Once I had a new job I threw myself into the task of fully rebuilding the strength I lost last year.  I said ‘au revoir’ to the orthopedic surgeon who was opposed to physical therapy and started hitting the gym (at the office, 20 minutes from home) twice a week for weight training.  And I have returned to the occasional yoga session, hopefully stepping that up as the fall progresses to winter.   With the new job, working on full recovery, and helping the wife in her goals, and working on long neglected home maintenance, there has not been much time to sit down and tap at the keyboard much less anything of real interest to write about.  Now it is time for me to get back to some basics.   I will be participating in some century rides this fall, both organized and self-directed, getting the house and yard in shape, and working on trying to establish a new doctor-patient relationship with the objective of developing a plan to get the metal out of my hip.   I’ll have a bit more time this month, as The Wife will be taking her parents on a cycling tour of western Washington starting next Saturday.   Now to buckle down and get started.

Back when I was an employee of my good Uncle Sam he decided that too many of the lads in his service were using illicit drugs, so project ‘Golden Flow’ was born.  One iteration of the project involved supposedly random testing;  4 digit sequences were published daily and if they matched the last 4 digits of your Social Security number and you were under 27 years of age you had to go in to the testing center and provide a urine sample.  But, and this was a big but, you had to fill the jar with your own personal monitor watching intently.  I suppose I was not exhibitionist enough so this was always a problem for me.  I would drink several glasses of water before heading to the testing center, go in to provide a sample, and as soon as the monitor locked his gaze on my, ummm, apparatus the valves would clamp shut and nothing would flow.  One time it took me over 4 hours to fill the admittedly small sample jar.

The some court decided that the ‘random’ testing was not sufficiently random, so the next version of ‘Golden Flow’ was even more laughable.  One morning we would wake up to the notice that everyone under 27 years old (who decided that no one over 27 abused substances?) had to make their way to an airplane hanger for testing. In the hangar we would queue up in lines behind a circle of 55 gallon drums.  Once you were directly in front of one of the drums it was your turn to fill your cup, all under the watchful eye of the circle of monitors sitting inside the circle. I always wondered what happened to the overflow in all those drums.

Today I had to go to a local lab to fill the cup for the current pre-employment drug test, the first time I have been tested in over three decades.   I consumed plenty of water before driving to the lab, then drank constantly while waiting to be called.  Fortunately there was no private monitor, but I had to empty and evert my pants pockets before going into the room to do the deed, presumably to make sure I was not smuggling in some contraband.  And I was warned not to flush the commode or run water in the sink while in the room, either of which apparently would result in a non-test.  Fortunately I was sufficiently hydrated and spent what was probably less than a minute in the room.  No performance anxiety this time! Ahhhhh.    A slightly better experience than my past, which makes me happy I do not have to be subjected the the USADA ‘provide a sample in front of a monitor within 2 hours’ type of testing on a regular basis.

In spite of the heat there was a good showing of women to battle each other, and the weather for glory and Bicycle Bob trophies. The Wife did her second Kern, and finished all stages this time, battling the triple digit temps (her new nemesis), hills (her old nemesis), and biting insects to secure a ‘Lantern Rouge’ for the mantle. But there was a lot of grittiness and sports(wo)manship on display, so it is hard to single out any one rider. So just a few general comments and observations.

• Never stay at a motel next to an all night amusement area.
• There is never enough water, or ice, in the feedzones at this race. Note to self: bigger ice chest, more water next year.
• It is amazing the effect of a couple of bottles of water to spray the heads and jerseys of the riders at the start line.  It can even elicit the ‘L’ word.
• Good to have all manner of accoutrements  (e.g., wheels, tubes, a pump, bottle opener, and food) as well as water and ice in the feedzone.
• Perhaps follow cars should tow port-a-potties.
• 1 minute starts for the TT make for a long afternoon.  Perhaps a return to 30 sec starts could be negotiated.
• It was nice to see a healthy sized Cat 4 field; now a few more Cat 1,2, and 3’s would be nice.
• I need to get a better stage race organization schema for the Toaster.
• Great mutual support vibe from all involved.

Last Wednesday the isolation ended.   A few forward thinking folks started a process almost 15 years ago to provide an alternative north-south route across town, a way to avoid the high-speed arterials feeding traffic onto the two freeways, a way that would be friendly to bicyclists, pedestrians, and the disabled.    The key piece to using this route, a street that once had intersections with the roads that are now freeways, was to get either under or over the freeways.  And it is much more cost-effective to go over, and much easier to keep open year-around (most undercrossings around here are closed during periods of heavy precipitation).   After a long process, with some opposition, bridges over both freeways were built and they opened last Wednesday.   The Wife and I can now exit and head to the northeast without having to fight our way past the 9-lane ‘monster’ intersection where the nominally 45MPH Mathilda Avenue intersects with CA-237, or we can head south to the grocery store without having to fight freeway off and on-ramp traffic on either Mathilda or Fair Oaks, both posted at 45MPH with no accomodations for cyclists or pedestrians.  It is so much more pleasant.  About the only downside is that the U-shaped bridges are trash magnets; the openings face east and the westerlies tend to blow trash that gets trapped on the bridge.  Maybe it is time for an ‘adopt a bridge’ cleanup program.

