Catching Up

      Catch up is what I have been doing for the past few weeks since I have returned home from Tucson.  The last month in Tucson flew by with training, power tests, birthdays, a race and general randomness from everyone.  The last couple days were spent cleaning and packing and cramming in the last bit of training before we all headed back to the cold and nasty weather of the places we called home.

     

    The drive back home was a long and uneventful, we ended up following my moody GPS and making is back to Canada 6 hours faster than the drive down.  It felt like we drove up hill the hold way back to Canada, which is kinda funny since it felt like the opposite one the way down. Who know if you drive North you are really going uphill haha.

    

      Since I have been home I have been sick with a cold and cant seen to shake it at all…. It hangs over my head like a little annoying fly and just when I think I have killed it, it comes back and I feel the tickle in my throat is still there. Then whole time that I was in Tucson I didn’t get sick at all and now that I got home it has caught up to me and making me pay.

  

    Training at home suck, I hate riding on the trainer or roller which makes work out go so slowly, I’m looking at the clock every 5 seconds and it is the longest 5 seconds of my life that I wish I could be rid of.  I miss riding outside in the sun shine in shorts and jerseys.  I haven’t got riding outside once since I have gotten home, I have turned soft.  I fully admit that I am soft and quite proud of it, training in the sun made me fast too; Faster than I would have been if I stayed at home and toughed it out in the cold and on trainers.  I am not motivated to go to the gym like I was before I left; I now find it tedious and boring.

    I will be leaving to Europe with the National team in about a week and I am super excited to be going again.  I will be gone for about 5 weeks and have a full racing schedule of UCI races and a couple World Cups… If that doesn’t get me into racing form I don’t know what will.  I will be sure to update how it is going.

  

   Once I get back from Europe that first things that I probably will do is sleep for a couple days, then do laundry and start packing again.  I will be moving out to Vancouver for the rest of the summer to race in Trek Red Truck.  I’m hoping to be in amazing form by then and injury free.

JG

Elephants upstairs

       I have been putting off writing a new blog post because here in Tucson there really isn’t anything new to tell.  We all have kind of fallen into a routine here in our apartment.  Everyone gets up on their own time then makes breakfast.  Our kitchen is so small that more than two people cooking at a time has people bumping into one another.  Once breakfast in done we take a look outside and  see what the weather is going to be like.  And if it’s warm enough we ride earlier outside, if not, we sit with are computers completely ignore each other in a very polite way.   We either ride together as a group for some of the ride or we all go our separate ways and get our work outs in.

   

       I think Tucson seems more and more like home to me, I have my favorite coffee shop, grocery store, frozen yogurt place and gelato shoppe, favorite mall and restaurant.  I do miss home and the people back there but it can’t beat the weather that we our having here.

      

       On the forecast for Tucson is has been sunny and warm for the month that we have been down here but our good fortune has started to run out.  Starting on Monday it is going to start getting colder and rain.  Wednesday is going to go down to only plus 9c here.  Those of you back home will be shaking you heads and calling us wimps for thinking this is cold but the truth is for Tucson it is.  Once you start getting use to it being warm it’s not fun when it gets cold again.  The desert is funny that way it can be both hot and cold all in a 24 hours period of time.

     

        We finally figure out what was making all the noise in the upstairs apartment above us, turns outs that they have a dog that runs around like an elephant chasing the cat that has wolf paws and a two year old hanging onto its tail.  When you put a dog, cat, and two children under the age of 5 all in a room together you get something that sounds like bowling.  There really is no other way to describe it.  I might actually think that an elephant would be quieter then the four little monsters upstairs, because elephants walk slower and not like a galloping herd of wild animals.  I never knew that is was possible that four things that don’t ever weigh a hundred pounds in total could make so much noise at eight o’clock in the evening.  Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t care that they make noise, I find it kinda funny in a way trying to guess whether or not they are sliding the dog or cat across the floor and then throwing tennis balls for it to chase,

       

      Today is the last day that we will have only four people in the house we will be getting to new roomies starting tomorrow; it’s going to be cozy… Or not.  The apartment really isn’t that big and the kitchen is pretty small to begin with and we are going to through 6 people all in the house see what happens.  They really should make a TV show about us, cause we would make good reality TV combined with the crazies from upstairs.

