Hiking

Dave says: We have been doing some fun hikes in October. This weekend we went up Sabino Canyon and finished on Mt. Lemmon via the Box Springs trail. It was 14 miles of uphill with some good views and a tough middle section where the trail was steep. However, as I learned from an earlier hike with Alex and Sam, uphill is still often preferable to downhill. A few weeks back we hiked the window loop up Ventana and down Esperero while Alisha was in Utah. We learned that the knee-breaking downhill on the Esperero trail was the toughest part of the hike and planned an all-uphill hike for the future.

We also did a shorter hike last weekend up the Douglas Springs trail including a fun section of bouldering up some dried waterfalls at the end. We've also been doing some cycling although things have been a little more relaxed in the "off season." The Trisports group has been doing El Tour training rides and we have also been hitting the Tuesday Gates Pass and Thursday Dove Mountain rides.

In spite of the fun pictures, I have been a workaholic recently as I have been pushing through my toughest semester yet. When Alisha took two weeks to go to Utah, I took the opportunity to work 10-12 hour days. Recently my thesis project was approved by my committee in a time-frame a year ahead of the norm. However, I have been feeling the weight of a variety of research projects, intense weekly class readings, and a large number of required papers and presentations. In fact, I'm off to Seattle to present at a conference this weekend.

Trip Home

Garden Harvest - Yum

 

My amazing mother and niece

 Sunrise on Angel's Landing at Zion

Alisha says: I find that when I am forced to take a break from my bicycle it is better if we just part ways for a while. I went and visited my family for two weeks to relax and catch up. My sisters both came for a visit also so I had tons of fun playing with my nephews and niece. We went swimming, had a Halloween themed dinner and harvested the last of the garden before it snowed, yes, there was actually a small amount of snow on the ground one morning.

My university cross country team had their home meet while I was home so it was fun to go see my high school and college coaches and watch the race. I have to admit that standing there before the race started I got butterfly's in my stomach as I recalled all of the many races I'd run. Coach Houle even let me start the women's race, starters gun and all!

I also had fun hiking with my childhood friend Shannon. She is crazy, she works nights, then picked me up at 5:30 am and we cruised to Zion National Park and were standing on top of Angel's Landing in time to watch the sunrise. We still made back in time for her to make it to her 12 o'clock class for an afternoon of school. So much fun, wish we lived in the same city!

Amidst all of the fun I had a gum infection resulting in a trip to the dentist with a root canal in the near future, a small cold, and the stomach flu. Yikes, I hope that's all for awhile.

Returning home I found that a spider had decided he liked my bike also and had built a web on it. I dusted it off and took it out for a nice 80 miles to get reacquainted.

Pima Canyon

Alisha says: We decided to mix things up last Saturday and go for a hike. We met Alex at the Pima Canyon trailhead right as the sun was coming up for a nice hike through the desert. It had rained the evening before so the air was a little bit cooler and the trail was still a little damp. I love the way the desert smells after it has rained. Alex almost stepped on a huge four foot plus gopher snake who was hanging out on the trail and we also saw a huge millipede. We also saw a group of people hiking with their two pet goats. We are looking forward to doing some more hiking now that the race season is over.

 The snake is on the right side of the trail in front of Alex. We wanted him to get closer but he didn't like that idea.

Saturday night the biggest rain storm since we have lived in Arizona hit Tucson. There was tons of lightning and it just poured for quite a while. A lot of the streets were flooded and I even got to see water running in the Rillito River for the first time.

The Blue Loop

 Ready to start day 1: Larry, Carolyn, Roberta, Doug, Alex, Dave, Alisha

 Mmmmm, delicious sag stops! Why yes, I would like a sandwich in the middle of my ride :)

 Cooling the legs in the creek

 Dave and Alex walking on the Catwalk

Alisha says: Dave and I had a really fun Labor Day weekend. We hooked up with Doug, Roberta, Alex, and Elizabeth and about 50 other cyclists for the GABA Blue Loop Cycling tour. This was such a great event. 

Day 1: We started in Clifton, AZ and rode to Glenwood, NM where we camped for the night. The afternoon was filled with getting milkshakes in town and then hiking the Catwalk.
Day 2: Glenwood, NM to Alpine, AZ. We rolled into camp and had just enough time to shower and set up our tent before it started raining. It was all good though as we had a nice nap and then played some intense games of UNO.

Day 3:The last day was a 100 mile day with some more climbing and quite a bit of twisty descending. It was a good change of pace to just ride for fun and enjoy the scenery. We especially enjoyed stopping at all of the sag stops (there were three everyday) for a soda or some snacks. Total ride distance was 214 and 17,000 ft of climbing.

