280 Ride last night.

So I have neglected the blog for quite a while. Between taking a spill and getting sick I did not get in much riding after the St George race. In the last three weeks I have been back on the bike but not quite as much as I would like. Kids, job and weather keep getting in the way. Last night I finally got out and rode Corner Canyon. Riding up Brock's there was only one small spot of mud. Unfortunately after the rain today I am sure it will take a few days to dry out. The lower stuff will be dry immediately but the upper stuff will be a mess. Someone has been up there trimming the trails. Most of the branches that were crowding the trails have been trimmed down and the trails are in very nice shape. On the way up Brock's at one point there was a view of Ghost falls. The falls are usually obscured by the vegetation. Brock's has some cool views of the other trails and the valley.

Hope things dry out shortly. Had a good time and want to start riding Corner Canyon as often as possible until the weather gets too hot.

275 Ouch.

Went for a 2 hour spin today. I have not ridden outside since November 9th. It has been too long. I have winter gear and I really should get out there and ride. As I sit here I hate to admit it but I am a bit sore. My legs hurt. I guess eating like a pig and swilling beer for the last couple of months has come around and kicked me right in the ass.

I have been burning vacation days for the past week. I hate to leave any on the table but I had to ditch one day. Bummer. While I was out I did get some house work done. Patched the hole in the room where the pipe broke and painted the room again. I think I have painted that room 4 times now. I am getting a bit sick of that room. Susan moved my trainer out of the basement bedroom and now I am in the official exercise room. It is complete with rollers, magnetic trainer and a treadmill. I am not very coordinated anymore. At one time I could ride for an hour on a set of rollers and barely even move right or left. Now I get on them and proceed to crash. And crash often. I think I need to ride rollers in a doorway and maybe with a set of training wheels. Susan thinks it is hysterical to hear me wad it up on the rollers and thinks that they are stupid. I am starting to agree.

While I was out I went to see Avitar. I really wanted not to like the movie. There is something about spending half a billion dollars to make a movie that bothers me. Well the movie was quite good and I will probably shell out the $12 to see it in 3D once the theatres are a bit less crowded. If you have not seen the movie I would recommend it and I will probably see it again. Now for a movie that I rented. District 9. What a steaming pile of dogie doo doo. I understand there were people who liked the movie but I am guessing they are the same people who enjoy having their toe nails smashed with a ball peen hammer. I made it about 30 minutes in before I bailed out.

Here is to hoping that the new decade is a good one.

261 Night Ride

Susan and I went for a night ride yesterday. I had forgotten how fun it is to go out at night and ride the trails. The perspective is totally different. I also had forgotten about all the deer running around Draper. I almost ran right into one while I was riding the trail to the Rodeo grounds. I am not sure how I would have explained that one. Bonneville shoreline trail headed toward Corner Canyon Road

Bridge connecting lower Corner Canyon to Bonneville Shoreline trail.

Upper Corner Canyon Road.

Susan had a bit of a mishap and had a slow speed over the bars incident. She is a bit sore and has a bruise on her elbow and hip. This time she has no idea how she crashed. I am not sure either. The place she crashed is fairly flat and had very few rocks. I hope I can talk her into riding at night again. Because this was fun. At least fun for me.

265 Dawn Patrol

Lovely photo. My camera phone thinks 5 am is way too early to ride too. I felt like dirt. Rode Corner Canyon. No surprise there. Trails were tacky and in very good condition. I thought it may be muddy. Today I could not get my heart rate up out of zone 2 at all. 10 miles and 1900 feet pf elevation gain. Did the whole ride with a heart rate under 145. The average HR was 114 Low 61 and high 143.

I fly out on Saturday morning to go to the Schlitterbahn in Texas. It is one of the worlds largest water parks. A few days of chasing the kids around a water park should fix my wagon. I will take some photos.

263 Ride today and some photo's

I did the tour of Corner Canyon today. I rode up bst to corner canyon road then down the new multi purpose trail which is fairly rough and loose. Then up Clark's down Ghost over to Bst again and down Lizard road. Man there were lizards everywhere. I was trying to keep my HR below 140 and I was fairly successful except going up Clark's and up the Wall. This was the first time I have ever cleaned the wall. I usually spin out or something. This time I went immediately to the Granny gear and was able to spin on up. Today was Draper Trails Day so there were some runners on the trails. They were pretty well done by the time I headed up but I did see a few runners and some family's out hiking the trails. One group was walking through the poison ivy over by Ghost Falls. I bet they are hating life about now. It ended up being a fairly big day of climbing with over 4000 feet. I wanted to go to Park City but Erich is still hacking his lungs out. He stayed with me until we went down the new trail then he and Susan went home. I am not sure he should have gone with us He has a fever now and I hope this does not set him back even more. He has lost 10 or so lbs and is really thin.

