Today’s ride went to the top of this moutain (Kitt Peak). It is a hundred and twenty mile out and back ride with a tweleve mile climb up Kitt Peak. At the top there are all kinds of crazy observatories where very pastey looking/nerdy/smart guys look at the stars in the evening.
Is that Pedro from Napolean Dynamite? The route to Kitt peak is hot bed for illegal immigration and unfortunately for this group they are being sent back to Mexico. I have never actually seen this before so it was sort of neat!
Mey at the base of Kitt Peak. Notice the blue sky and you cannot see it but trust me it was hot………..I think it was 95 F today. Good for the tan!

It is officially over………..I completely cracked and am off the wagon! I drank a Diet Soda at hour five of my six hour hundred and twenty mile jaunt in ninety plus degree heat. I could not resist the temptation of those new “Vault” Diet sodas. Not only did it quench my thirst but it felt like gold going down my throat. I am back on baby!!!!

I am not sure how many days it has been since my last diet soda becuase I stopped counting after one hundred days of diet soda sobriety. One thing I do know for sure is that is has been way too long and I have been missing out on one of the finer things in life!

Why did I stop drinking diet soda in the first place?? Honestly I am not sure maybe it was stupidity on my part or just to show people that I could! Whatever the reason was it does not matter anymore because those days are behind me and now I have to focus on the future and the return of a dear friend to my life.

After experiencing both the non diet soda drinking lifestyle and the diet soda drinking lifestyle I have a question for my readers. Why would someone would want to drink water when diet soda tastes soo good, has zero calories, quenches your thirst, and has little bubbly things! Sometimes when I am drinking the shit it tastes soo good I have to look at the label to make sure it has zero calories. Something that delightful must have calories but everytime I check the label I see my little zero buddy in the calorie row……and I continue to drink away!

Becca has come up with an interesting diet soda theory. She has theorized that soda companies will take over the mortuary buisness. It has been claimed that ingredients in diet soda break down to formaldehyde in the body. This means that soda companies would not only be making money selling the soda but they would be saving money on formaldehyde for embalming bodies. It is an interesting theory and sounds crazy but I guess people did say Einstein was crazy.

After getting back from today’s epic ride in the head and showering I had to run to the local bike shop to get my crank put back on. Yeah, when I got home my crank fell off……too much power I guess??? I got things sorted out at the bike shop and from there I proceeded to the gas station where I bought a twelve pack of ice cold diet Pepsi. At that moment I realized I was completely off the wagon…….again!

I did feel sort of like a construction worker buying a twelve pack on the way home after a hard day of work. However, I am not a construction worker (but was once) and I was not buying beer but instead diet soda. However, I do see a parallel between construction workers and beer and cyclists and diet soda!

Other than that I ended up getting another flat on the ride today and like I said yesterday I let a few loud vulgarities fly. It felt good.

Time for a little R&R hopefully I am not too jittery from all of the diet soda?

later,

g.

On the road yesterday morning and guess what? It was precipitating again!

Getting up at 4:30AM in the morning to bring Hollywood to the airport was rough so I had to drink a lot of coffee on the drive. I bought a new mug at the Starbucks just north of LA becuase my old one broke. This one has a new fancy top and it is cool because it looks like the paper ones they normally give you but it is hard plastic. I also bought it becuase they were running a special that if you buy a mug you can get any drink you want in it for free. I got the mug and opted for a more expensive drink than the regular black coffee I usually get even though I really only wanted coffee.
Six Flags Magic Mountain in LA. I can’t believe I used to ride things as a could……well I probably still could but I would need to take one of those little vomit bags.
A picture of a Dodge Viper in my rear view mirror that was tailgating me. Cool car though!
Holy crap is that sun??? I must be in Arizona.

A lovely sunset in the DRY desert.

Ahhhh a motorcycle ride in the evening would be awesome! I don’t have a motorcyle but even a walk on a warm clear evening like this would be lovely!

Let me first start by saying that Desert is a hard word to spell. I was tempted to spell it “dessert” but I think that is becuase I have not had any dessert this evening and I am thinking about it. I am going to eat a well deserved dessert in the dry desert tonight though! I am slightly paranoid of making dumb mistakes lately after posting that I was looking forward to the Thai food in Taiwan!

Yesterday was a long day spent mostly in the car driving from Folsom, CA to Tucson, AZ. I had to get up really early and bring Karl to the Sacramento airport so he could catch his 6AM flight to Barbados. Did you make it there Hollywood and is it sunny? I did see that he packed his surf shorts and I hope that he is using them.

After dropping Hollywood off I started the 14 hour drive to Tucson. Nothing too exciting happend along the way. There was the usual rain in northern California and then as I got more south towards LA the rain stopped and it was just cloudy.

However, as I got closer to Arizona the clouds disappeared and it became sunny and hot. I really could not believe it but I had the windows down in the car with my hair blowing in the wind. I think the hair blowing in the wind part is reserved for girls but nonetheless it was warm.

I was soo excited that I stopped for an hour spin in Blythe, California even though the town is a complete shithole. (I had to stay there in the back of my car for an extended period of time a few years back while my tranmission was getting replaced my a mechanic named Angel. Honest to God!) The ride was still enjoyable though.

