Labor day weekend!

i love 3 day weekends... especially when I make them in to 4 days. typically at this time of year (for the last 3 years) i have been pretty focused on my training with Xterra Nationals and Worlds coming up. not this year. this labor day was more about just riding my bikes and hanging out with friends. good times.

on friday i had an epic time. for ryan's bachelor party we headed out on a chartered fishing trip. so we were up early on and on the water by 5am. the photos definitely tell the story. we ate good food, drank good beer, and caught plenty of yellow fin tuna. such a rad day and the best bachelor party I have ever been to... hands down.

breakfast



the crew


one of my fish


all 4 of mine!


end of the day


my fish, filleted and vacuum packed


don't let ryan fool you. he claims to love some IPA but when it comes down to it he would rather have a michelob ultra.


since i has a long day on friday and i had decided to wait and see how i felt saturday morning before committing to any training plans. I ended up meeting with matt and crew for some solid miles. it was perfect. not a hard ride, but not easy. just solid miles. after 85 miles on the road beth and i headed down to the beach to meet some of our friends. great "san diego" day.

beach beer


saturday night's dinner. ate quite a bit raw and then seared some on the grill.


sunday... yep more of the same. this time i was up early to head down to fiesta island some TTT practice with team B&L... Dan, Jens, and Matt. next weekend we are racing the 40k TTT and I am stoked. i took me a little while to get the hang of the pace line but soon enough we were hammering around the island. after 90 minutes of "practice" we headed home. a little later on I got in some more miles on the road and then it was off to a super fun bbq/b-day party. we kept it pretty mellow and were home early due to a pretty big monday on tap.

before i get into monday's ride. last weeks training was solid. a lot of miles on the road and some good group riding. the only bad thing was that due to my jacked up brake i didn't get on the trails. that will change this week as gordon has dialed me in with a loaner braek until my new on comes in. i am starting to get pretty stoked for the end of the season races.

monday's ride was a good time. we had a good size crew rolling out of harrah's and heading for palomar. beth rolled too... and was the only chick. she got a head start and then we rolled out. i climbed palomar at a solid clip but was not going for a PR. I ended up hitting the top in 1:10 which i am stoked about. i used to have to really go for it to hit sub 1:15 and then 1:11 was my PR from earlier in the year. last time with the guys pushing me i hit it in 1:07. so 1:10 not trying to PR and turning myself inside out is solid.

resting/refilling mid ride.


beth killed the climb too. she's champ and rode strong all day... hanging with the dudes. towards the end of the ride me while the guys stopped to fix a flat beth and i decided to get a little head start and we nailed it! i rode tempo for an hour with beth on my wheel trying to hold off the pack and in typical fashion we were caught at final descent down the mountain. good times.

we ended the day with just over 4 hours, 70 miles, and plenty of climbing. then it was time to eat. we headed over to matt's house for one of his now famous bbq's. awesome food, drink, and good friends. perfect way to end a rad weekend.

labor day might be my new favorite holiday.