An alien in San Francisco

Its visa time. I'm OK. Mine lasts for 3 or 5 years, as does Jo's. Long enough for this jaunt anyway. But daughter Katy and Mother-in-law Sheila are on a short leash with Obama's Homeland Security crew, who are on the sidelines just waiting for an infringement. Their visas run out on Tuesday, and so they are leaving town on Monday to fly back to UK. Sheila isn't returning to the US, she wants to stay in the UK. She's 80 now, and frankly, we were amazed when she wanted to come in the first place. We celebrated her 80th birthday with pizza at one of the local Italian restaurants, and it was amazing to think that the girl from a small mill town in Lancashire would be celebrating her 80th in San Francisco's Italian quarter!

Truth is, she's missing her "proper British" bacon sandwiches. American bacon is "like flies wings" according to Sheila. And it's true, I haven't had much, if any bacon, since I got here. Me and Alex had some after a ride when he was here over Christmas and it was fairly horrid, full of fat and empty of flavour.

Katy is hoping for another visa, but has to be in UK to get it, so Jo and Katy will have to wait in the UK until the appointment with the US Embassy comes through. Leaving me as a legal alien here in San Francisco. I'll be alright, I've got a loyalty card for Trader Joe's which is as near to being a down-home American as you can get.

In the meantime this legal alien is going to be making the most of his time by doing loads of training, down at the "Breakaway Performance Centre". That's the name of my local gym's specialist unit, and I know it sounds a bit - well, self-congratulatory - but it has transformed my training and the enjoyment of my sport. At the end of the day, it's a business, and a successful one at that. It's firmly aimed at people like me with a bit of spare cash, and there's lots of those around here. The rumour is
that it was set up by a group of guys who got payouts from the big dot-com successes - ebay, facebook et al. Whatever, they know their market and I'm unashamedly one of them. I can train hard, get specialist advice and coaching, specialist equipment, anything. Well, when I say "anything", clearly they can't provide an experience close to that of running down the bypass on a wet, cold, windy night with trucks blasting past. They can't provide Shutlingsloe, or Winnatt's Pass, or Blaze. And I suppose if you look a bit harder at their portfolio they can't give you Styal woods, that run through the farm, the weird bit in the hinterland near Marks and Spencer's. Further analysis would show that they can't get near the Alistair's farm run, the ride round Windermere and the Helvellyn Triathlon bike course. When you get down to it they aren't able to provide mates either. Actually I should qualify that. They can provide mates. There's a special programme for it - "Date Nights". But I don't mean people who will spend a bit of time with you, I mean proper mates. Anyway, back to the point, they don't do real friends. Not on demand, anyway. I'm not saying I miss times like when I ran up Shutlingsloe with Rich and James, or the weekend Rich came up to the Lakes and we got soaked and cold running the Alistairs Farm route. I'm not saying I miss the long, trundling route through Alderley and back through the arse end of Wilmslow. I not saying I miss Carolyn's smile, Chris's banter, James' farting, or Steve's silence (how could you miss silence?). What I am saying, is I'm halfway down a bottle of pretty decent Californian Cabernet, I've got a belly full of lamb stew, Van Morrison on the CD player (yes, CD player. I've had it with all that smartass Napster online stuff), and my family have all just gone back to the UK and I haven't. I'm stuck here working. But I'm OK. Since you bin gone, I ain't missin' you at all.
So - the gym. I've made some good friends there, some decent people. Obviously I'm spending a lot of time with them, training and planning our racing seasons, and last week we had a party. It was the one year anniversary of the setup of the Performance Centre, and the party was held in the cycling studio. This is where we sweat and suffer, measuring ourselves against the great God of power output, so it's an obvious place for a party. And the obvious time to have it is during a training session so that half of you are burying yourselves trying to maximise your body's potential and the other half are sipping margaritas! Once we had finished our training session we started the party properly and had a great time. It was nice to spend some social time with people you normally only train with, and there were some interesting people there, including partners and kids so it was good fun. As part of the night there were various awards. This was my crowing glory, as I was awarded "Favourite Foreigner" Don't tell Obama.

I've turned into my Dad!

