Park City Ski Trip - Jan. 29 through Feb. 5, 2010

Friday, Jan. 29, was a travel day. Nice short flight to Salt Lake City for week long ski trip at Deer Valley, UT. Went to ski shop & bought a ski helmet (with a IPod audio link!). After Natasha Richardson's tragic death from a skiing brain injury and my skull fracture while racing at the track last May, I am now a big supporter of ski helmets. We are staying at our timeshare at Marriott Mountainside which is ski in/ski out at Park City. Yet we do our skiing at Deer Valley -love the ambience, food, no lift lines and great mountain. We have a great mountain view and can see right in the quad chair lift as it passes by our window. Sundance film festival is still going on!

Sat., Jan. 30 - Beautiful sunny day of skiing at Deer Valley; felt confident and good for my first ski day of the season; worked on form and rhythm. Moderate day of 3 hrs actual skiing (no lift lines), 12 runs and 15,000 vertical feet. Had a great time. Drinking lots of water. Oh, do I love lunch - grilled salmon salad everyday at Empire Lodge. Rich loves the turkey chili.

Sun., Jan. 31 - 10" new snow at Deer Valley summit; slopes looked ungroomed so we skiied through big piles of powder; hard on the legs; snowy and cloudy most of the day; cut it short after 10 runs, 12,250 vertical feet. Shopping Day! Love my new Kjus ski outfit!

Mon., Feb.1 - Sunny day today; hit the Deer Valley slopes and did some black diamond runs; 11 runs, 15,030 vertical ft; feel my legs but great day.

Tues., Feb. 2 - Small group lesson on XC Skate Skiing. I had done a fair amount of cross country skiing but skate skiing was a challenge. We practiced several different types of poling techniques (v1 and v2) depending on the terrain. My saving grace is that I did in-line skating for many years and the technique is similar. It would take a lot of practice for me to really enjoy this. A real energy burner – I just had a sweater and running tights and was hot.

Wed., Feb. 3 - Great day of skiing and my best performance on the skis this week; 6 expert runs in the morning; total 15 runs, 20,080 vertical ft.

Thurs., Feb. 4 - Last day of skiing so enjoyed moderate day of alpine skiing at Deer Valley; few inches of fresh snow and mostly sunny; few expert runs in the morning; worked on control and technique and avoid injury. 15,000 vertical feet.

Fri., Feb. 5 - Good flight back back from SLC to Oakland

Beat the Clock Time Trial - Feb. 12, 2010

Competed with Rich on the tandem in the Beat the Clock TTT in preparation for the Berkeley Hills TTT next Saturday. We had a late start time of 8:25 so were able to get up at a reasonable hour and did a good 30 minute warm-up on the trainer. The air was heavy which would effect the times. We also practiced a couple starts to make sure we would start in the right gear for us. Good standing start and we settled into a strong steady power the entire way and pushing hard on the hills. Our max. speed was 37.1 mph. We have our cranks 90 degrees out-of-phase which works best for us especially on the hill climbs. We both had enough energy to push hard toward the finish. We passed our 1 min. and 3 min. teams (2 min. team restarted behind us) and no one passed us. Our time was 25:48 (4th out of the 13 teams – no other tandems). My goal was 25 minutes, but we were overall pleased with our team effort. Ready to take on Berkeley Hills TTT next Saturday. Good to see our friends and we enjoyed breakfast at Woodside Cafe and Bakery with Pam and Jan before heading off to the Hellyer velodrome for a track work out.

San Bruno Mountain Hill Climb - Jan. 1, 2010

Arrived 2 hrs before the 10 AM start and got in a good 45 min. w/u on the trainer. I felt ready for this race. My strategy was to stay on the wheel of the fast Elite W4 woman. That proved to be detrimental to me because I was in z5-z6 (VO2 max – anaerobic) for the first 6 minutes of the race. At that point, I knew I could not maintain that power and dropped off. I went out too slowly on the flatter section at the right turns on Radio Rd. for recovery. I was able to get back to high Z4 and Z5 on Radio Rd. but it was too late. I was extremely disappointed in my results (slower than last year, slower than my training – even slower than my OLH time). I would have been better off (i.e, faster) in this race to race at my own strong steady pace. Finished 10/18. We were lucky that the weather cooperated since there had been race in the forecast. Rich looked good and improved his time from last year. Good to see friends at the race and a great way to start the New Year.