What passes for winter here in socal has hit with a vengeance today. Wind and Rain. I know it sounds silly, but it's getting harder and harder to make it out when the weather turns. 6 years of year round riding in the mountains of Colorado and my school years in the mid western blizzards of Iowa all for naught as 50 degree temperatures and intermittent rain finds me on the trainer.

The early morning hours brought rain and the possibility of snow up around Alpine, so I skipped the Wednesday ride. The skies cleared up around 10am saving me from my date of trainer based intervals and ILT's and I headed out to Mt. Soledad for some hill climbs. 6 hill repeats for 39 miles and 4900' of climbing. Towards the end, the skies opened up and drenched me on the ride back home.

On one of the descents, I came across the aftermath of a pretty serious car accident... right about the same place on Nautilus where someone pulled out in front of Jason a few weeks back... dangerous place.

On a racing note: Boulevard was two weeks ago - the best weather yet... 60 degrees and sunny. As I pulled up to the line I noticed that one of my friends, Chad was also racing the Cat 4's. After realizing that I was most likely the largest guy in the field (not a good sign), we headed out for 2 laps of the course. The course was the same as last year, triangular with half the course descending and half the course climbing. The descent was mostly smooth, the pack of 100 riders a little skittish, but for the most part controlled. At the bottom you take a hard right, and cross over the railroad tracks. As my front wheel went over the tracks I heard and felt a "KaChunk!" Was my tire was going flat?

The riders at the front put in a pretty hard acceleration and began to split up the group. Riders slid back through the peloton like they had dropped anchor. I was far enough back that I missed the move and then had to set a steady pace to pull back some of the riders. Tough, my size wasn't helping much.

As I turned onto Old Hwy 80, I came up behind Chad, he had been battling it out with the ones on the front. We joined a few other riders and began to pace line our way up the climb. As we took turns at the front I became more and more certain that my tire was going flat. I looked around for the follow car, but no luck, it had stopped earlier for another rider, it passed with the rider hanging out the rear window holding his bike. No wheel for me.

At the top, my tire went completely flat and I pulled out of the race... pretty bummed. As penance I rode back from the race, 60 miles. Might as well get something out of the race.