Joanie Caron – Nanoblur-Gears – 8th place in Stage 4

On Saturday morning we got the news that after Stage 4 the paramedics had tended to Carrie Cartnill of Nanoblur-Gears. We spoke to Joanie Caron to check up on her teammate as well as to congratulate her on her 8th place in the Minneapolis Criterium:

You finished 8th on Friday evening in the Minneapolis Crit – you must have been pleased with that result.
Joanie Caron: Yes, I’m happy, it’s my second Top 10 in an NRC stage this year. For sure I’m not entirely satisfied and I want more for the weekend. Hopefully it will come today but yesterday was a good race.

Tell us what happened to Carrie yesterday.
JC: She had a problem with asthma. She raced part of the stage but had a very, very hard time breathing and was feeling very dizzy so she literally fell on the grass. But she’s feeling better now but she won’t be racing. Hopefully she’ll be back soon.

Will she be in the team car?
JC: Yeah and we’ll use her energy today in the race!

That’s great, good luck today.
JC: Thank you.

Taken from pedalmag.com

Of course he will be in the water swimming through the entire NIGHT.

Yes, Miguel is probably a little crazy, but that is what excites him and keeps him fired up to keep on going.  He’s also an ex member of the Mexican Pentathlon team, super friendly, enthusiastic guy.  Once he even taught the Turnpike Dragon to fence!

The goal of his swim is to help financially troubled children to learn to swim – which in a province like ours where water is EVERYWHERE, it can literally be a lifesaver.  Growing up I knew an 18 year old and a 7 year old who each drowned, it’s no joke.

If you want to donate to Miguel’s cause… go HERE

Take care,

Nat

• hiking makes for sore feet, especially 75-80 h of it
• 5 cars honked/ cheered me on
• One of those was a convertible Lambo and the driver through in a few engine revs
• Zero cars tried hitting me/ were threatening
• I saw one trail runner and he was cheerful and chatty
• 3 triathletes refused to acknowledge me (2 running one on bike)
• all groups of cyclists said hello (I kinda thought it would have been the opposite)
• from the distant top of the escarpment, all weekend long I could hear the endless noise polluting drone of lawn mowers.
• There are Countless beautiful waterfalls in Ontario

I had to hitch hike to a friends, and it was 4 cars before I got a ride (thanks Tom and Noah)

It took me 5h to bike back from there to my car in St. Catherines.

• 2 cars come within inches of hitting me
• One 18 wheeler which forced me onto the gravel
• 2 other cars which ignored my right of way in an intersection and drove at me forcing me to brake.
• 90 minutes were on very quiet side roads
• so once every 42 minutes a driver toyed with my life, ain’t southern Ontario
• though some roads were busy,

7 day hike = 5h bike = 1h45 drive.

• Though that’s somewhat skewed, because I carried a 40-50 lb pack on the hike
• I was able to cover the same distance in a day riding and did not need a pack.
• The return drive was 1h45 min
• Hiking food was mainly couscous, almonds, oatmeal = $45
• ride food was bananas & snickers $4.50
• 1/3 tank of gas $15

Verdict,

Driving is expensive, and makes you want to mow down fun loving cyclists.

Adam, our thoughts are with your family

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/cyclist-found-dead-in-ditch-in-hit-and-run/article1576917/

Ontario legislation has the option to allow cyclists to have better road rights and protection.  Send your local MPP a note telling him that you vote, ride a bike and value your safety.

http://therecord.blogs.com/take_the_lane/2010/05/ontarios-threefoot-passing-law-needs-your-support.html

there are several republican US states which have passed these laws, and they work.  If they can pass them we can too, but as cyclists we need to be the squeaky chain and put up a fuss for our safety.

Also we were fortunate enough to have 3 weeks of training with Sarah and Nate Haskins-Kortuem.  Very cool people, and talented athletes (Sarah has a world championship medal and was 11th at the past Olympics).  Here is a video of the action

I had a great time catching up with Scott, Emery Nicoletti of Metropolis Salon Tucson, and the Levene’s for an Olympic torch lighting ceremony.

Which ended up in the super cool opportunity to watch Wild Cats Basketball COURTSIDE.  After ten years of cheering on the Cats, it was absolutely fantastic to be watching a game live.

