On Thursday Anne went to Woman’s Conference at BYU.  I had intended to bike that day but it was just too cold.  Anne finished at 3 pm and the rain and snow flurries had stopped so we headed out for a nice 6 mile run.  We wore our rain jackets but running up the trail was a bit warm with those jackets, but I kept mine on anyway since I was feeling cool, while Anne took her jacket off since she had a long sleeved running shirt underneath.

On Friday we woke up to snow.  I don’t ever recall it snowing one month before May.

It seemed odd to see snow covering tulips in full bloom.

Anne headed off for the 2nd day of Woman’s conference.  It was only around 40 degrees outside by early afternoon, but I was anxious to get back on the bike.  I had brought some new booties, which I had bought last fall but never wore all winter.  I put them on and all the other clothes I could and went for a ride up the canyon.  I decided to push hard up the Alpine Road, to Sundance, and set a new PR for that section.

I was warm enough making the climb but coming back down was a chilling deal.

On Saturday morning our hopes of getting out for a bike ride didn’t materialize when we some some more snow.  An unusual way to welcome the month of May.  Anne’s computer battery was swelling (so I had removed it).  It seemed like a good day to take it to the Apple store in Salt Lake.  Even though the computer was out of warranty, they replaced the battery free of charge.  Nice to own a Mac.

On the drive back  home it was now clearing.   I suggested we might be able to get in a bike ride, but it was still cold and windy.  Anne opted for using the bike training so I set her bike up downstairs where she could watch a movie.  I don’t really like the bike trainer so I decided to brave the cold and headed up the canyon.  I again made the climb up the Alpine Loop, but decided to go all the way to Aspen Grove.  Again the climb was warm enough.  Just past Aspen Grove the road was closed and I saw some snowmobilers.  First time I had ever biked up to where that was happening.

Initially the descent was not too bad but after I went past Sundance, the road was wet and in the shade.  The temperature was dropping and I was starting to get snow flurries blowing in my face.  It was way too cold to enjoy.  I finally made it down to Vivian Park and was so cold I decided to climb up South Fork to warm up.  I finally was warming up again by the time I reached the end.  But then I had to head back down.  I was glad to get this ride, but it was much colder than I would prefer.  I was glad to finally get home.  Anne had just finished using the bike trainer, for over 2 hours, amazing.

It was one of those two sport days.   If we were more into swimming maybe it could be a three sports day, but for us it means running and cycling.

It is still cold in the mornings here in Utah so we decided to run first.  Even waiting until nearly 9 am, the temperatures were still in the mid 40′s.  But running at that temperature is much easier than cycling when it is cold.  We did a 6 mile run up and back down the Provo River Trail.  On the way back I decided to do a little speed work.  Although I have done intervals this year on the bike, and even the tandem, I have not done any running.  I decided to do something very limited for this first time so I figured just 2 x half mile repeats would be a good start.  At the four mile mark I took off.  I was surprised how my legs felt, like I could hardly turn them over when I attempted to push the pace.  Each half mile interval was done at only a 7:40 pace, which is slower than my half marathon race pace only 3 years ago.  It is clear that I need to get in more speed work running.

After running, we helped Greg finish moving out of his apartment.  He is headed out tomorrow back east to work for the summer.  In the early afternoon, Anne and I took off for a 25 mile bike ride.  It was much warmer now than when we ran, warm enough to ride with short sleeves.   We found ourselves on the same Provo River trail we had run on earlier in the day when a couple of younger guys on road bikes passed us.  I noticed them in particular because they were not wearing any helmets.  We kept up our pace, going about 17 mph on this slight uphill.  I could see the two young guys had just kicked it in to pass us but then had slowed down, so we eventually caught them and passed them.

Once we reached Vivian Park, we headed up South Fork.  This is a 4.2 mile stretch with about 750 feet of climbing.  Since the average grade is less than 4%, I don’t have this as a hill climb for time, but I did set it up as a time trail course on my Ultra Cycling website.    Both Anne and I had timed ourselves up this stretch last week.  With the run earlier in the day we were not too inclined to try to race up and set a new time.  But soon after we started, here was one of the young guys coming by us fast.  I guess he did not wear a helmet because he had flowing blond hair he wanted to show everyone.  Maybe if I had hair like that, I might also be tempted to not wear a helmet (not really).