Anywho cheers for now

JG

Lazy day

       There seems to be a trend in this apartment of blogging when bored in the evening.  Both Jannes and Cuylar have been updating their own blog lots and I seem to be catching the motivation to write also.  Today was a slow day for me, it was a day off.  I didn’t get on the bike to spin even; sometimes I just need a day to re-rest the mind set.  Tomorrow I will be geared up to go again with a fresh mind set.  It’s not that my body needs a day of complete rest but sometimes it’s my mind that does.  My mind after a day of not riding tricks my body into thinking that it is a fresh and ready to go as ever.

     So today on my day off I was going to go sit by the pool but it was a bit too chilly for sun bathing.  So I gathered up my lap top and headed off to le Buzz for some lunch and downloading video time.  Later this afternoon we drove to the Nike Outlet Store which only took a hour to get there because of the traffic.  By the time we left the mall we were starving… we were more than happy to get home and find that supper had been made.

        JG

Tucson Update - well kind of....

Ok, here is an update on Tucson.

I got Twitter.

     Yes I know, I said I would never ever get Twitter but threats and presser made me cave.  Thanks guys.  Haha anywho it’s not as bad as I thought I just don’t understand it at all.  Twitter just another thing that I will get addicted too, like facebook, coffee, chocolate and Community.

     

     Now I know that this really isn’t a Tucson update, it’s an update on my life in general, so here is the real Tucson update.

   

      The riding has been getting better and better, my legs have finally started to pedal in circles; not squares. The riding has been sunny every day, not always warm enough for shorts and jerseys I might add but it’s still damn near wonderful.  I have still been taking it somewhat easy on the bike with no intervals just a lot of longish rides. More intense training will start in a few weeks time with hill repeats and speed work. I have all ready got tan lines on my legs much to my displeasure. I will have to get rid of those before they get worst. Otherwise I will have tan lines before its spring.

      

      We are now up to four people in the apartment; Brad arrived a couple of days ago and joined our Canadian village down here.  Along with Brad another new arrival was the espresso/cappuccino maker and it is HEAVEN!  I got some fresh espresso grinds from “Le Buzz” and now we can have Le Buzz coffee at home, no need to go to the shop.  But we still will anyways; it has free wifi and some of the best dessert bars that I have ever tasted.  Plus that’s what you do when you are super cool, you hang out at a coffee shop with your lap top in front of your and drink cappuccino’s.

Any other news? – The answer is no…. sorry J

Stay tune though, excitement is around the corner and through the desert, I can feel it!

JG

Le Buzz

We are living the life, we ride our bikes then we eat and lie by the pool and then eat again. We are living the life of a lazy man. The people here in Tucson must think that we are crazy it is their winter right now and we are walking around in shorts and t-shirts. Its 20c degrees here boo-ya! The riding has been going good besides the fact that my legs are stiff and tired from not riding outside for months. It is really nice not having to wear layers or to be suck on those terrible trainers. The first day up we got lost on the bike a bit and never could seem to find our way out of the city. The next day was more of a success with a nice ride out to a national park and then a couple loops of the 9 mile lap and back to our place.

The first few days of riding I over dressed, it was really silly of me to think that I would be cold after coming from Saskatchewan where the temp is about -12c right now. We found my favorite coffee shop in Tucson the other day, Le Buzz. They make the best coffee in Tucson, if you are ever in the area you have to stop at Le Buzz. You will always find a couple cyclists at Le Buzz because it is a couple miles from the base of Mount Lemmon. That’s the new Canadian hang out.

