Moving forward....

It's been a while since an update. The good news is that I have been healthy for a while now and back on track with training. Trying to fend off other illnesses as the cycle of flu and colds is still heavy at work and just in the general public! Herbal tea, Zycam nasal swabs and herbal immunity support has been in my arsenal as of late.

Have been on some great training rides in the last few weeks, managing to avoid the rain somehow. The most recent highlight was an epic 6 hour MTB ride in the Hesperia/Cajon Pass area with Carolyn and Romolo. I will head up there again this Sunday for a slightly shorter version (and hopefully be home in time for the Super Bowl!)

I am bowing out of the Boulevard Road Race this year and will just train through. Joy and Carolyn will be representing at the this weekend and hopefully bringing home the top 2 spots!

Bringing 2008 in with illness... and lots of herbal tea

Well, I have officially been sick for 11 days (which includes all of 2008 so far). Not good timing at all, but at least it's not the middle of the season and last weekend was extremly rainy, so I didn't miss much. I have more than caught up on TV shows including alot of brainless reality shows on MTV and VH1. I also watched nearly a whole season of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Tryouts on the E channel one day. It motivated me to keep up with my ab workouts. I can honestly say that I have done ALOT of resting. I can also say that getting sick this time had nothing to do with racing or training. I simply got the wintertime bug that many other people get when travelling around the holidays and I was on my week off the bike (which now has unfortunately become a longer break).

I am a big fan of herbal tea, but recently have been introduced to and have discovered several new additions to my collection. I have somewhat of an herbal tea pharmacy at home and in my office. Over the past 2 days I have sent people off with at least a couple samples to try. Lots of people have been sick recently or are still fighting things off. I have also talked to a few others who are in my boat: got a secondary illness.. yes ....... got sick from being sick! Apparently last week I had the flu and now I am recovering from a secondary respiratory infection. GREAT. Thankfully my dr is awesome and has got me feeling like a human again! Having asthma does not help at all, making my illness linger a big longer than normal. I think my frantic coughing fits might FINALLY be over.... Now I can have a real night's sleep!

As for the product review, these are the teas that I highly recommend! You can find most of these at your local grocery store, health foods store, Vitamin Cottage, etc. I even have seen some of these at Rite Aid. Even if you are not sick, most of these are really great for just everyday immune support and overall wellness.

Traditional Medicinals Gypsy Cold Care

Traditional Medicinals Throat Coat

Traditional Medicinals Breathe Easy

Traditional Medicinals Echinacea Plus

Traditional Medicinals Herba Tussin

Traditional Medicinals Everyday Detox

Yogi Tea Triple Echinacea

Yogi Tea Kava Stress Relief (** now popular with my coworkers!)

Cross Season Finale

One week after racing in 20 degree temps in mud and then frozen mud, I raced the So Cal Cross Prestige Series Finals in Woodland Hills. It was nearly 80 degrees. Quite a change! The course was fast and had some good climbs, and some good technical turns. I helped Dot with the kid's race and really enjoyed passing out children's books (Mike and the Bike) and CLIF z-bars afterwards (with my Santa Hat on).

The race started and I felt good. Hung with Coryn and Tonya who always have great starts. After a while I moved up into 2nd place and would remain their most of the race. I was happy I only rode 3.5 hours on Sat and not 5+ as I was originally planning. The high winds made my *easy* rode ride a bit tougher than I wanted.
2 laps into the race, I could not believe it when the announcer said "6 laps to go". I thought he was kidding. but he was NOT. I wasn't sure if I could hold my pace for 6 more laps (granted each lap was around 5 minutes, but had a super steep grinder climb that kept getting harder each lap). At one point I could see a train of girls forming to try to catch up to me, thankfully it dissolved, however Lana came up and was able to pass by me. I worked hard to catch back up, but in the end was 12 seconds behind her. I was also happy to only be 30 seconds behind Coryn who has been known to put MUCH larger gaps on us. Overall I was very pleased. It felt great to be in 2nd place most of the race, and to finish so close to the top 2. Would have preferred to stay in 2nd, but still enjoyed it while it lastest.
Thanks to Amy for feeding me, teammates from CICLE and friends from Backbone (Bert, Ryan, Vanessa, Vegas Bob) cheering for me! Thanks especially to Roger for being on the back 40 of the course where legs were burning! He took some great pix, some of which I posted here. Shout out to Bert for winning the singlespeed race, Vegas Bob for doing great in his first cross race ever and Brant for kicking butt once again this season!
Now it's time to focus on the soon approaching 2008 MTB season. It definatley feels nice to have a good level of fitness already at this point from doing base, lifting and also racing cross. I don't have to work back up from square one which I have had to do in past seasons. Somehow I managed NOT to burn out this year, so was able to keep on ridin'! I think we all learned alot in the 2006 season to help make 2007 a little less stressful! Hopefully 2008 will be even better... :)

The only issue at the moment is getting over the chest cold I brought back from NY (Greg has it too). Not a fun way to spend New Year's.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!