Sunday, August 2, 2009

Palomar & Friends

Steven made his Palomar climb debut yesterday. He hit the summit right behind me and I heard "Is this the top? SWEET, I thought we had another mile!" He rocks.


At the top of Palomar!

A good group of friends.

I love how Lisa looks like she is posing for a panty hose commercial here. Also, there's a great story about Lisa and Jesse's adventures that continues here.

Ian and I are not in Japan - there are really little lanterns at the top of Palomar.

A view on the descent.

If you look closely at this picture you will see two of the best training friends a girl could have. And yes, this is how they usually look when I train with them - small specs on the horizon. Two amazing athletes that inspire me to push myself in training.

Following Palomar there was some running, dinner, sleep and then a long ride today. Ian and Kevin did all of the same workouts I did, only faster.

Today's ride was not exactly pretty. I spent the day grabbing desperately for a wheel, hoping to hang on, only until a small mountain (or overpass) spit me off the back of the bike train. Multiple times Kevin and Ian waited or circled back to pick me up and pull me back into the pack. If you don't ride bikes the wonderful-ness of this act alone is hard to describe. To me it is comparable to falling off the merry-go-round, spending a while by yourself with scraped knees and tears in the dirt, then having your big brother come scoop you up and make life wonderful again.

I captured this shot as we blew by the beach on our bikes. At the time I think I wanted to throw my bike in the ocean and sit in the sand - maybe even with a bit of pouting thrown in. By the end of the day I wanted nothing more than to have spent the day exactly as I did - on my bike with my friends.