Peace out
JG

Tucson Road Trip

Well my drive down to Tucson was a success, there were highs and lows and a whole bunch of fun that went on in a tiny car with three people for 33 hours nonstop. We started are trip with packing up the car late new years day and booking it down to Moose Jaw, so we could over night and pack up so we could hit the road early in the morning. Driving down to Moose Jaw was uneventful and the drive was quick. Thinking that the weather was going to be the same in the morning no worries were to be had by myself. I shouldn’t have thought that it would be that easy. We got up in the morning only to find that Saskatchewan had got dumped on by snow and it wasn’t going away. Since we were leaving so early in the morning snow plows hadn’t had the chance to clear the roads. But with Tucson on our minds we set off with high hopes for a great trip. It was very slow going and a couple close calls with crazy semi drivers but we made it out of Saskatchewan alive. Little did we know that we left Saskatchewan only to drive into Alberta.


Most people when they plan a trip have maps and a route planned out and such. We didn’t, we were just going to follow the GPS, hoping that it would get us there in a good time. We had no idea where or which way it was taking us either. So we are in Alberta and the snow is still blowing like a March blizzard. Seven hours, seven long hours just to leave the country is what it took. There was a lot of “What? We haven’t left Canada yet. Are you sure there isn’t a Tucson in B.C. and that’s where it is taking us” We finally crossed the border with no hitch, only to be not sure what state we were in. It turned out that we were in Montana, good old prairie country. It was like a switch had been turned because the blizzard snow stopped the minute that we jumped the border. It was smooth sailing for a long time in Montana till we hit the mountain pass. My little car was so loaded down that it didn’t have juice to climb the hills fast – we might have even been passed by a semi. It was pretty icy though the mountain with the odd snow bank that had to be dodged. Just a note to all who might not know – fast music, a heavy foot, talking with hands and sheer ice don’t mix.

We hit Idaho just as it was getting dark, and cruised with the 80 mile hour speed limit; we were just killing the trip. We drove though Salt Lake City at late at night, it took about an hour and half on the freeway just to get out of. We never stopped for more then 15 minutes the whole trip, only to grab food, bath room break and to fill up with gas.

Utah - I had said that I would drive the “night shift” so I started driving at 8pm. By the time 2 in the morning rolled around I was getting tired and a bit loopy. So to make matter even better we stop at a gas station and my GPS decides that there is an even faster way to get to Tucson. We time sure why not, let’s go that way. We start driving along and end up going through a small town and out the back side on a highway, but really should be called a back road. We drive along this twisty road up a mountain. It is very creepy we all the tree hanging over the road. It was like, old man on top of a mountain waiting to kill you with an axe, creepy. We continuo driving along the road and pass a sign with lights flashing saying “when lights are flashing road is closed” we think, ah that doesn’t apply to us it can’t be that bad. We pass another sign a little bit later saying such and such road close and the other one open. Hey here is a smart idea, lets ignore all the signs and hope for the road that we need is the one that is open. So we climb the mountain and it’s very steep but the road is clear with only snow on the side of it. The higher go the more the snow is making the road smaller and smaller and we get to a stop on the road about 17km in and there is no way that I was going to keep driving where there was only enough space for my Honda fit to fit through. We turned around.

The fun just kept coming in Utah; I think I might hate that place. Once we got back on track and we thought the normalness of driving was going good. Bam Utah hit us with a white out. The smart people pulled off the road and into the town site but we kept going cause we were on a dead line! We couldn’t really see that well and the road had about a half foot of snow/slush on it but that didn’t stop us, my good old car crept along slowing. No sleep for 24 hours and falling snow will make any one a bit tripping. I finally stopped driving at 6am and passed it on to someone else and crawled into the back of the car to sleep. I was out cold for about an hour till there was a major freak out in the car



The freak out was because we hit Los Vegas and the lights were shining like a city of gold. We drove passed the strip and it was pretty cool to see even as tired as I was. Just as I was falling back to sleep, there was another freak out. The Hover dam, it’s the hover dam! Is it the hover dam? Nah I don’t think it is. No, yes it is, it really is the hover dam! And I passed out again.