On Dragon’s birthday, he celebrated in fine style, and ended up getting passes to the PGA match up in Phoenix.  Unbeknownst to us on the 16th hole there are grandstands surrounding the entire course, packed with fans who HECKLE (both positive and negative) the golfers.  Very un-golf like, which was a blast.

Next it was up to the airport where Alice  showed up.  We had the chances to get up to some hiking in the Tucson Mountains, and on Picacho Peak.  There was also the trip to the Titan II Missile museum.  A remnant of the cold war.  If one of these had detonated over Tucson, cellphones, and all other electronics would be shut down by one of these bad boys.  I have been there before, but it was very sobering.  Alice also had the honors of pushing the button on the mock ‘end of the world’ launch sequence.

Of course there was the Pace Performance coaching week, which is always a blast with Gregs group of hooligan triathletes down here for 9 days.

Since then we’ve been nose back in the swing of things, and it’s now 6 weeks out to Ironman St George in Utah which is the first key race of my season.

The craziness you ask?

There was a knock on the door last night and a lady asked ‘does the owner of the red Toyota live here?  From my experience this is never a good thing to say yes to.  It turned out that her little hoodlum children had hucked a rock through the side window of my car. When they’re not doing this they are climbing on the building rooftops and peeing off them onto peoples porches.  The parents were really nice, and within 16h the car was fixed, and for $20 extra the repair man fixed the stone chip in the front windshield.

The first part was mellow – 20km of bike path where I met up with 84 year young Richard Ryan and rode with him.  After the bike path was a 20 km ‘death stretch’ of highway, literally one of the deadliest roads in the country for cars, and no shoulder for bicycles.  I have to say that my guardian angel was looking out for me, because no more than 300m down the road and a friend Mark Henson drove past and offered me a lift to the next quiet side road (and I gladly bypassed the gauntlet).

Bypassing Taft my luck turned: I marveled as a roadside field was crop-dusted, and then coughed up lung-fulls of what was most likely roundup as the air was thick of it.  My mouth and throat tasted bitter for the next 3h.  Locals I later talked to complain of chronic headaches (Ms Brockovich?).

Next there was Mad-Max like landscape strewn with oil derricks, followed by Marcopia, and nearly ghost-town.  One of the few ‘open’ places was the ‘members only social club’.  Grocer Grade was around 45 minutes, but slightly quieter, and from there I turned onto hwy 33 to Ojai, which had a car ever 5 minutes (mostly dirt-bikers) who soon turned off leaving me to the calm and beauty of Pine Pass.  I’m only telling you this because of the contrast of the geographically quiet areas.  Cars cheered me here, or slowed to give me thumbs up.  The descent is fantastic, and frequently used for automobile commercials.

Around Ojai my late start began to haunt me as it got dark just before entering the urban- naval sprawl of Ventura.  The moon was nearly full, shoulders decent, and I had lights so I rode on (at a good clip) for a few hours, stopping for supper of tabuli and a flat tire.  At last I was into quieter areas, and I found a beach which was closed to cars from sundown to 8am, set up camp and was instantly asleep.

Once on the road to Malibu I rode with, and chatted to a group of 3 cyclists, then stopped at a Burrito Truck for breakfast.  Every cyclist I saw stared at me, but only 2 of the hundreds waved back (including only one of the 3 I’d just been riding with).  Even passing cyclists would ignore my ‘hello’s’ – this part of life on Southern California coast always irks me to no end – the ‘paradise’ snobbery.

Once in Malibu I was onto a network beachfront boardwalks – through Redondo beach and the Trump golf course.  From there you enter San Pedro which degrades as it’s the LA shipping port – which is fine but the poorly marked California coastal bike route becomes lost in a web of bridges and trucking lanes.  I thought I was doing fine until I found myself somehow cycling around the Port of Long Beach for 30 min.  I could see where I wanted to go, but it was 4 train tracks, 2 sets of barb wire, Interstate 710 and a canal away.  Eventually I gave up and followed the signs to ‘Downtown Long Beach’ which was an on-ramp, a short stretch on the interstate and I was in the ghetto (literally front yards are cordoned off with 10’ high chainlink fences) which gives way to sky scrapers and then once again pristine beaches.  I always shake head (did that just happen?) and breath a sigh of relief.  From there it’s on to Huntington beach and a pleasant bike path on to NewPort.