There's a line in a song by someone I can't remember that goes: "I dance like me dad. I've started to look a bit like him". The song also has a line about "looking like Kiss but without the makeup". It probably speaks volumes that I can't remember who sang it. Age. I can see, when I look in the mirror, that I'm getting on a bit; a boy of 16 looks out, and a man of 58 stares back. I can detect other age-related issues, but I really don't feel old. I'm 58 - what's that? When I was a lot younger I remember thinking what 50+ would be like, and it didn't include triathlon, training, going for big championship events or anything like that. It mostly involved things like gardening. How life changes. I went for a great ride on Saturday, and if technology allows there will be pictures here to show how fabulous it was.

The ride was with the Breakaway Performance Team from Bay Club - my gym; my team. We went into Marin County, over the Muirwoods and onto the coastal road that leads to Stinson Beach and Point Reyes. On the way back we went up Mount Tam, and down into Mill Valley. It's a tremendous ride, and some of the views over the bay back into San Francisco were just simply, indescribably, beautiful. My riding partner was Jim, he was the only one at about my pace, and he was also around my age so we shared quite a bit of experience. He had what he described as "hill turettes syndrome" that basically manifested itself as a shout of "oh yeah!" as we crested a rise. Sometimes, halfway up a particularly steep climb it came out as "come on you bastard, fight me!" which was a little more disturbing. But the hills did challenge the legs, and the views challenged my ability to describe them.

I was on my Trek, in it's new configuration as a road bike. When I had the tribars on it Oscar always described it as my "Frankenstein" bike, which essentially it was. It was a road bike but I fitted it with tribar extensions so it was neither one thing nor the other. Now I've got the proper time trial bike - that deserves a blog all of its own - the Trek has been fitted with standard road bars and is a proper road bike again, as it was designed. So it feels like a new bike, and I'm loving it.

We got back from the ride and I was giving coach Dave a lift back to the city. We've always got on well, me and coach Dave. His girlfriend - MC - is lovely and always greets me with what seems like a delighted shriek, and a hug. Makes me feel good. I was coming out of the coffee shop near work the other day, where I always get an Americano on my way into work. Poncho starts making it as soon as he sees my bike approaching, and he's happy that I ride my bike right in through the doorway to his coffeshop. As I came out, MC was passing. "Pete - how great to see you" and a hug. Whatever age I am, a greeting like that, and a hug, from a beautiful young girl is never going to do anything but good, and the day was much enhanced by the encounter. As an added benefit, my street cred with Poncho is now through the roof! But back to the post-ride tumble I was about to describe: there we are, me and coach Dave, in the car coming back over GGB into San Francisco, and he's a terrible back-seat driver. "Watch out for the bus!" "Was that a stop sign?" "Careful of the cyclist/pedestrian....." I had to have a word. "Dave," I told him, "I managed to drive a bus through London without your help. I can get a small Audi into San francisco safely. Shut the f*** up! It's like having my Dad back." It really was like driving with your Dad when you were just learning. Which was a bit bizarre, since I'm old enough to be HIS Dad. We hadn't really thought about that. He was my coach; I was his trainee. He told me what to do; I did it. We rode together, enjoyed each other's company, but didn't analyse it much until that journey. Then he started talking about his Dad, and it was all a bit strange. I asked him how old his Dad was, and he didn't know. You don't, do you? Your parents are just old people, unspecific. He just wrote it off as: "I dunno, 50 or something." I was suddenly isolated and distant. Here was a person that I trained with, respected, looked up to. And he was just being honest, but I felt old; older than I really feel. I was, I have to admit, somewhat confused. I'm not old, and I'm in good shape; I can train with them all, keep up with most of them, and I enjoy the ride / run / swim, whatever it is. Maybe I should stop worrying about it. But it hurt, did that.

Death Valley challenge

"...the most deadly and dangerous spot in the United States. It is a pit of horrors--the haunt of all that is grim and ghoulish. Such animal and revile life as infests this pest-hole is of ghastly shape, rancorous nature and diabolically ugly. It breeds only noxious and venomous things. Its dead do not decompose, but are baked, blistered and embalmed by the scorching heat through countless ages. It is surely the nearest to a little hell upon earth that the whole wicked world can produce." (1894)