And it is bridge opening month as another new bicycle/pedestrian bridge will open over I-280 on the south edge of town this Thursday  providing better access into Cupertino and points to the southwest.   Now if we could get better access to get around the entanglements surrounding the San Jose airport then the thorniest issues I have had riding in Santa Clara County will have been mitigated.

My current assessment is I failed the test. Early in the day I thought things were good and I was thinking of extending the ride to be 120+ miles. In the end I took a cutoff and rode a mere 76 miles and change. The problems stemmed from the one significant climb of the day, to the park headquarters of Henry Coe, a net gain of 2200′ in about 9 miles. I felt good at the start of the climb, weaving my way around other riders and progressing steadily. But the consistent 10-17% grades took their toll and by the time I hit that 17% section just before the summit there was nothing left in the legs and I had to fight for every inch of elevation gain. I still thought I was alright, took on some food and hydration and stretched out before starting back down, but the small climb out the basin of Anderson reservoir showed how depleted the muscles were. There was no power, and every time I attempted to push them they surrendered and their counterparts cramped in defiance. I stopped, rested a bit, stretched out some more, but there was nothing.

I headed southward to continue, aided by a nice tailwind, but everytime I tried to push it a bit the problems cropped up. A few miles down the road my teammate Derrick caught up with me, suffering his own similar problems related to his knee. We discussed and decided the better part of valor was to cut off the second climbing loop, to Gilroy Hot Springs, and head to the cars. Calling ourselves the ‘gimp patrol’ we passed the turnoff to the Springs and limped back to where we started. Not exactly the result I envisioned, but my body made it clear that it was not ready, yet.

Now it is time to assess my plans for two weeks from now when I will be joining The Wife and a bunch of friends on another similar test. The early discussions have revolved over who is doing the 100 mile, who is doing the ‘official’ metric century, and who will do the ‘unofficial’ sort of metric cut-off version of the 100 miler. I’ve been in the 100 miler camp, alone, all along. Now I have to decide whether to give in to what the body said yesterday, or push for a better result.

A couple of months back I tried to push myself towards working harder on a return towards what I consider ‘normal’, putting a couple of endurance events on the calendar for this spring to force me to get out more. But life has gotten in the way and I have not been able to spend the time necessary to prepare for these events, leaving me wondering what is realistic at this point as the dates for the events draw close.

I did get an unexpected surprise this week which will, at least in the short term, free up some time for me to work on the recovery (as well as some yard and house projects that have been delayed for far too long). My employer reduced the payroll, so I have a bit more time for endeavors beyond earning a paycheck. And the time I have will be allocated differently. More work on the recovery, balanced by working on networking with friends and acquaintances in an effort to find a new challenge (read job) to pay the bills. Lat month I was able to get in a mere 280 miles or so on the bike, and I have almost 70 in the first two days of this month. Perhaps I will be ready for the first of those endurance events in a couple of weeks.

The bone shattered last June has healed, but the muscles that operate the hip joint are far from being back to normal. The orthopedic surgeon told me on the last visit that I should expect a one year recovery period, and that the last step was rebuilding the musculature. She said the gluteus in particular would take time, but the one’s I can detect are not back are the knee extensors and the hip adductors. Until I get the strength back attempting to train hard much less race is out of the question. Complicating matters is that ever since the accident I have had trouble getting comfortable on the road bike, specifically trying to get a spot where the arse is comfortable without pinching a nerve in my left hip (opposite the side that was injured). I am attempting to build bone mass (weight bearing activities), increase muscle mass and strength, get back flexibility, and try to solve the position problem in an effort to get back to close to where I was last year.

The obvious race for my return is the Pescadero Classic Road Race. It was my last road race before the accident, I was embarrassed by my showing, and it is a hilly race that tends to get strung out thus lowering the risk of another rider taking me out. The date for that race is June 13th, still 14 or so weeks away. But for some reason race registration was opened a couple of weeks ago, almost 4 full months before the event! In NCNCA it seems that with the exception of a couple of distant early (Cantua Creek, Pine Flat) and late (Henleyville) races that the men’s fields fill up in the first hours or days of registration; he who sleeps gets on the waiting list at best. Within a day of the opening of registration for Pescadero the baby geezer (35+) 4/5 field, the one I raced in last year, was full. That left the E4’s (e.g., race with the young bucks), the geezer 4/5 (about 90% full at that time), or the ultra-geezer (6 of 10 slots taken at that time) available if I wanted to register. It was fish or cut bait, so I threw my hat (aka $30) into the ultra-geezer field.