From the earlier encounter, I knew he could not hold his fast pace, so I decided to chase him.  It didn’t take long to catch him.  Seeing he was not able to go a lot faster, I decided to pass him.   He then accelerated and trying to catch me., but I was surprised how fast I was moving up the hill.  I guess a combination of a little competition and a little tailwind does wonders.  It was not long before he was far enough behind that I felt I could back off.  But backing off is not my normal approach and since I had set this up as a time trial course, I figured this was a good time to do faster than last week.  I finished in 16:51, about 1:40 faster than last week.  That time meant nearly a 15 mph average up hill but I had to take my heart rate to an average of 166 bpm (176 maximum).

At the end I had to stop for a few moments at the top to catch my breath.  When I turned around there was no sight of the young guy so  I headed back down to see where Anne was.  I didn’t go down very far before we met, as she was also going up the hill very fast herself.

Anne finished with a new PR for herself, 20:42, nearly 4 minutes faster than her time last week.  This table is from the Ultra Cycling website for this course and shows the times posted in the last few days.

It was fun that we both set new PRs on the same ride and not on the tandem.  After making a descent back down to Vivian Park we stopped for a another picture.

Another fun day in Utah, running and cycling.

One Tuesday we decided to join the Utah Velo club ride at 5 pm.  In the morning I headed out to see if I could make it up Squaw Peak.  The road was closed to traffic.

After passing the gate, the road was clear and dry, except for a few patches of snow.  One section had enough snow i had to walk 20 feet through it.

From there to the summit it was clear sailing.

On Wednesday the weather started to change.  We headed out for a ride but turned around and headed home, when it started to rain.  After a couple of hours of waiting, it cleared enough so we tried again and got in a 25 mile ride.  Soon after returning home, the rain really came down.

On Thursday we woke to a surprise, snow falling!  What a change from two days earlier.

But the snow melted quick enough and later in the  morning we went for a 5 mile run up the Provo Canyon trail.  It didn’t seem so cold so we decided to also bike up the canyon.  Going up South Fork seemed warm enough.

But when we came down, we were going into a chilly headwind.  It seemed like a long ride back down the canyon.   We stopped at Subway to have lunch with Greg.

We both have MacBook computers so we can use the same computer in either of our homes.   In Orem that usually meant using them up in the kitchen.  When we first bought this home we brought up a table I had used over 25 years ago for my first computer.   I put it in the family room downstairs where I setup my computer. Anne wanted to join me so I cleared a spot for her, but it was too crowded.  We had seen these computer desks at Costco but they were out of stock.  So we drove up to the Murray Costco and bought two of them, for only $99 each.  They fit perfectly along the back wall and we now each have our own space, but get to computer together.  Kind of like being on the tandem.

Now it is Friday morning and it is raining. Which explains why I am writing this blog entry!

The route took me down Nisqually road to Reservation road.  It was then a short distance on Highway 510 to the Yelm highway.  From there I took Spurgeon Creek road, a most delightful road, with very little traffic.

The road ended at Rainer Road, where I took a left turn.

I had created a course on my Garmin Edge 500 and was following along the track.  As I was biking along Rainer road, it showed a left turn, but there was no road there.  Yikes!  I continued on to the next road, called Military road and turned there.   My Garmin 500 has no maps with streets, just a track and a message I was off course.   I proceed along, and could see on the Garmin the track I had plotted was  off to the side.  I kept going, turning left at each opportunity.  I finally made it to highway 507 and saw if I went left I would get to Yelm.  Once I reached Yelm, I stopped to check the Google map on my iPhone and saw that 507 intersected with Highway 510, so I took a left on 510 back to Reservation road.  Highway 510 was rather busy and went past an Indian Reservation (meaning casino) so I did not like that stretch.

Sara later mentioned that during her running, she found a way over to Mounts Road (without going on the freeway).  I took off the next day for a long run and found the way.  You could not drive a car but running or bike was fine because you had to go through a narrow gate.  I borrowed Sara’s Garmin Forerunner 405 watch (with GPS) so I was able to get a map of where I went on the 9 mile run.

On our last full day there, Anne and I were able to bike together so we decided to do the similar cycling route as I had.  Rather than going on the freeway, we took the route I had run up Hoffman Hill road, to Mounts road.  We decided to just go 22.5 miles and turn around and backtrack, to avoid highway 510.  That way we are able to bike on Spurgeon Creek road both ways.

We ended up with 45 miles and a better route.  Click below to enlarge.

On one of my solo runs earlier in the week, I ran out to Solo Point.  I wanted to take Anne there on the bike, but we ran out of time so we drove out.  We were just in time to see a great sunset.  A fitting end to a fun visit to Washington.

It’s my party, and I will cry if I want to. You would cry too, if you were sixty-two!

