always look forward to seeing you post crazy high average speeds, or 4 hour power that I would struggle to hold for 40-50 minutes.
@Majoeric not a all-time PR but turned in my best 2 hour power and 5.5-6 min power since Dec 2017. Just doing normal interval work on a Monday. Last 90 days have been good for me:
slowly closing the gap with '16-'17 āgot fast onceā season.
Havenāt been out to the river since the New Year rainsā¦ the vineyard near Snodgrass Slough is still under water:
no bueno. But across the street its fine:
Nice ride! The extended time power PRās donāt come quickly. Itās taken me 2 years to go from 250 to 275 @ 4 hours. Although, itās not often that I attempt the efforts.
Wow, @HLaB ! Well done!!
I hope you will be able to find enough climbing when you move back to the US. It is so beautiful there. Wow. What a cute dog! Is he or she Swiss?
Actually, heās Romanian. We got him through a Swiss group that works with a Romanian shelter or two, which tend to be underfunded. They identify a bunch of dogs to be rescued, make sure they are safe, work to identify their personalities (i.e., no other pets, good with kids, etc), and give them the necessary vaccines and treatments. They are brought over in groups 3-4 times a year, and I believe all the dogs are already āhomedā before transport. When we got him nearly 7 years ago, he was about 4 and didnāt know how to play with others, wouldnāt step foot on grass, would touch a stair, and had to be carried over bridges, among other issues. Now, except for his gray, people are surprised at how old he is because heās playful like a puppy. As it turns out, his doggy camp is now the full-time job of the person who came to interview and vet us for the rescue group, and our dog gets so excited to go (and fortunately heās happy to get home, though sometimes it seems the former generates more excitement than the latter!). Heās some kind of mutt, but clearly with some hunting breed in him based on his markings and some behaviours in the forest. Heās no longer going to join me for the 10-12 mile trail runs like in the past as I return to running. Below is a pic about halfway through a 10 miler on the last day of 2017 (pre-dawn start, hence headlamp, with 2100ā of ascent), which got me 1000 running miles for that year.
Heās a very good boy.
my top 2 hour power records are all from attempting to do 40-70 minute Merckx (no special gear) Time Trials on my river loop route. On that route I usually end up just over 2 hours.
You got that right. Iām still slowly, naturally, patiently, pushing power up on 2 hour endurance rides (HR below 142bpm)ā¦ so close to 200W but still just a few watts short.
Oh wow! That is a great picture @mountainrunner!! He looks like such a good boy. I couldnāt tell what breeds might be in there. I think that can make for the best and most fantastic dogs. I love when rescue dogs find great homes. Heās a cutie!!
I ordered running tights with a pocket for my phone so hopefully I will have photos from my runs ā¦ except they are predicting more rain soon. Shoot. But I guess we need the water.
This was from my Napa ride this weekend:
Yes, but now we arenāt sure if my daughter can make it over the hill on Friday 
Today was windy and chilly to spice up the usual Tuesday endurance shenanigans:
That brings my KOM total for 2023 up to 3, on my annual quota of 4. Getting a little ahead of myself.
And speaking of 1, 2, 3, look up in the sky
The moon joins Jupiter and Venus at twilight!
I always look up at the night sky and see whatās viewable. I never had a telescope, but we had star parties when I was a kid where there were others with telescopes. Weād be out in the middle of nowhere w/zero light pollution. The night sky was insane! Anyway not sure why, but I feel like a lot less people do so these days. Good to see someone else looking up!
Hobbies have certainly evolved!
Hope she makes it safely, @WindWarrior.
I stuck with my TN Wednesday routine but as the bike was already filthy I took it outside, Giraud. Timed it just right and the end of the warm up (well 6sec from it) coincided with the red light at the temporary roadworks that have been on Oundle Road for months! They must have updated their sensitivity and timings, they changed almost instantly and I was able to stay in zone during the first interval without needing to sprint before they changed again. I did my usual route down Bullock Road but the thought of not being so lucky with the lights saw me turn to Washingley and Folksworth. I didnāt think I have enough space to do the last interval (15mins @ 60%) before the traffic in Peterborough so I turned south to Stilton and the old A1, before heading north back to Peterborough. I definitely made the right choice. Yet another set of temporary traffic lights have sprung up, and these ones are longer still. Fortunately they are on a straight and flat bit of a quieter road with plenty of coned off space, so when they didnāt change after a few seconds I proceeded and kept spinning away.
Iām quite pleased with how I executed it with a good cadence, only exceeding the power target slightly in the cooldown when I decided it was prudent to get back to the virtual desk.
Think she is going to take FlixBus. Great graphic on the weather last night, my youngest lives in Reno on the other side of the āhillā while I live somewhere around the S in Sacramento, and you live on the far left:
snow levels down to 500ā on Thursday night, but not a lot of moisture. Love the graphicās limbo bar, it went up and down as they rolled thru Tuesday to Friday.
That is a fantastic graphic! Yes. I think I live just on the other side of the hills on the left. ā one gray house away from Sac. Lol.
I have never ridden or run in snow. I kinda hope we get the photo opp!
yes, Mt Diablo and Mt Saint Helena are just one big grey house away from Sacratomato 
Nothing like averaging 14mph on a long, slow, and cold grind at 200W into a brutal treeless headwind. We flatlanders call that particular 8 miles āclimbing Mt Eschingerā on a night like tonight.
A little crosstown traffic is a welcome sight on that long rural slog.
Back home the moon dance continues. As above:
So below:
Theme song, one of my favorite Hendrix songs:
in honor of that tailwind on the return
Short run this morning. I donāt usually ā as in very, very rarely ā run three days back to back, but the morning routine has been starting at 5:30a this week. So instead of getting out and done before then, Iām squeezing in runs between as-close-to-after 6a (when I can reclaim my time as mine) and 6:45, to give me time to take off the shoes, feed the dog, and change clothes to get in the car by 7a.
The pauses above were mostly about frogs, who are back, though there were two stops for pics, another to catch my breath, and a third to leash up Paisley to finish the run along a road (part of my prep to get him more comfortable with traffic before we move to Boston).
I donāt know if itās the weather (it was warmer than usual this week), my memory, or something else, but there were a LOT of frogs across a LOT of my run. This required that I paid more attention to what was immediately in front of me as not all of them were looking at me (i.e., their eyes didnāt light up in my headlight) and the could look like a leaf, a rock, or simply not be noticed.
Hereās a track built into the forest. Itāll be cleaned up (raked, I suppose) so that itās only fine sawdust after spring. Itās not that much more squishy than a US high school track and Iāve seen barefoot runners on it, so thereās no worry of splinters. Itās not a āstraightā oval as it does have some wiggly bits, it is cut into the forest, after all.
For my ātrackā work, I prefer running around this large pond, which is pretty flat but with more undulations than the track above. (The track, btw, is off to the right, 3 oāclock, from this pick on the other side of a small ridge framing this pond.) The left side of the pond, as you see it below, is flat, which is seen in the elevation chart. The big pause at the 25min mark (2/3 through) was to take the pic below, then I proceeded to the right and go around counter-clockwise (or anti-clockwise, take your pick) for some flat trail time.
it wasnāt a long run, but it was better than nothing.