Aspen

Alisha says: Aspen is such a beautiful place, one should go there to relax, ride and hike, but only on your own terms because Aspen sits at some serious altitude. Racing at altitude is hard. Several comparisons that were mentioned during the week was that it was like racing through mud, Vaseline or in slow motion, you get the idea. Nonetheless, it still turned out to be a fun couple of days. Teammate wonder woman Kristin Armstrong won the overall. We got to stay with some excellent hosts, Jack and Suzy, whose energy and generosity were amazing. I also got to watch the finish of one of the men's stages of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge and catch glimpses of many of my favorite pro tour guys. I'm looking forward to a little down time to recharge, reset, and get refocused.

The Big Summer Trip

Dave says: Alisha and I recently returned from our big summer trip. While Alisha was off racing the Tour de Toona, I traveled up to Cedar City to see Daniel get his Eagle Scout and to compete in the 100K Fire Road Race. It was fun to do a mtb race as it has been awhile and the course up in the mountains outside of Cedar City was epic. Quite a few people came from out of state and I imagine that this event will grow a lot in coming years. I took second overall which was one of my best finishes for the year.

I picked up Alisha in Las Vegas and we started our drive up through California en route to Bend, Oregon. We stayed a few days with some very nice friends of Alisha's in Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa has some amazing rides through vineyards and beautiful forests on small roads. Yet even in July it was often cold and foggy.

However, Santa Rosa wasn't nearly as cold as Crater Lake where we camped next to a giant mound of snow in a campground that was only half open so far for the year due to record snow levels. This high-altitude lake in the crater of an old volcano is very beautiful and is only a short drive from Bend.

After a week on the road, we reached Bend in time for the Cascade Classic. Alisha was in a long breakaway on Stage 1 and helped her teammate take the yellow jersey. Unfortunately, the team couldn't hold it for the rest of the week.

I did the Cat 2 race with Andre and Michael. Though we couldn't pull out any amazing results we had a fun time and rode hard in a huge Cat 2 field. I also was the official babysitter for Alisha's team. Her director Giana's son Sawyer is two years old and has a lot of energy. I entertained him quite a bit while Giana was busy with the race.

The final week of our trip took us back through Utah to see family. We stayed with Richard, Brittney, & Arley in SLC, with Devin, Amber, Quinn, and Owen in Price, and with Wayne, Debbie, Shane, Mandy, Brody, and Elsie in Cedar City. There are a lot of cute little tots in the family right now. It was also our ten year high school reunion and we saw many of our high school friends (and kids) at a lunch at canyon park followed by a dinner later in the evening. We also helped my parents get ready for their upcoming move to Phoenix. After a busy month of July on the road, we finally repacked the Mazda5 to the roof with 3 bikes, camping gear, and all our other stuff and drove back to Tucson.

Where did July go?

Alisha says: I spent the whole month of July on the road racing and visiting family. Dave had a break from school and so we made a road trip vacation out of part of it. I should have blogged along the way because now I feel like writing about the whole trip is overwhelming so here is a quick day by day recap.

July 4th: Flew into New Jersey and drove to Connecticut
July 5th: Drove to Altoona, Pennsylvania
July 6th: Tour De Toona Stage Race: 3 mile Prologue
July 7th: Johnstown to Blue Knob Road Race - 73 miles. I had my best finish yet in a national race and took 2nd on this mountain top finish! http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/tour-de-toona-ne/stage-1/results
July 9th: Blair County Road Race - 91 miles. Due to an unfortunate accident I crashed. Fortunately I was okay and able to finish the race, bad news was that I lost a lot of time in the general classification and broke my bike :(
July 10th: Downtown Crit
July 11th: Flew to Las Vegas where Dave picked me up :)
July 12th: Spent the day driving through California
July 13-16th: Riding in Santa Rosa, CA
July 17th: Visited Crater Lake in Oregon and camped that night by banks of snow
July 18th: Arrived in Bend, OR
July 19th: Cascade Classic Stage Race: 2 mile Prologue
July 20th: Stage 1, McKenzie Pass Road Race, 74 miles. Fun race, I spent most of the day in a break!
July 21st: Stage 2, Individual Time Trial
July 22nd: Stage 3, Cascade Lakes Road Race, 71 miles
July 23rd: Stage 4, Downtown Crit
July 24th: Stage 5, Aubrey Butte Circuit Race
July 25th: Drove to Salt Lake, UT to visit family
July 26th: Drove to Price to visit family, met my new 7 week old nephew, Owen.
July 27th: Drove to Cedar, met my new week old niece, Elsie
July 28th: Went on an ATV adventure, and played with Brody and Elsie
July 29th: Helped Dave's family pack for their big move
July 30th: Went to Dave and I's 10 year high school reunion and Brody's 3rd birthday party
July 31st: Drove home
Whew! Four weeks, 10 states, 4,000 miles of driving, lots of racing, family, teammates. I love my life!

Toona: Stage 1 Podium

Cascade: On race leader Clara Hughes wheel during the crit

Cascade: McKenzie Pass Road Race

Owen

Brody and Elsie

Brody's birthday party

The small group that attended the reunion