And this is the place I'm heading to in a couple of weeks to do a half marathon! I'm sort of regretting it, not because I'm afraid of its "rancorous nature" or anything but because it doesn't fit with my training. A couple of months ago it seemed like a good idea to do some iconic stuff while I'm here in the USA, and a half marathon in Death Valley followed by a night on the Strip in Vegas with a couple of pals seemed like just the thing. But now its getting in the way. I've ended up doing the organising and booking, which is a pain, and I'm not training for a half marathon now that I've got the USA National Championships in my sights. The Nationals are 8 months away but I'm already planning around them. My training now is about core strength and about technique; it's not about going off to do a bloody run. Normally I'd just plough on, training up to and through it, and take the hit on time that this might have. But it's Death Valley, so I can't approach it too lightly or I'll - well - die. And I really can't die, not just yet, I've got far too much to do. So I'm probably going to have to taper and all that sort of thing. Tapering now just feels like 7 missed training opportunities, and I don't want to miss them. I'm doing endurance, core, base work, technique sessions. I'm concentrating on biking and swimming. Yes, swimming! I'm actually working on my swimming. A lot of this is because I need to stay in the group when I do Escape from Alcatraz (another bloody iconic event that now feels like a distraction from the Nationals). I need to stay in the group so if any sharks come I can hide, or at least increase my chances of survival by having some alternative swimmers for them to eat. However, I have escalated my ambitions from mere survival through to proper ambition. Since I adopted (AKA "paid for") my professional athlete's lifestyle, I have advanced my swimming to something close to competence. While I still don't enjoy it, I am getting quicker - and better. I've had some basic technique lessons, which got me swimming reasonably well, then some advanced lessons with an Olympic triallist (Bobby Savulich). Now I'm having some 1:1 sessions with Bobby because I'm not keeping up with the advanced group lessons. I've learned about the "four point connection" between the leg kick, the rotation, the arm stroke and the hip. You get them all to contribute at the right time and BOOM - you propel through the water like a fish. Bobby got one of his pals to demonstrate this and the guy was going so quick he was creating a wave behind him. Yet it seemed effortless. I can't get all the 4 points contributing. Well, more accurately I can't get them all contributing at the right time, in the right order. So I'm doing the 1:1s to sort it out. When I'm done with that, and when I get the 6-beat kick right, I'll be so much more streamlined and not creating the drag that I currently am, and therefore I'll be faster. Much faster. I think I'm on the verge of a sea-change (see what I did there?) in my swimming. I still won't enjoy it though. So - back to the Death Valley business: it's ended up costing a fortune. There's the flight to Vegas, the night in the "Furnace Creek Lodge" (yes, really!), the car hire, the night in the 5 star Aria hotel in Vegas (one of my pals wants to "live it up a little"), and then all the associated costs of being in a place like that. I don't even like Vegas, or the prospect of being there. So, in summary, I'm going to a place I don't like to run in an event I don't want to do. But if I don't do these things while I'm here I'm probably going to regret it. Hey ho! Mustn't grumble.

Pixels 1, Pete 0

I was bathed in sweat, my HR bouncing off its top limit. My lungs were bursting and my legs about to explode as I wrenched the handlebars left and right trying to get some more power through the pedals, which were creaking and groaning with complaint at the abuse they were getting. The focus of my entire being was on a number on the screen in front of me - a number that refused to rise above 200. Next to it, another number was constantly changing but so fast that you couldn't read it other than knowing it was "19" something to "2" something. Why was I burying myself so deep to influence these random sets of pixels on the screen? Power readout of course! Each month on the first Tuesday at the Breakaway Performance Centre, a group of cyclists measures their progress over the previous month. We hook up to the power test software and undergo a 20-minute test to establish our most recent FTP (Functional Threshold Power) - a figure which then dictates our training levels for the next month. Last month I got 206 watts, and this month after some serious training and effort, I was expecting - not hoping, expecting - 215 watts or thereabouts. As soon as the test started I could see this was going to be hard to achieve. I was producing somewhere in the range of 190-195. I decided that I could build, and finish stronger. At 5 minutes I wasn't feeling stronger, but I thought maybe once I established a proper rhythm I would build. At 10 minutes this wasn't happening and I considered that a brutal final 5 minutes could bring me back. This has long ceased to be a test of what my power output was; it was now a complete battle of wills between me and the pixels. I had to get above 206. As that ambition withered, it had to be - just had to be - above 200. The readout average was 195; the current power readout was wavering between the "19" something and "2" something. it was moving too quick to register exactly what it was at any one point, but obviously if I saw "19" something that was bad. If I was going to get 200 then the current reading had to always say "2" something, and the "something" had to be high to bring up the average. The average crept up, 1 by 1. 195, 196, 197, 198. I was running out of time. Those damned pixels weren't going to get the better of me; I dug in. Hard. 199. No time left. At the final few seconds, it ticked over to 200. I had retained a small level of pride, but essentially I was beat. A month's training, gone in a flash. Clearly, this backward step was an indicator of a serious decline, almost certainly a permanent condition from which I would never recover. I was devastated. How could this be? The month's training - wasted. I've gone down. My fellow test victims were variously pleased, elated, or satisfied with their results. I was on the floor - literally. Everybody could see how distraught I was, and offered different reasons for my result. Coach Dave was probably closest with the honest, if somewhat brutal, observation that "the more mature" athlete took longer to respond to a training effect. I know this; I'm spending as much effort holding back time as I am progressing my body! Coach Dave and I were to have a long session the following day analysing the test further. Maybe I was a bit tired from my recent training block, maybe my nutrition hadn't been as good as it should have been, maybe I was just having a bad day. Whatever, I resolved to tackle everything I could control, accept the results, and move on. The pixels won this time. Next month I'll be good and ready. they aren't going to beat me twice.