More mountain driving and never ending snow, is didn’t stop even though we hit the Arizona border. Arizona is down on the map from Canada and the thing that everyone was saying was “I think we are still going downhill” The whole trip felt more downhill then up. We finally got to are apartment at 3 in the afternoon after 33 hours of driving straight. We hit the hay soon after.



Cheers

JG

Weight loss

Weight loss is always on a cyclist mind… Well this fall it was on my mind too. I came back from Italy where I had been eating like it was going out of style and I wasn’t eating salad that’s for sure. Pasta, pizza, cheese, bread and more bread was on the menu for three weeks, I found the weight just jumped on, it didn’t creep. So when I got back from my trip I had it in my mind that I was going to lose the weight. The first five pounds were quite easy then I stopped paying attention to the amount I was eating because I started a new job and the five pounds popped back on.




I found that it really wasn’t what I was eating that was the problem but it was the amount that I was eating. I was still eating like I was training for peak season and training hard. I had to start cutting back slowly on what I was eating because at first my body thought that that I wasn’t feeding it enough and was storing the food rather then burning it.



I wasn’t really training much at this time maybe 1-2 hours a day for 5 days out of the week. It was my off season and the job I did have, had me working quite hard outside for 8-10 hours a day. I started to watch what I ate and when I ate and worked with a nutritionist to plan out the things that I could eat. I cut calories down to about 1200-1500 a day. I stopped drinking juice, stopped eating pasta, more fresh veggies and cut down on the meat I ate a day. I never thought that I ate a lot of meal; I only ate it for the protein. But what my nutritionist told me that you only need four ounces of meal, about half a chicken breast. I worked on the plan my nutritionist set up for me for a while but truthfully I got bored with it, tried of eating the same kinds of things and having the craving for fried, sweet, chocolate, cheese and beer whatever. The plan stopped working after awhile and I had to create something that worked for me.



It turned out that I didn’t have a problem with the things I ate; it was the quality and the amount that I needed to watch for. I hating seeing diets that cut fat, carbs or sugar out of your diet cause those three things I cannot live without. I still eat cheese, I can’t live without butter, bacon, cheese burgers, fries, chocolate all things that really aren’t that health but every once in a while are pretty damn good. Once I started this the pound slowing started to come off, then I started training again and they rolled off. Right now I am the lightest I have been since about late 2007. I am sure I have put on about at lease a good six pound of muscle since then also.



I am lighter then I was at race weight right now this year, that doesn’t sit well in my mind as I know that I should have been like this in the racing season. I did get injured and sick quite a bit this year and did put a stop on my training – and I was still eating like I was training. I eat when I am bored, thus I am writing right now so it keeps my hand busy and I will not eat more. With Christmas in a couple sleeps I still want to continuo the weight loss a bit farther, so that means it might be tough saying no to the extra dessert and chocolate. But that by no mean that I will not be splurging Christmas day, it will be on Boxing Day that I will hope on the bike or in the gym for a couple hours of guilt training to burn the calories off.



I am not saying that just by watching what I ate that the pounds came off, I have been working out at the gym or pool or on the bike very hard the last couple months anywhere from 2-5 hours a day. Between running, weights, swimming, biking and yoga I have kept pretty busy as well with throwing work in when I could. I have never, ever been a person to get up early and go work out; I have preferred to do them at night. But lately have been getting up early at 6:45am, (by my standers this is very early) and at the gym by quarter to eight for a couple of hours for running and weights. By the afternoon though I have to have a nap I am so tired I start falling asleep anywhere. That is unless I have a double shot cappuccino, dry, of course; then I am twitchy and giddy for a couple hours.

Cheers
 
JG