Now I like Newport, it’s off the PCH and once again strangers say hello.  Which I like.  Somehow I managed to get there a little late, and after 370km I was very sweaty, smelly, and now cold.  I went to …. (which wasn’t open) banged on the door, and the bartender gave me a key to the apartment with instructions on finding towels and to ‘make sure the cat doesn’t escape’.  Yeah I like the humanity of this place, what a breath of fresh air.

The next 36h are classified, no pictures exist – it was something between what my mother would be OK with and what Billy would be OK with.

I slept, and go for an hour barefoot run on the beach – do you realize that there is a gradeschool here whose playground is literally the beach, and a paved basketball court surrounded by sand!  Cycled to the Train station and read Paul Coelho’s Veronika Decides to Die which is a really great book, the nut of it is questioning the logic about being normal.  Alice thanks for introducing me to Coelho.

Chris and Mel – all the best see you soon.

Send me a note if you want oranges, and are local.

Other than that I have just read the Julie & Julia book, after my mother raved about the movie.  The book had a lot of swearing, and other stuff.  Anyhow I managed to watch the movie last night, and while it was  little chick-flicky I woke up, watched JC on Youtube – looks easy eh?  I like the ‘add a teaspoon…  add a table spoon of butter’ part.  Hmm.  I went a little less ‘coz Evils pans don’t stick, and gave it a whirl.  My omelet was thicker than hers, and I couldn’t (as a result) get it to wrinkle/ roll like she did.

But I threw it on the plate (with a spatula) added hot-sauce, organic arugula and sour cream, rolled it and it was fantastic.

I will need to work on that shakey-part, but Julie Powel didn’t get it the first time either, so I feel better.

The Ball is Rolling…

It’s great to be back riding in Bako.   Friday there was a 40% chance of rain in the afternoon (which didn’t sound too bad) so I headed up into the mountains…  The weather report was for the valley.  When I got a chill around 3000′ elevation and stopped to put my last extra piece of clothing on, I looked up to see that I was in a snowstorm.  I rode to the only real place that there was – the Glenville store.  Now I am in ranch country, I had counted only 8 cars on the road over the past 2h (5 my way 3 the other and they ALL waved).  I’d also seen a bob-cat which parked just 5 feed off the road and didn’t budge when I stopped and ‘meaowed’ at it, and either a really big hawk or an eagle.

But there I was hitch-hiking in the snow.  The first family along were Mexicans who had driven farther up to show their son snow.  They weren’t heading to Bako, but they were heading out of the mountains, so I hopped in and played ‘cow spo

As a Roadie I had natural explosive power and accelerations – that ability has not been transformed into a long running diesel power.

The result of these two things is that for the first time in nearly a decade my roadie friends here from Action Sports in Bakersfield CA (the most butt kicking bike shop you will ever see) are able to throw me deep into the hurt locker, and even, gasp drop me.  And don’t think that they’re being nice.

I’ll have only 2 weeks here to rustle up some fitness and extract some revenge before heading off to Tucson and the Personalbest.ca training camps.

From there I went over to Action Sports for a few final bike adjustments so that it was running tip top.  Went to my fav grocery store and stocked up on $140 of organic veggies, rice, nuts, salmon, etc.

At this point I had a decision to make.  Either head to Sams house (where everyone would be waking up at 6am and heading to the race) or Kerry’s, where the food needed to go, and there were guests over, and no one would be waking up at 6am (they woke up between 9 and 11am.

So that was it, we played Reindeer Games – which essentially was doge ball with 6 people, 4 bowling ball sized nerf balls, no teams, with strobe, no, or low lighting.

And that was it.  Fell asleep at midnight, woke up at 8:30 saddled up, rode 1h45 out to the race.  Rode a lap, it was a spectacular course.  It is held in an orange grove/ cattle ranch that is open to the public one day a year.  The bike course, after the oranges climbs up the foothills through a canyon, and then along and over some steep grasslands.  The course – get this – was marked in bones. Yes you read that right.  If you are between the vertebrae, ribs, skulls, pelvis’s of the cows who’ve passed on out here on the range you’re on track.  (Perhaps not ALL California cows are happy, especially while the coyote’s are munching on them.)