In Tucson I am staying with my brother Shane who is living in a guy named Dan’s guest house. I am not sure if people are suppose to live in guest houses but that is what my brother is doing. Technically I guess I am staying in Dan’s guest house which is currently occupied by a permanent resident named Shane!

It is interesting the bathroom sink doubles as a kitchen sink but there are two microwaves and we cook our food on hot plates. It is sorta like camping except there is a ceiling fan. More on that later………..

The ride today was awesome……..it was 93 F with not a cloud in the sky. I think I am a little red and I don’t want to admit it but today was actually sort of hot. I even had the “sweating while eating dinner in a non-airconditioned guest house” syndrome going this evening.

I did flat three times on the ride but I did not get too pissed. However, if I flat tomorrow I am going to have something really loud and vulger to say.

Time to go and sit in front of a fan.

later,

g.

Ahhhhhh……..back home in rainy Folsom after doing the Santa Cruz crit yesterday with Mike, Hollywood, and Roman. The crit course was pretty fun since it had hairpin turn, a hill, and some rain for the last few laps. Hollywood won his eigth race of the year (if my math is correct and he continues his winning ways he should win around 30 races this year!) and Havoc Sayers got third after pretty much covering every move the entire race.

After getting back to the house last night I found I had a huge Easter package waiting from my mom. She sent Karl and I a bunch of Easter candy and some biscotti (Thanks mom and Karl says thanks also). I pretty much ate all of my candy last night and most of the biscotti this morning with my coffee. I know one thing Cadburry eggs have now taken place of circus peanuts as my favorite food! I think it is awesome how they have the white and yellow of the yolk inside. It is like eating a real egg but it is candy and doesn’t have to be cooked.

This morning Karl and I got the results of our blood tests that we took last week. Everything was good and after supplementing with some iron products my ferritin levels improved.

However, cortisol is another story. Both physical and mental stress raise cortisol levels and I figured that it would not be the best idea to stop training. Instead I focused on reducing mental stress and have been practicing breathing when I get pissed and doing other stress reducing techniques in an attempt to lower my cortisol

Hollywood and I also had a little competition to see who had the lowest cortisol. I got absolutely crushed! Menzies levels went from 20 last test to 12 this time. I on the other hand went from 25 last time to 24 this time. Since cortisol causes belly fat and Karl’s levels are half of what mine are I think that means my stomach is twice as fat as his???? That can’t be true. My levels have to be high becuase the blood people had to draw blood from me twice which made my levels high.

I officially don’t care about cortisol anymore…………maybe that will reduce some stress and lower my levels by not caring? With how the weekend went I probably should not have challenged Karl to the cortisol competition but the only way to get better is by being beat………..I think?

Enough of that nonsense. I talked with my brother Shane, who lives in Tucson, this morning and I am planning on driving down there tomorrow and staying for ten days before heading off to Europe. It is suppose to be 90 F and sunny there which will be a great change of pace and good for training. Plus, I would be the only one here in Folsom with Alberto and Karl gone.

Karl is going to Barbados tomorrow to sort out some Visa stuff. From there he is doing Georgia and then heading off to Europe also. I have to get up really early tomorrow anyway and bring him to the airport. From there I think I am going to head to Tucson. Time to go and pack again……

later,

g.

A little Health Net fan at the race today!
Another little Health Netter……….oh wait that is my teamate Kyel Gritters.

Dr. San Jose the team chiropractor looking over some ladies bike who I do not know. Maybe she was asking if her bike could get an adjustment? Dr. San Jose is awesome and gets my back straightened out evertime I see him (Thanks a ton) plus he is an avid blog reader and I sat next to him at dinner tonight.

Yesterday Mike, Hollywood, and I loaded in the team car and drove the three hours to our hotel in Salinas. It was sunny and nice on the drive which was good. However, by the time we got to the hotel and kitted up to ride clouds had rolled in. Needless to say fifteen minutes into our ride it started to rain………yeeeehaw!

Aside from that in conjunction with the Sea Otter event Health Net corporate has a big convention where employees and their families come to watch the race, eat dinner, hang out, etc. It was awesome to have soo many fans cheering for us at the race today. Thanks guys! We even had the privilge of getting to know many of the Health Net employees becuase both yesterday and tonight we ate dinner with them. Dinner was awesome especially tonight………..I had filet mignon!

How did the race go? Well, the team rode good and Menzies is a machine and ended up second. It was a hard race and we would have liked to have won but I guess if you don’t win second is the next best place. I on the other hand was useless……….I forgot how to ride my bike……….very frustrating!!

Tomorrow I am going to do a crit in Santa Cruz with Mike and Karl. The only thing that I know about it is that we are leaving the hotel tomorrow at 9 AM so I should probably get to bed.

Lastly, I just checked the ten day forcast for Sacramento and it calls for rain nine out of the next ten days. I think I might be heading to Tucson to get some sun, clear up this sore throat/head cold thing I got from riding in the rain, and do some good training before heading off to Europe on April 24th. I don’t think I have mentioned it yet but I am going to Europe for a month with the team. I am really excited to go but more on another time.

later,

g.

Is it just me or does it seem like Hollywood Menzies arms have gotten a little bigger? I guess it is true…….Milk it does a body good.