It is hard to see from my camera on the cell phone but the new trail has tons of roots sticking up all over and is loose on the edges. It needs lots of people to ride it slowly to buff it out and get it into better shape.

Mr. Skinny telling me he is going home.

This week was Alyssa's birthday. She wanted a new bike and the shop had an 08 model. She was thrilled especially when I tattooed it with several hibiscus stickers.

The infamous valve. Somehow it blew up. I probably did not let the glue set up enough before I turned it on and one of the joints failed. Major bummer. I have no idea how long it was running but I did not have to dig it up. The water did that for me. It was a quick fix. It better hold this time.

This is from 2 weeks ago. Erich and I went on a road ride and at about the 2 hour mark he bonked. He needs to find something he can eat on the bike. That and he needs to get in some miles. Lacrosse hurt his endurance and he needs to build it back.

262 Lost in Park City

I have no idea how but I managed to get lost about 4 times today. I rode for 3 hours and saw everything from the highway 40 to I15 to Downtown Park City. I started out trying to preride the Round Valley race course. I ended up following someone and they led me to some single track so I went ahead and rode from Round Valley to Park City's Main street. I think I was on the Prospector trail. After riding back I decided to look for the Round Valley Race course which from what I can tell is not marked. I rode all over that place. At the end I took a right turn when I should have turned left. I ended up by exit 2 on Highway 40. Thinking there would be a road that would allow me to connect back I headed again the wrong way before finally figuring out that I would have to double back go on the other side of 40 and ride back up. Oh and I almost got hit by some bozo who made a right hand turn in front of me going into the Home Depot parking lot. It was their fault but I had my head down and was just pedaling when they turned in front of me so I should have been paying attention. I just missed the back side of the pickup. I would have been madder and probably done something stupid but I was too tired. Probably a good thing.

262 lbs and holding

I really wanted to be in the 240's by now. It is time to focus on my diet again. I need to figure out how to drop another 20 lbs and still be able to ride. My thoughts are that I will have to start writing down everything I eat and keeping my calories at or under 2000 per day. That probably seems like quite a bit of food but for a guy who is 6 3 and weighs 262 lbs it is a deficit of about 1000 to 1500 calories per day. Depending on my activity level.

Last night I rode the Draper Race course with Mark. Since Mark owns the Clark's Time Trial page I donated my slowness to his blog. 23:10 which is the slowest time ever recorded. This will give me some good motivation to knock the time into the acceptable sub 20 minute area in the next month. The weight really kills me going up hill. No surprise there. I held my heart rate between165 and 170 the whole way up.

Erich did Clark's and I am not completely convinced but he said he had a time of 13:23. I think he really was about 14 min plus because he and I are showing about a one tenth difference in mileage. Either way it was much faster for him and not bad for a 14 year old kid. He still swears the fastest he has ever done Clark's was chasing my dog Mookie up the trail. Maybe we will have to have a challenge. Who can beat Mookie? My money is on the dog. He is nuts. 70lbs of muscle, heart and not much in the brains department. I still do not think he feels any pain. He has to be the world's most simple creature. Plus if he felt like he were going to lose I bet he would just jump in your lap, knock you over, lick your face and run up the trail. And then wonder why you would have the audacity to yell at him.

262. Group Ride of the Draper course.

Last night I went out with the Revolution group and rode the Draper course. Ed has it very well marked ( it was marked earlier in the week but some bozo's had taken down the pink flags) and I have to say the course is a blast. I suffered quite a bit trying to keep up with the group but even though I could not breath at all I loved it. This course is Fun. I had no idea that a bunch of the trails were even there. I do not know how it will race and I suspect it will be very difficult to pass. Some of the switch backs are loose and one of the switch backs on Ghost Falls it is sloped down hill so be careful or there may be a fair number of up close and personal meetings with the terra firma. If you are racing you will want to pre-ride. I will probably do the ride again Thursday night if anyone wants to go with me shoot me an e-mail. Just remember I am the ClydeSnail.