The New Year 2010

The new year has started and we are all ready in recovery mode most of us have been sick at one time or another over the last week with either a head cold or stomach flu. I have been lucky so far with only one day of illness Riding has been going well nice road ride with Temecula velo guys out in Deluz on Friday lots of steep hills, easy solo cruise on the road bike Sat morning and I meet up with some friends from the desert Doug and Dave out at Vail lake on Sunday to do some 12 hr course pre riding Ric Danny Gordon joined us.The course is fun challenging and has a lot of great down hills . This coming week will be real busy with Amanda's 30 th birthday on Thursday ,many plans in the works along with the second race of r/c series also this coming weekend.
Good news came my way this week I will be getting a promotion to one of the new field supervisors positions that recently has been created to better serve our crews up in the pass area so this will be a new challenge for me, down side I will have to go back to a night shift but this will open up for some more time to ride in the mornings and my partner and I are going to look into A local gym to join so we can get some workouts in.Hopefully this will increase my fitness level.

New Years 2010

The plan was to head to Mission Bay on Thursday Amanda and I along with Tony and Karla had purchased tickets to a New Years eve party at the Catamaran Hotel and we got a room for the night. Thursday afternoon we headed down, I took the road bike with me so I could fit in a ride while the girls went to the hotel spa for a facial treatment. Our room was awesome 10th floor over looking the bay and the Pacific ocean. My ride was fun I cruised around Fiesta Island and Mission Bay and then headed up to Soledad mtn park it was about 1000 foot climb in 2 miles the views were well worth the climb.That night we headed to the party around nine it was a great party cool music open bar and appetizers we all had allot of fun dancing and hanging out and just the right amount to drink. The next morning we all headed down to the Jacuzzi for awhile before heading over to the beach area for some lunch. we walked along the beach while we waited for a table at a beach front restaurant. Great way to end a good year.
Amanda and I have had a great time together this year we went on many little get a ways which included San Fransisco, Somona wine country, Big Bear, Idlywild, the beach, Florida and the Bahamas. 2010 is shaping up to be even better a lot of exciting thing on the horizon.

Amanda all set to hit the party

The view of Mission Bay from our 10th floor room at the Catamaran Hotel

The first sunrise of 2010.

Soledad mtn park

2010 lets get started

Garmin numbers 2009 Feb-Dec

Last race of 2009 Racers/Chasers at Balboa Park 12/19/2009.

Total Rides 185
Total Hours 336:07
Total Miles 4385
Max Speed 43
Average Speed 13.0
Total Calories 302,466
Total Climbing 243,379
Heart Rate Average 131
Max Heart Rate 188
Cadance Ave 71
Not to bad of numbers for 11 months of data.
Weight averaged between 180-183.

Christmas week 09

I pretty much took it easy this week as far as riding goes I was busy finishing of Christmas stuff and Andrew was down for the few days so after work on Wednesday I ran him back home so he could be with his mom on Christmas eve.
Thursday after work Amanda and I went over to her Uncle Ricks house for a family gathering Amanda's family usually celebrates Christmas on Christmas eve so we all opened most of are gifts that night. After getting home pretty late Amanda and I opened the rest of are gifts on Christmas day before she headed to work for about four hours. So I jumped on the mountain bike for a 2 hour spin around Meadow view. Everybody had a good Christmas and it was good to see and talk to everybody including my Dad, step mom and my sister Kim.It was back to Ricks house for dinner on Christmas day, I watched some of the Bolts game before we had a good dinner.

I was up early Sat morning for a ride thru Deluz and Fallbrook with the crew from Temecula velo boy was it cold that morning at 0800 hrs but we had a great ride 50 miles and over three thousand feet of climbing and I was back home before noon.when I got home Amanda and Karla were itching to head up to Big Bear to play in the snow and to see Tony so we gather all the warm clothes we could find and headed out, unfortunately everybody in so cal had the same idea we did it took us for ever to get up the mountain so we ended up meeting Tony for dinner and headed back home , we stopped by Taylor's house and brought her back home with us so we could have her open her gifts.
Monday was my off day so I ended up doing a 2.5 hour spin thru the wine country and then relaxing with Amanda before she had to go back to work tonight.