Hung out with some friends, drank a beer, ate oranges (and a cookie) and rode home.  Fantastic day, and just under 6h of riding.  I did feel a world better than Friday, but riding the course at steady, was OK, at hard, well that would be Moooffffff-Bleh.

So though I wished I’d raced, I think it was for the best to simply get miles in.

Tuesday I’ll head out on the group ride as a benchmark of my fitness.

PS mark the Rumble on your calenders for 2011 you’re sill to miss out on the event.

PPS that picture is not me… I was on a cross bike – and still haven’t found the battery charger for my camera.

2×3min (usually I would do 5min).  At the end of the second one my legs looked ok but didn’t really have any sensations at all.

I am riding compact cranks (3-4 teeth smaller than regular chainrings) and normally after 2 weeks of riding they start to feel ’small’ and after 4 weeks of riding I’m going well.

By next month I could have an honest showing at this race.

What race?

Well I’m not going to tell you, lest you try looking up my result.

1) It’s tomorrow

2) A local friend is the promoter

3) I WILL be racing under an alias

It will be ugly to repeat a previous statement.

If I were sensible I would go easy and run/ bike (there is hint #4) along with a friend, but I’m seldom sensible.

Here are pictures of my past 2 weeks of cross training.

Now I’m off top open up the running side of things, which should be interesting.

I hope that everyone is having a great time regardless of your beliefs.

Remember that the spirit is joy and happiness – not stress and debt.  Even if Americans spend more on Christmas gifts than the military costs for the entire year… have FUN.

We have snowshoeing and rather last minute tree cutting going on tomorrow, once Alice and Justin arrive.  Later will be all the traditional foods and whot-not.

One tradition that goes on with out fail, and always stirs up funny emotions in my gut is Fireside Al’s reading of ‘the Shephard’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsF8o4DDX3Y part one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8s5igfnT5o part two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLrEEqtxUFY part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acL27hTbzMQ part 4

Otherwise I’ve been digging, nailing and getting Justin & Kelly (Jelly) a Shed built.  Dad came down for the final push (and was paid in perogies, sausage and Ethiopian food)

Before:

Here are a few photos of that event.  Overall it was a lot of fun, and one of the first projects I can remember (I am sure that there are others) working on with my dad since making my cub car.

Down in Florida I’ve ridden past his house a few times, but to clarify, that gives me NO insight what-so-ever.

Anytime something like this comes to light, there are always fake confessions.

What makes this different?

1) Tiger admitting to ‘transgressions’ is kind of unique.  In the era of ‘ultra-celebrities’ buying their way out – confessing and obvious shame is a relief.  He’s Human, not what ever else Lance, Jordan, OJ, Jacko (I digress).

2) OK.  You are the highest paid sportsman on the planet.  Your wife is a smokin’ hot ex model, who seems to be pretty cool (she chased him with a golf club!).  Of all the girls he has been involved with – his wife is the best looking.  DUDE???

That porn star is haggard!  And a 40 year old?  I’m not 40 but if you are going to pay 10’s of thousands of hush money to a mistress shouldn’t it be more like a 62 year old stone and 20 year Russian?

3) Sponsors leaving him.  Tag Heuer is going to limit Tiger’s exposure.  Their $3200 Tiger Watch is discounted 27%.  Should they not be celebrating this?  The watch should be $4000 because once you buy it you will have more mistresses than you can keep track of!

4) Summary.  He’s a golfer (and dumbass) not the Dali Lama, winning masters doesn’t make you a saint.  Tiger, go golf (gentlemen only, ladies forbidden?)

ROOFING

OK I spent a day roofing.  Yes it was below freezing, yes plywood covered with ice, and tipped on an angle, not close to the ground is not a good idea.  But this is Canada, and my ‘project’ has no roof.  Well that was this morning.

Secret: Leave your tool-belt inside.  Keep the nails in your pockets so that they warm up.  You have to get them out with bare hands, and the warmth from your pocket will go such a long way.

Tomorrow = Siding.

Super Athlete Faulkner Banquet Speaker