Europe, Mt Hamilton Reece and Poison Oak

I basically took 2 weeks off in the middle of may after feeling flat at Wente without the energy to climb with the pack. I had a week at home resting and then took a trip to Europe for a Trade Show and visited family. This wasn't relaxing, I walked for about 10 miles each day at the trade show and took 4 flights that week, but it did give me a break from the bike. The real fun part was catching up with some old friends at the pub. One friend showed up that I hadn't seen in about 10 years. It was a really good night out and the old Kings Head beer selection has got much better over the years.

Watching the Giro TTT in a German hotel room. Probably the smallest hotel room in the world.


I arrived back on a Tuesday but didn't manage to get back on the bike until Wednesday and did some spin sprints, as you can imagine with Airplane legs I was slow but happy to be out.

I did some hard hill efforts on the Thursday and started to feel better and by Saturday I'd decided to take a ride to Mt Hamilton to check out the climb for the road race. I couldn't find anyone who was interested in going with me so I rode over there by myself. I wasn't setting any records on the climb but enjoyed the view and being out on the bike. It turned into a 5 hour round trip as the ride across town has so many stop lights. I'm glad I rode it as it's always a longer climb than I remember. The next day I screwed up and did a much harder ride than I'd planned racing a couple of friends up OLH instead of just spinning around.

On the Monday I'd signed up to do the Santa Cruz dirt ride. This was a group MTB ride to Santa Cruz taking in as many of the best trails that the coast had to offer. This was a really fun ride and I felt really strong all day, climbing easily with the lead group and putting in some good efforts on Alpine and the other epic climbs. There was one section where we had to go off trail as a few large trees had fallen and completely blocked the route. This was later to prove the biggest mistake of the week. Somewhere in this section I manage to tangle with a Poison Oak bush. As always I wouldn't know until a few days later but this is where the damage was done.

I was really please with the dirt ride and looking forward to Mt Hamilton, all I needed to do now was recover during the week and get ready to race.

The unfortunate thing about this week was that there was a lot going on and the work stress levels were very high. I was the only one in the office and one of my managers got her finder caught in a machine resulting in a 5 hour trip to the ER at SF General. Now that's a place I don't want to go to again. It was also our wedding anniversary week and the Kona qualifying celebration for Super Supporter Hailey. Add all this up and the recovery wasn't going so well.

By the time Friday came along the Poison Oak was in full bloom on my arms, neck, leg and crouch and none of my normal cures were helping. I tried scrubbing, witch hazel, creams and anything else I could throw at it but it just kept spreading, ruining any sleep and generally messing me up.

I hadn't had Poison Oak in a while so I'd forgotten how much it takes out of you. It used to be a regular part of AR but not something I'd hit in road bike racing.

I spent the Saturday before Mt Hamilton RR cleaning and fixing bikes and took a short spin on the trainer while watching the Queen stage of the Giro. This was a very relaxing day but too little too late.

Picture at the top of Empire Grade from the SC Dirt Ride. A great day out on the bike with 45 other great riders.

Location:E El Camino Real,Mountain View,United States