I suppose for some people turning 62 is enough to make a grown man cry, but for me each year is exciting because I am blessed with good health.  I have a tradition of biking my age in miles.  We decided to do the birthday ride yesterday.  Anne had already let me open my birthday gift, a new Garmin Edge 500 cycling gps/computer.  It not only lets me know our speed, distance, but also you can download the the files after and see where you went.

The hardest aspect is not biking 62 miles, but figuring out what route to take so we end up with exactly 62.0 miles.  The prior week we scoped out a ride and realized we could do a slight modification to get what we wanted.

Three Lakes and a Free Lunch

We came up with a route where we could actually view three different lakes, stop for lunch and end up close to 62 miles.   We started out in the morning and headed to do the Canada/Roop Road Loop.  We took the side road out Coyote Lake, the first lake on our journey.  After descending down back to the valley, it was into a stiff head wind to Morgan Hill for a climb up Thomas Grade, then down far enough to view Anderson Lake.  We were getting hungry by now so we headed back down to the valley and biked over to one of our favorite spots for lunch, Erik’s Deli in Morgan Hill.  I just happen to have filled my card with 10 stamps so we were able to get a free lunch.

After lunch we did a loop around the Reservoir and stopped for a picture along our third lake, Chesbro.  This map shows our route and stops along the way.

After the last picture stop, we headed back up Blue Bell, then down Mantelli and back home.  We pulled into the driveway with exactly 62.0 miles on the odomoter.

Tri-Sport Birthday and Dinner (but not free)

With the 62 mile birthday ride already finished yesterday, what were we to do today, on my birthday?  How about doing 3 sports?

We headed out in the morning for a 6 mile run.  The air was a bit cool but still plenty warm enough to run in shorts.  In the late morning we took our road bikes  out for a nice 25 mile ride.  I really wanted to set some new record today but breaking my PRs is getting tough.  I found a website for using my new Garmin Edge 500. When you upload files there, it sees where you went, and checks your time over certain climbs.  It then ranks you with other riders.  Oh, that would be perfect so I found one climb on the route we were taking.  I checked out the best time so far on that short, but steep climb up Mantelli. It was 4:55.  I thought I could beat that time.  As you can see, I claimed the King of the Mountain spot after uploading my data to the Strava site.

After testing my 62 year old heart on that fast climb, we headed up to Morgan Hill for lunch, again at our favorite spot.  After biking home, that was enough sports for one day for Anne.  But I wanted to do one more sport, so I went mountain biking with a group of about 6 buddies.

Using my new Garmin GPS, I was able to see on a map where we mountain biked.

After doing all those sports, I was starved.  I cut the mountain bike ride a bit short and before 7 pm we were off to have a nice dinner, which capped off a great birthday.

This past week Anne reached a new milestone, having bike over 7,000 miles so far this year, quite a few more than the total for 2008.

Franz has reached 10,000 miles so far this year, but that is more than 1,000 miles less than last year at this time.

Running

This has not been much of a year for running, although Anne is much closer to her 2008 level of total running miles than Franz is.  We decided to run the Salt Lake City Half Marathon in April, so we have been taking our miles up.  You can see from this chart that  that Anne continues to out-run Franz.

This chart clearly shows that this year Franz has been out run by Anne.

I decided to take my new iPhone 3GS on the run today with Anne.  It is not exactly small enough to run with but I wanted to test out the GPS function.  My original iPhone did not have the GPS.  I used the MapMyRide application that recoreded the run.  I also used my Polar heart rate monitor with a footpod which I have previoiusly calibrated.  We ended up with 7.40 miles per the Polar and 7.42 miles per the iPhone.  Remarkably close.  The iPhone application also saved my workout and route we took, as you can see below.

Later in the afternoon the sun finally came out so Franz headed out on for a bike ride. He was fooled into riding with only short sleeved jersey and cycling shorts. But it was now 60 degrees so it seemed okay. He had intended to ride up Squaw Peak, but having done that four times in the last two days, he decided to go further and ride up the Alpine Loop. That road goes to over 8,000 feet so he figured he would be riding up by the snow we could see from the valley floor.

As he continued to climb, the temperatures kept dropping. heI finally reached the summit and noticed the temperature was now down to 49 degrees. He had tried to do a good time up the climb and had set a new record.

He still felt warm enough due to the climb but the descent down the Alpine Loop was COLD. HeI should have brought a jacket. He did make one stop to warm up a bit and take this photo with his iPhone to send to Ann. You can see a little snow in the distance on the hill top.

Being Labor Day, there was a lot more traffic than we usually find on this rode. This was especially true from Sundance down where Franz had many cars behind so he descended down quickly to not be in their way. That made me even more cold. In fact he was cold all the way back home. Quite an unusal ride for this time of the year.