Ideal SoCal Winter Weekend

When it's 80º F on January 3, I know I'm living in the right place (except, I am jealous of Maggs and them trunking it over in Hawaii). Still, this weekend was as perfect as I could imagine. After Friday's big swim (about 4k total I think) I ran an easy 5 miles... saving it for Sat/Sun, as I got a last-minute call to ride with the newly formed CSU Fullerton Tri Team. It was my first time riding on that part of the Santa Ana River Trail, and I was stoked for a change of scenery from the usual routes.

Most the group at Weir Canyon...
There were riders of all levels, and about two packs formed. I hung in the front group, even spent some time pulling the guys. Raaar!

The craziest part of the ride was the wind. Riding out (toward the mountains) we faced THE WORST headwind I've ever been in. Scary almost. The one stud rider of the group (to my left in the pic) led through most of that, and my HR got pretty high as I tried to hang on his wheel. He's training to do the 12 Hours of Temecula MTB Race solo this month, so I eventually had to accept him breaking away from us.

We regrouped at the turnaround (picture) and the the real fun began--riding back with the tailwind. Almost effortlessly going mid-30 mph range, a blast.

The ride ended up being 25 miles, and being that I'm back in training mode, that wasn't enough for me. So later in the evening I hopped on the trainer. Probably the most fun I've had on that stupid thing. Normally, I hate the trainer--so mundane, so... boring. But I DVR'd Universal Sports' Ironman World Championships marathon and watched Kona 2005 during the ride. Every time a commercial came on, I'd run upstairs to do pullups (on the Iron Gym) and situps. After that, I had my fill for the day.

Sunday the weather was summer-like. Love SoCal! I took full advantage by heading to the trails, and I even got some tan lines! However, my run did me in. Anytime I run El Moro (10 miles with ~2,100 ft elevation gain) it's tiring, but Sunday, I fell into a coma on the couch for like 2 hours after my post-run meal.

I'm no longer doing the Xterra Crystal Cove Race (@ El Moro) due to its cancellation then a re-scheduling conflict (they made it the same day as C-Bad half), but I will be doing the Xterra Mission Gorge 15k Race instead on Feb. 7, so El Moro is still a good (& close) place to train. I read that Mission Gorge is ~1,600 ft elevation gain.

Anyways, while running El Moro, I ran into 623Tries. I randomly met Amelia in 2008 and am so thankful I've been in touch with her ever since. She's just a good person all around. She had knee surgery last year and is just getting back into all her sports, so it was awesome to see her in action. Even though... I was lost in my music and would have missed them had they not stopped me.
PS - I only wear a running belt on long trail runs where I have no means of getting water. I really can't stand wearing that thing. In fact, the one I'm wearing is my dad's. I don't even own one.

So Sunday marked the end of my biggest training week in a while for swimbikerun. Biggest thing I noticed: Now that I'm constantly on the go again and adding volume, I need to start treating my "during workout" nutrition accordingly (doing just fine on the pre- and post-eating). I felt a little bonky toward the end of the El Moro run. 'Tis the season of glycogen depletion.