations in areas of Del Mar and Solana Beach West of Interstate 5. Looks like I won't be evacuated, but yesterday night I stayed up until midnight to make sure that'd be the case and then got up at 0700 to check the progress of the fire during the night. South and East county isn't so lucky and huge areas are still burning and remain evacuated. Good luck to all the residents and firefighters still fighting.
School's been cancelled for the rest of the week. Since the air quality is hazardous and I'm not training, I'll have time to catch up on studying. Phooey.
Up to date fire info: www.signonsandiego.com
The firefighting aircraft finally got off the ground once the winds subsided and, in conjunction with ground units, the firefighters seem to be making some headway and have saved several neighborhoods. SDFD lifted evacuations in areas of Del Mar and Solana Beach West of Interstate 5. Looks like I won't be evacuated, but yesterday night I stayed up until midnight to make sure that'd be the case and then got up at 0700 to check the progress of the fire during the night. South and East county isn't so lucky and huge areas are still burning and remain evacuated. Good luck to all the residents and firefighters still fighting.
School's been cancelled for the rest of the week. Since the air quality is hazardous and I'm not training, I'll have time to catch up on studying. Phooey.
Up to date fire info: www.signonsandiego.com
Monday, October 22, 2007
"My world's on fire, how 'bout yours?"
Holly and I walked out of the grocery store yesterday afternoon and saw a large plume of smoke in the air. After some digging, we learned about two brush fires burning in East SD County that grew rapidly. When we woke up this morning, 6 more fires had sprung up overnight and now the entire county is maxed out trying to deal with fires all over. So far, 25o THOUSAND people have been evacuated and it doesn't look like the winds will die off until tomorrow and may continue to Wednesday. The National Guard and Military have activated personnel to help fight the fires and Gov. Schwarzenegger has declared a State of Emergency. Emergency agencies are calling this the worst fire disaster California has ever seen. The Del Mar Fair Grounds is being used as an evecuation center and it's full. Evacuees are now being asked to go to Qualcomm Stadium.
As for me, I'm safe since all the fires are well North of me. Still, there's a lot of smoke and ash in the air that's forcing us to stay inside. School (UCSD) has been cancelled for today and tomorrow and one of my midterms has been moved due to the missed class time (woo!). No training, my throat gets irritated if I'm outside for more than 10 minutes. I had a choice this Summer to wok for USFS on a Wildland Fire crew or with State Parks as a Lifeguard. My Dad said he'd feel better with me as a Lifeguard, so that's the job I took. If I had taken the USFS job, I'd be on the fireline right now eating smoke. Crazy.
As for me, I'm safe since all the fires are well North of me. Still, there's a lot of smoke and ash in the air that's forcing us to stay inside. School (UCSD) has been cancelled for today and tomorrow and one of my midterms has been moved due to the missed class time (woo!). No training, my throat gets irritated if I'm outside for more than 10 minutes. I had a choice this Summer to wok for USFS on a Wildland Fire crew or with State Parks as a Lifeguard. My Dad said he'd feel better with me as a Lifeguard, so that's the job I took. If I had taken the USFS job, I'd be on the fireline right now eating smoke. Crazy.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
"Its life Jim, but not as we know it"
I just posted Monday, but it's amazing how much can happen in 48 hours. Yesterday was my 32nd birthday, so I skipped all my classes and did what I wanted to do all day. My g/f, Holly, came down Monday and we just hung out all day. I went for a morning ride, had some yummy sushi for lunch and then we went and saw a movie. We had perfect movie seats in a practically empty theatre until some guy with no hygiene skills sat behind us. Then he starts making random comments to the characters on the screen ("Watch out!", "Oh God!", "What's around that corner?"). At first it was amusing, but the smell was too much and we had to move. At least the move was good: Resident Evil III. Good crap. Crap meaning it's your typical action movie and there's no deep meaning. It's just entertainment. I liked it.
Now for the downer. I got a phone call early this morning from my sister's boyfriend who had a co-worker go into cardiac arrest in front of 30 people in a meeting. I gave him the best advice I could about what to do and explained to him that the guy probably wouldn't make it. The Captain from the Fire Department that responded said exactly what I did: that the man had suffered a massive heart attack and there is no chance that he would survive. Needless to say, no one in that room had seen someone die in front of them before and they were all pretty shaken. The witnesses did all they could (CPR, immediate 911 contact), but the man still expired. My experiences as a Paramedic were often similar: even if you do everything right, people still die. Kinda sucky, but it happens. The best you can do is: eat right, exercise and get yourself an annual physical. Still, sometimes it's a crap shoot.
Kinda drizzly this morning, but it's clearing enough that I think I'll go hit the trails on my single speed MTB. Gotta shake off this funk I've been in since Xterra Nationals.
Later...
Now for the downer. I got a phone call early this morning from my sister's boyfriend who had a co-worker go into cardiac arrest in front of 30 people in a meeting. I gave him the best advice I could about what to do and explained to him that the guy probably wouldn't make it. The Captain from the Fire Department that responded said exactly what I did: that the man had suffered a massive heart attack and there is no chance that he would survive. Needless to say, no one in that room had seen someone die in front of them before and they were all pretty shaken. The witnesses did all they could (CPR, immediate 911 contact), but the man still expired. My experiences as a Paramedic were often similar: even if you do everything right, people still die. Kinda sucky, but it happens. The best you can do is: eat right, exercise and get yourself an annual physical. Still, sometimes it's a crap shoot.
Kinda drizzly this morning, but it's clearing enough that I think I'll go hit the trails on my single speed MTB. Gotta shake off this funk I've been in since Xterra Nationals.
Later...
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