Christmas dinner 2009

The view on the way up to Big Bear on 12/26/09

Taylor's new bike

Amanda and Nicco

R/C Winter series race #1

I been getting some pretty good riding in over the last couple of weeks weather has been cool but with some rain but there been enough break in the rain to sneak in some rides. Wednesday after work I heeded over to Meadow view and hooked up with the Temecula velo group for a mtn bike ride 12 riders for the first official Wed night ride. It looks like there will be about 3 or 4 of us that are planning to team up and do the 12 hrs of Temecula in January that should be a lot of fun if it works out because I have always wanted to try one of those races out.

Sunday I carpooled wit Ric and Danny down to San Diego to race the first race of the R/C winter series, great turn out 24 riders in my class. All sport riders did a mass start I don't know how many of us there was but it was allot. I started about mid pack and settled into a good hard pace I was passing a lot of people for the first lap and a half I maintained the intensity thru out the race the course was great with a little of everything in it cycle cross, technical down hills and short climbs. I had a great battle with a guy from my class he would gap me on the climbs and I would reel him in on the technical sections and the flatter sections He finished wright in front of me I tried to pass him with one corner to go but to make the pass I would had to take his front wheel out so I backed off. Overall I felt strong I pushed hard and hung tough and that was a good felling I ended up in 7Th placed out of 24.Danny was in my class he finished 10 not bad for his first mtn bike race Ric also did well finishing on the podium in 4Th place in the expert class.

Nice technical down hill section

Rocky and loose terrain

Battling for 6th place on the last lap

Team AMR

The weather has definitely changed this week a lot cooler and its rained almost every day.I didn't do much riding I was tired from last weeks rides but I did get in three days of stretching, arms and core workouts in at home after work. It looks like the Wed night mtn bike rides are up and running at Meadow View area so hopefully I can get out there with the Temecula velo crew.Friday I managed to squeeze in a 2 hr mtn bike ride before the rains hit that day.Sat morning we helped Amanda's mom move up to Sun City and I jumped onto the trainer in the afternoon after that Amanda and I did a on demand workout video boy those thing are tough.

Paul one of my supervisors from work called and asked if I was going to be at the Tinsel Triathlon on Sunday for sure I said and actually its kinda funny because he mentioned it to me a couple weeks ago and I figured yea sure we talk every year about it and someone always ends up flaking out so I was surprised when he said it was a go this year.So I was up early Sunday morning after it rained cats and dogs all night long but the weather looked pretty good Sunday morning I meet up with Paul and Travis from work at our support trailer that they had out at the venue providing first aid to all participants. Our goal was to beat all the Hemet PD and fire guys. Paul was to due the run I did the bike leg and Travis the water polo guy to do the swim.The turnout was awesome over 1000 people raced. Paul did well on the run around 24 min I hammer the big leg ave 23 mph and finished the 12 miles in just under 30 min Travis banged out the swim in no time, our overall time was 58 min and some change good enough for 3rd place in the relay category just 4 seconds off of 2ND place and we think were about 60Th overall. It was nice to place in our first attempted as a team, and we did manage to crush all Hemet PD and fire crews it was nice to have our operations manager Jack out watching us and taking some pictures. So now we are going to challenge other AMR divisions to step up for the Redlands, Loma Linda and the Temecula triathlons early 2010.

Weather is changing

Not to many exciting things have been happening just been doing some riding like normal I have been doing long rides on every other Monday .We went on the jax grand opening Sat morning ride and froze are you no wants off I think Amandas toes were frozen for about one hr after the warm shower the grand opening was good we had Taylor with us so she played in the bounce house and had some hot dogs while we watched the bmx show Sunday I meet up with the crew from Temecula velo and did a mtn bike ride out at Meadow view area some really cool guys and some new trails near the house were shown to me from the crew.
Thanksgiving dinner went well I worked during the day and work feed us and it was double time all day which is nice after work I meet Amanda at her Uncles house for dinner.Taylor came with us and she played with Amandas moms new dog Nicco.The weather has been getting a lot colder and we have had a few days of rain recently it might rain all weekend so it might be time to start riding the trainer indoors.Amanda got the good news she was hoping for today she got excepted into nursing school that starts in Februrary, so congrats to her.