Winning

I like winning. I hate losing. Nobody who knows me will be surprised by that, but I thought a little further explanation of the context of this might be useful. I can't win much, so I have to lose a lot, and as coach Perry used to always say: "if you want to win you must be prepared to lose". Now what he meant by that was you had to take risks. Everybody in a race wants to win, some more than others. And some are eminently more capable of winning than others. If you come up against someone who really wants to win and has the ability to do so, then you aren't going to beat them unless you take a few risks, give it everything, and want it very, very badly indeed. Then you'll have a chance. Sadly, I'm not fast enough on most occasions to convert my desire to win into reality, and I have to deal with not winning. I can cope with it.

However, I am training like never before to achieve two things: a top ten at Escape from Alcatraz; and to qualify for the USA Triathlon Championships. The first of these is a complete unknown. I've obviously never done Alcatraz, described as one of the toughest triathlons on the planet, but I am doing a lot of swim training - SMART swim training. I used to simply accept that I wasn't much good at swimming and at my age it wasn't worth trying to do too much about it. But now I have turned that on its head and taken swim lessons to get my basic technique up to scratch and now some high-end coaching from Bobby Savulich. Bobby is a World University Games Gold Medallist and an Olympic triallist for the USA team so he knows what he's talking about. He's breaking down all aspects of my swim stroke and rebuilding it for maximum efficiency. I'm training for swim conditioning with the local Masters Swim Class, and I am trying (with a little less success!) to overcome my fundamental fear of sealife. It seems the sharks in the Bay here don't really like humans and usually spit you out after a single bite. Oh, well that's OK then. The seals only want to play. God only knows what else is out there, but there is no way I'm visiting the "Aquarium of the Bay" to find out before I swim in it. My basic plan is to stay in a group, a bit like Wilderbeest do for safety. The other main feature of the Alcatraz event is the cycling which goes up those very steep San Francisco hills. I therefore need to be at premium weight and with my body fat now sitting at a pretty lean 8-9% that should be fine. However, I don't know how I will perform at the distances involved, which are non-standard, and I don't know what the competition will be, so I have no real clue as to whether top ten in my age-group is a realistic ambition or not. It doesn't really matter, I'll be in top shape and I'll give it my best, and if that isn't good enough then so be it. I'll deal with it.

The other target for the year is to qualify for the USA Triathlon Championships. Now this is interesting, as I don't know if legally I can do that. I am a USA Triathlon member, but not a US citizen, so what happens if I do qualify? Taken to its (somewhat extreme, I agree) conclusion - what if I qualified at those championships to represent USA? I'm fairly certain that wouldn't be allowed, so logically I shouldn't be allowed to compete at the US Championships. Anyway, I'm looking forward to giving some bureaucrat a problem!

I had a great training period over Xmas and New Year, including some great rides with Oscar, Chris and my son Alex. We killed off Chris (see the "Crucifying Chris" blog) and then started trying to beat each other up on a ride on Sunday. Alex killed us both, but I didn't give up without a fight!

