If you told me there was a place where bike lanes were abundant, cyclists were out at all hours of the day, in all shapes and sizes, and on all kinds of bikes, cars were scarce, and roads were closed to cars on Sundays for my cycling pleasure, I would have laughed and asked what kind of happy medicine the doctor put you on.
But this place exists!
It is Stanford and the surrounding hills.
I might say I miss the 30 miles I had to ride in LA to get to some monster climbs, as it allowed for an enforced warm-up/ cool down period, but I might be lying. Big time. I kind of liked the sadistic 7.5 mile Page Mill Rd. climb that began a measly 10 minutes into my ride on Saturday.
To add to the weekend heart-rate spike, I met up with some of Stanford's rad triathlon team on Sunday for a swim around the wharf in Santa Cruz. WHAT!? You're thinking. You, Erin, who stopped swimming in the ocean very much at all after that dude got eaten by a shark near San Diego, are now swimming in the ocean where Great White sharks are known to be lurking?
Yes, I did. And I ripped a ginormous hole in my 3.5 year old wetsuit in the process. I figured having my torso slightly sticking out helped distinguish my rubbery body from that of the hundreds of blubbery sea lions playing around the wharf and drafting off of us.
I also sprinted the entire way.
Last one out is a rotten carcass.
:)
Xterra Lake Tahoe coming up! There are a lot of differences to be noted now that the race is no longer the USA Championships, but most of them are good.
Also coming up: Collegiate triathlon. Did you know there's an age limit on Grad student triathletes? USAT has capped the age of competition in collegiate nationals at 28. What do you think about this? (And praise the Lord I'm not there yet for a while!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
I think if USAT is going to put an age limit on the Collegiate division, they need to quit allowing people with professional licenses race Collegiate as well. Is it an amateur category or isn't it?
ReplyDeleteAgreed. And if they've already separated undergrad and grad school, then why put an age limit on the grad students?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to hear their rationale for the age limit and why it's 28. Seems an odd age to pick.
ReplyDeleteIf they're concerned about older athletes "sandbagging" in the Collegiate ranks, they should put a limit on how many years you can race Collegiate; which is totally irrelevant of someone's age.
They way it stands, Any Potts could take 9 units at ANY community college and race collegiate, but someone returning to school for their Master's at 30 years old can't. No way USAT can defend that as "fair".
Sorry for the rant.
Eric
Don't be sorry at all! Those are excellent points and a good example of how USAT still has a long way to go in creating fair collegiate triathlon rules. It would make the most sense to cap the years an athlete can compete in nationals at 4 (like varsity collegiate sports), regardless of age (at least for grad athletes). Coachubby, since he did collegiate triathlon from 2000-2005, before there were any rules at all, it seems, actually got to race collegiate nationals as an undergrad 6 times!
ReplyDeleteTold you you'd love it here - and you ain't seen nothin' yet!!! :)
ReplyDeleteJust wait until you see some of the real sadistic climbs! Page Mill isn't anywhere near my top 10 hardest climbs in the area... ;)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.deitchman.net/blog/?p=116
Oh baby! We have to do them all!!!
ReplyDeletewhat's wrong with being 28?!
ReplyDeleteUSAT thinks you're ancient :)
ReplyDelete