I now have 14 weeks to get myself prepared, physically and mentally, for that bit of abuse. I will not exceed the limits that my body imposes on me as I prepare, and if I do not feel ready for it I will not take the line. But now there is a more concrete objective out there that I can work towards. So now the question that hangs over me is, will I be ready?

One of the great things about cycling in western Europe is that there is a bar and/or restaurant at the top of virtually every major pass. After climbing 4000, 5000, or 6000 feet up some mountain having a refueling station close at hand is great. Here at home, if I climb Mt. Hamilton the only caloric items available are what is in the candy machine at the back of the visitor center. That is rather lame, in my opinion. We need some mountaintop restaurants here in the states. In 2004, as The Wife (then friend) and I got to the top of Passo dello Stelvio in a light snow storm it helped the psyche and the bodies to go into the restaurant at the top and fill up on Pasta Carbonara chased with a helping of Strudel before descending down the other side. Much better in many ways than a Snickers Bar from a machine.

I am a bit of a food agnostic. I will eat most anything if necessary. I’ve consumed cuy (Guinea Pig) in the Andes and macaw soup, crocodile, agouti and several other wild animals in the Amazon basin. And I am sure I do not want to know the identity of a number of things I ate in Southeast Asia. When push comes to shove, however, I have a preference for the cuisines of the mediterranean region. Don’t make me choose a country, just give me all the tastes of that part of the world. Besides being my favorite region, the cuisine works well with our attempts to become localvores as much as possible, eating what is grown and produced here rather than having For my last birthday The Wife gifted me the book ‘mediterranean Fresh’ by Joyce Goldstein which pays homage, for the most part, to salads of the region. We have started making our way through the book, but slowed down until some of the key ingredients become available from local sources.

Part of my food obsession is watching cooking and food shows on PBS, which are usually a great source of inspiration for things to cook. This fall I had high hopes when PBS debuted the series ‘Spain… on the road Again’. But other than the eye candy of Gwyneth Paltrow and Claudia Bassols there was not much to recommend the show; too little time spent on the food, scenery, and culture, and too much time on Mark Bittman and Mario Batali (in either florescent green or fluorescent orange crocs, depending on the episode). But, I am totally hooked on “José Made in Spain” with José Andrés. Not much of a looker, but that is fine as the show is all about food and it is evident that he is very passionate about the subject matter. We usually catch it just was we return home from 3-4 hours of riding on Saturday, in a caloric deficit and all too willing to be seduced by the rich, flavorful looking food he is either eating or preparing. Last Saturday it was roasted rack of lamb with sauteed potatoes and garlic. Every episode is a call to buy a plane ticket to Madrid or Bacelona from which to launch a culinary adventure. Until I am on the plane I will be attempting to recreate as many of these dishes as possible. Of course a good bottle of Tempranillo will help me get in the proper mood.

The Wife convinced me [threatened me into conceding] that doing a bike tour of the Sonoma wine country was not a good idea this weekend [or any other between Oct and Apr] due to weather concerns. She still wanted to watch the Women’s Crit in Santa Rosa [and check out George H. in person] so we made plans to spend a couple of days up in the northlands as a combined ToC visit/Valentines Day celebration.  Sunday morning we did our obligatory training [relieve the guilt] sessions in the garage, The Wife on the trainer and me on the rollers.  We then packed a few clothes, jumped in the toaster and drove [paddled] north to Santa Rosa.  Fortunately, everyone else seemed to be working on important business [nursing hangovers] so the drive through San Francisco was not too unpleasant.

After our arrival in Santa Rosa the first order of business was lunch [or suffer The Wife chewing off my arm] so we wandered around the barricades looking for some eateries that were open.  A few along the closed streets seemed to think it was a holiday, but we soon found a serviceable establishment near where the GoldSprints competition was setup.  A quick snack [and some beer] and we were ready to find the start/finish for the Women’s Crit [as soon as the downpour stops].  On our way we ran into Cathy and the mouse squad preparing for some GoldSprint action [better them than me]. A chat with some volunteers [guys in XXL orange shirts] and we were oriented to where the race was to be held.  We were only about 15 sec late for the start, enough to see a split starting in the field as they rounded the first corner. Working our way towards the start/finsh line we found Beth [thorn in Michael Ball's side] cheering on Karla [looking for a sponsor] who was in the break and looking strong.   We lined up along the railing and cheered on our favorites [friends] consigned to the reality that we were going to get a bit wet [soaked to the bone].   Tibco Director Linda J. kept coming up alongside me, watching the action, then passing info into the radio to here riders which I ignored [relayed to the competition].    By the time the officials started the lap countdown it was clear that the break would stick, so pre-race favorites Brooke, Ina, and Laura VG were going to be denied podium positions.  I have to give major props to all the ladies who went out and endured that sloppy mess.   After Emilia [roowr] Fahlin nipped Lauren T. at the finish for the win, it was time to move towards cover [see if I could get a glimpse of Amber].

