[Posted By Heather Irmiger on www.JHKandHeather.com]

If someone told me right now that I could never leave Colorado during the training season again, I’d probably say “meh, ok, no big deal.”  People from this state love to brag that we get over 300 days of sunshine a year – now, I don’t know how true this is, but it seems to be pretty dang close.  If you give a typical Coloradan more than 3 consecutive days of overcast weather, he or she can likely be found curled up in the back corner of the closet sucking their thumb, crying, and wallowing in deep depression.  Okay, maybe it wouldn’t be that bad, but the point is, Colorado is pretty dang nice even in the winter.  Between January and March, we do get the occasional 3 foot snow storms, 80 mph winds, or sub zero temperatures.   And while the winds are by far the biggest complaint in my book (just try to knock out a quality training ride with 50 mph sustained winds with 80 mph gusts), in general, I can keep myself fairly fit and happy riding in the cold or hitting the back country when I need a bit of a break from the crappy conditions.

All this said I DO enjoy escaping to a warm weather training location once or twice between January and March, before the racing season gets into full swing.  And, let’s face it, I have a job and a husband that I can take with me, so why wouldn’t I?  In addition to the warmth, I love the mental break in training that some new rides, different grocery stores (I love you Trader Joe’s), and tasty new restaurants will bring.  For the past couple of years I’ve tried to create training blocks that are bookended by fun activities and training “camps” – little variations to look forward to.  Last year, I had two fun goals to look forward to:  1) survive the 90 mph gusts until our yearly (yes, yearly) trip to Maui (thank you Tokyo Joe’s!)  and 2) survive riding until the hut trip we took in San Juans.  By the time these two things happened, it was racing time and, mentally, I barely felt like I had been training!

So, this year, I have (had) 3 goals or training book ends.  So far, the 2010 winter has not really been so windy which is really unheard of, especially for January!  The theme this year has been snow.  We’ve gotten just enough snow that most of the trails are too snowy or muddy to ride, and it has come just frequently enough that many of the sweet road loops are pretty hazardous given 30 degree, icy, 10 mile descents from the mountains.  So, with snow comes monotony.  Even on days when the weather has been reasonable, the number of rides available has been fairly limited.  But with this year’s 3 goals 1) make it to our sunny California training trip 2) make it to our hut trip in the Aspen area and 3) make it to Maui, I think I’m going to survive.

Goal number one was set to occur January 13-23 in the lovely town of Santa Barbara, CA.  Jeremy and I had a sweet little studio rented, and were looking forward to some 70 degree rides in the surrounding mountains.  So, why am I typing this blog post from my home in Boulder on January 21st?  Training camp FAIL is why.  Now, I realize its winter and it can and does rain in California but I just hoped it wouldn’t.  After paying the deposit on the studio and filling the Subaru Tribeca for the 16 hour drive, we kept our fingers crossed that the weather forecast would agree with our timing.

So, needless to say, I’m back in Colorado getting ready for a 30 degree mountain bike ride. Check out this sweet radar picture of the happenings in California today:

 

The impending doom that would envelop our sweet studio



As much fun as it is to title this post “Training camp FAIL” the trip wasn’t so bad, in fact, it was great.  We kicked the trip off with a sweet visit to Oakley where we got a full tour from our man Blick and had a chance to meet some very cool people and see some very cool things (note:  A LOT goes into those sweet shades you’re wearing AND they are all manufactured right there at Oakley in the good ‘ol U.S. of A.)!   After dinner with the family, we headed up to our studio in Santa Barbara where we then proceeded to get in 3 days of SPECTACULAR training!  The weather was perfect – 70 degrees, shorts weather – and the rides we did were completely invigorating.  

JHK & Blick at the Luge summit and the view from El Cielo Road in Santa Barbara

 

And then we got word of the rain that was about to hit – “a year’s worth of rain in one week,” “the worst storm California has had in 5 years,” “wind gusting up to 50mph” and the list goes on.  Now, I know what you’re thinking: “suck it up, it’s just rain, thought you were a tough mountain bike racer.”  Sucking it up MAY have been an option if the weather back in Boulder were the same or worse.  Fortunately/unfortunately, the weather forecast for Boulder went something like this: low 40s, no wind, mix of sunny and partly cloudy, hmmmmm.  As tough as I like to think I am, I didn’t sign up for rain or 50 degrees – I signed up for sunny and 70 degrees.  Plus, when the palm trees are bent over at a 45 degree angle and it’s raining so hard that the kids are boogie boarding on the grass in the park (yes, this did happen), well, I’m out.

The decision was a bit tough – what if the weather man was wrong?  Jeremy and I had two rest days coming up and we had to figure it out – would we risk it, or tactically use one rest day to bust it back home?  Here’s what we decided:  this training camp had certainly failed in that we would not be able to shop at Trader Joe’s eight times, would not end up doing a wine tasting, and wouldn’t reduce our gnarly winter pastiness while riding in shorts.  But, this camp was actually also a serious win: we had a chance to see Oakley, visit with one of our best friends from L.A., got one solid training block in (wearing shorts), and managed to demolish at least one Trader Joe’s container of praline pecans.  Also, we did manage to squeeze in a trip to our favorite grocery store in Solvang (yes, we have a favorite – we ARE hungry a lot), buy a case of local wine, and have dinner at one of the best restaurants: The Los Olivos Café in Los, Olivos.

So that’s that – we decided to head home in search of better training weather and call the trip a success after all.  Training-season goal number one has been accomplished and I’m back in Colorado.  Even though the trip was cut short and I’m going to have to wear my thermal jacket and booties today, I must say I’m excited for the ride.  It’s cold, but the sun is starting to peak out and it’s been a whole week since I had to try to think up a good local training ride.  Besides, the hut trip is only a couple weeks away….