Every time we got to a hill he simply rode away from us, and was out of sight within seconds. I reckon he would give Chris Froome a bit of a run. But coming down, well, that's a different story. Jason always referred to me as "Budgie" as a reference to my status as the team canary. Canaries, if you are aware, were traditionally put down the mines to see if they were safe. If the canary died, they weren't. In the same way, whenever our riding group encountered a steep-looking hill, I was always thrown down it to see if it was safe. So on Sunday as we rode the Paradise loop for the second time in two days (what a route; we HAD to do it again), I took off down the swooping hill. Just as I tipped in, there was Alex, tipping me back up as he slid through on the inside. A couple of bends later I took him back and then kept my profile as wide as possible to keep him back. He overtook me again and then HE was as wide as a truck, but eventually I took him again before the bottom. No quarter asked; none given! Oscar was helpless laughing at this father-son dual, and we all really loved it. Before long, we were at "Cafe Rapha". This was the name we gave to the cafe stop in Tiburon. Tiburon is where wealthy old Californians go to die, so every cyclist was head to foot in Rapha gear! Yes, I know: I got a new Rapha top and base layer, and yes - some Castelli socks - for Xmas. But I'm not dead yet!

Crucifying Chris

Shouldn't laugh, really. We delivered him safely home in the end, so it all ended OK, but I think poor Chris will remember today for some time! It being the New Year, and having some time off work we (everyone but Chris, anyway) have been doing a bit more biking, and today "The Paradise Loop" was our goal.

I can't describe how fabulous this ride is. It's got everything: fast straights, uphill challenges, swooping downhills, beautiful views, not much traffic, and loads of cyclists out there enjoying it. I had a previous favourite before I came out to San Francisco, and was pretty determined that no rubbish Yankee routes could ever beat the likes of Winnats Pass, Blaze, Wrynose Pass, or my  personal absolute favourite of all time, the Helvellyn Triathlon Route. the Helvellyn route is a blinder. It swoops past the most gorgeous lake you can imagine (Ullswater), then rises up through Patterdale and Dunmail Raise to the A66. You can blast down the A66 as fast as you are able, before turning off and rolling through St Johns in the Vale, into Grasmere and through Rydal to Ambleside. At Ambleside you then encounter "The Struggle". Well named it is too, making 1 in 3 on its way up the Kirkstone Pass. At the Kirkstone Inn you then career down reaching up to 50 MPH if you dare, and if your cycling skills are up to the job. (I've never got past 46 MPH, I'm not good enough, or brave enough). Finally you have a beautiful mostly flat and smooth ride back to Patterdale. I never thought that could be beaten but today it was. I feel unfaithful, like a cheating husband, a dog that abandons its owner, but it's true, and I can't deny it. The Paradise Loop is just that - paradise! OK, I've been off work for a couple of weeks and I'm fully relaxed, almost laid back. And yes, I've just fitted the new bars on my Trek so it's a bit like having a new bike, but even allowing for all this rose-tinted view, Paradise Loop is brilliant. We had let Chris down a bit by mistiming our arrival at Golden Gate Bridge, the traditional meeting spot, and he had been waiting for nearly half  an hour when we got there. I should have guessed when I got his texted plea for me to bring extra gloves for him, but anyway he was fully frozen when we arrived (not very hardy, these Californians - the UK Chris would have been in a T shirt, sunbathing). As we set off over the bridge Alex and Oscar were duking it out and Chris and I were trailing. It was clear today was going to be a tough one. We went through Sausalito and Mill Valley, and up onto a good climb where a couple of weeks ago I'd pulled a fast one on Oscar. I offered him a banana, and as soon as he started eating it I attacked and left him for dead, the only thing slowing my progress up the hill being my own giggling. This time Oscar was having none of it, and Alex was in a pack of passing cyclists and going like a train. We regrouped at the top and carried on, whooping with glee as we went down the other side, and then onto a terrific, undulating road by the coast into Tiberon.

When we got to the cafe stop, Chris was nowhere to be seen. I'd dropped back a couple of times to pace him, but he had dropped off again so I left him to it. It must have been fully five minutes before he turned up at the cafe and we had already had plenty of laughs at his expense. He arrived looking a bit pale, but of course we showed no mercy. "Welcome back, Chris, good to see you again!" "Glad you could make it" you know the sort of thing. We had coffee, and some cake, and set off back to SF, but Chris was soon spat out the back. He really had disappeared and we were genuinely worried about him and his dreadful bike which is in danger of simply crumbling away to dust at any moment. I phoned him and got a weary, fatalistic response: "You go on, I'll get back on my own" all very noble, but we weren't about to abandon him. We waited and then guided, led, and finally pushed him home. He really was a broken man by this time.

Alex, Oscar and I were having a great time, possibly (though I hate to admit it) taking energy from Chris's misfortune. We pedalled happily over the GGB and back to the cafe stop, dropping Chris off and heading back for home. A great day out.