We had two-and-a-half hours before the men could be expected to arrive in town, so an opportunity to relax [spite the schedule planners who thought we would shop].  Time for some coffee, some relaxation [standing in restroom queues longer than a football field], and some stretching [yawning]. As the time for arrival of the men’s field got near we went back out into the rain and aligned ourselves at the barricades [knocked a couple of youngsters out of the way] to cheer the final laps of town. After a few [far too many] VIP cars and a flotilla of CHP motorcycles and cars passed there appeared …. a lonely rider [soggy body on a bike]. We waited for the rest of the field to arrive in town, then wondered why no one was driving it on the circuits to catch the lone flier. We learned later that the officials decided to neutralize the circuits after the first crossing of the finish line [when it was evident Levi wouldn't win]. I think it was the same official who made the ‘neutralize after crash within 10km rule’ [or else Levi would be too far down in time] rule a couple of years ago.

We finished the day driving north to the Dry Creek Inn in Healdsburg where we told us we would receive a free room upgrade [they gave our room to someone else]. After changing into dry clothes, we made our way to downtown Healdsburg for dinner at Scopa [don't look down while walking down the street or you will miss it] The restaurant was great; excellent food, appropriate portions, and superb service; highly recommended but make reservations [or be prepared to offer a good bribe]. Next time we go to Sonoma County we will look for better weather and maybe even do some riding [rather than sit on our duffs].

As that weekend approached the weather forecasts kept switching between rain and no rain, and our plans kept shifting with the forecasts.  By that Friday the forecasts had narrowed down to a good start of the weekend, but increasing clouds on Monday with a storm coming in on Tuesday.  Armed with that information we decided to take the bike tour option and prepared our bikes, packed the panniers, and mapped out the route.  After a final check of the forecast on Saturday morning we departed from my place in Mountain View and rode to Millbrae to catch BART to San Francisco where we could catch the ferry to Vallejo.  The weather was wonderful, sunny and bright through this part of the trip.  From Vallejo we rode north to Napa, where we ate lunch, then continued on to the northern part of town where we had room reservations, all while a few high clouds starting to move in to the picture.  After checking in at the Inn we checked the weather forecasts again; it had changed slightly, now with the storm coming in late on Monday rather than Tuesday.  Not what we wanted to hear, but still not a problem since we planned on returning home by mid-day on Monday.

Sunday we spent riding (aka dodging cars) through the main part of the Napa wine country, heading north along roads through the hills west of the valley, then down into the Highway 29-Silverado trail corridor of vineyards and wineries, with short ride up towards the Pope Valley after lunch.   It was overcast all day, that is until we left the last winery we visited and headed south back towards our accomodations in Napa.  During that stretch we started to get a light drizzle, but nothing we could not handle.  And by the time we left to walk out and find dinner that had stopped, so still no major weather concerns.

In the middle of that night it became apparent that the weather forecasters had missed the mark, as I woke up to hear a steady rain outside.  Oh well, we had come prepared with rain jackets, water proof socks, and enough experience to know that a little rain was not the end of the world.

By the time we awoke on Monday morning the main part of the storm was starting to move in, and by the time we had some breakfast and were ready to leave it was right on top of us.  This was not your garden variety storm, though.  Later news reports were that the rain that morning was coming down at the rate of 2″/hour, which turned out to be quite a bit more than the storm sewers or the river could handle.  In hindsight, I should have gotten a taxi to someplace where we could rent a vehicle large enough for us and our bikes.  But we were crazy enough to ride in that mess.  We had to wind our way through flooded streets, detour around road closures, go through water hub deep in places, and then brave a few miles of Highway 29, to get to the Vallejo ferry terminal.  Of course, rain gear was all but useless in those conditions and we were soaked within minutes of leaving the dry and warm refuge of the Inn.

This coming weekend will be the five year anniversary of that trip.  And, by coicidence, we have decided to head north again, this time to Sonoma County.  The primary objective determing the location is we want to see the Tour of California Women’s Crit on Sunday, the 15th, in Santa Rosa.   So we will do our small Valentine’s Day/President’s Day weekend in wine country once again.   I wonder if I should suggest that we do it as a bike tour?