a perfect day!

I've been super-busy this month. In addition to all the normal beginning-of-the-year stuff, and launching an all-new team, and daydreaming, and having a friend visit for five days, my business has been booming. I'm not sure what happened, but I need to give my marketing person a raise. I've suddenly become the most popular bike fitter, coach, tester in norcal it seems. And suddenly, I've got clients able to meet with me during the day (where typically I only saw clients evenings and weekends).

This is all fine and good, and I should be happy, but it also means that I haven't been able to ride much during the day. I'm starting to feel like I've lost the big fitness I got during my Christmas week ride.

But today made up for all that. It was a fabulous, warm, sunny, no-wind day on the peninsula and I was drooling over the prospect of climbing. So I dragged Kim along for our first trip up Page Mill of 2007.

One of my goals this season is to become a climber (or at least a better climber). Last season I climbed a lot, but my excess weight and lack of fitness held me back. But I'm building on a HUGE base from May 2005 through December 2006 (about 10,000 miles and 900 hours -- in 19 months!) and I'm starting to see some results. And yeah, it sure helps to be back to my fighting weight.

Both Kim and I have been lifting weights, so we were a bit fatigued and had heavy legs, but the climb was awesome -- nine miles of power and feeling the lack of excess weight. Kim is tall and super-skinny and she usually leaves me behind on the climbs. Today I was able to keep up with her and was actually ahead of her for much of the climb.

And the descent on Skyline and 84 was simply incredible. The views of the bay were magically smoggy, but the views of the valley and ocean were breath-taking. I've also been working on my technical descending, and I think today was my best descent of 84 ever.

All in all, just a perfect day!