The Fit Nation

https://ift.tt/XL90bxA After recovering with a day off followed by an easy day, yesterday I went on a longer group ride. It started 11 miles away in Gilroy so I just rode my e-bike to the start. We headed up into the hills East of Gilroy by what was for me a new route. After some serious climbing, we were rewarded with nice views. We then looped around back to the start point. After lunch there, I cruised back home. I was a bit tired by that point so was glad to be able to bump up the assist. Working Our Way Up a portion of Leavesley Road I’d not been on. Narrow and steep, but fortunately lightly traveled A ranch at the top of Leavesley. The cows in the distance came over to check us out. Back to familiar territory. Leavesley joined up with Roop Road and we’re dropping down the far side past the Mendoza ranch entrance to Harvey Bear County park.

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https://ift.tt/mVeq1LH I’ve been overdoing it a bit with my training and my body let me know it last night in an unusual way- sore ankles. So I took today off and will follow it with an easy day tomorrow. I just did a short stroll around the neighborhood to get my “nature fix”. El Toro From Our Local Park

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https://ift.tt/6bO1jEm www.Amazon.com/books Many people who strive to be kind have trouble with assertiveness. Eknath Easwaran talks about it in his book Passage Meditation : we can be calm and try to understand the needs and point of view of others, but as he puts it, that does not mean “being a doormat”. This can be a delicate balance. So I was glad to see an entire book devoted to achieving this balance. The author, Sherrie Mansfield Vavrichek, is well qualified to write on this topic because she is a cognitive behavioral therapist who is also well-versed in Buddhist philosophy, mindfulness, and meditation. I highly recommend this book.

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https://ift.tt/8QvracX Today my bike route rode out to Uvas Canyon park at the end of Croy road. Karen and I lived about halfway up Croy for 24 years until 2008 so this was a trip down memory lane for me. This is a pleasant rural route mainly West of Morgan Hill. We had a pretty fast group today, I’d have had trouble keeping up without electric assist. This made for a brisk enjoyable ride. It got up into the 90s (F) again today but fortunately, we were done riding and eating lunch at our air-conditioned destination by then. Rest Stop at Uvas Canyon park, with shade from the Redwoods Entering the Sycamore Valley on the Way Back

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https://ift.tt/LvoTz2R Yesterday I went for a two-hour ride mostly to the Southwest end of Morgan Hill and into San Martin. I aimed to keep it at the high end of my aerobic zone which is a heart rate of about 120. My heart monitor confirmed that the pace was about right, although there were some periods it drifted up higher. I’m going to make this a regular training ride as it is enjoyable and the pace feels “brisk but comfortable”. The view of El Toro is from just south of Morgan Hill. The building to the far right is a new Vietnamese Buddhist temple under construction. There are some beautiful statues and a garden on the site,

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https://ift.tt/c3j6lND Today I finally found the time to try out my idea of riding my e-bike to Vasona Lake and then Kayaking. I did a trial run proving the route was safe last week . Today I made it to Vasona in 95 minutes. The route through San Jose and Los Gatos is fine, but not particularly pleasant as there is a good bit of urban riding on busy streets. Even though they have bike lanes, there is substantial traffic and red lights to deal with. It was pleasant once I was on the water, starting about 11:30 AM (rentals open at 11). It wasn’t too hot today, I forgot how exposed you are out on the lake. Fortunately, I had a good amount of sunscreen on and a “safari hat” and neck gaiter for protection. On the ride back I stood up to pedal more of the way, and also had a bit of a headwind, so it took almost two hours. All in all, it was an adventure. Entering Vasona Lake County Park Boat Rental Area The Dam on Los Gatos Creek That Forms Vasona Lake Looking Towards The Foothi...

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https://ift.tt/j6wpVrk www.Amazon.com/books This is an interesting book about open-water endurance swimming challenges. author Ryan Stamrood of South Africa started out at the age of 27 as a typical adult, not particularly fit. He then decided to get serious about swim training. His first goal was the Robben Island swim (7.5 km or 4.7 miles) from the coast near Capetown to the island where Nelson Mandela was a political prisoner for many years. Having accomplished this, he went on to swim more increasingly difficult open-water challenges, culminating in successfully crossing the English Channel. Things really took a serious turn when he realized he and some friends had a talent for swimming in cold water, and together they formed the International Ice Swimming Association . He went on to complete some mind-boggling swims, including in a frigid lake in Siberia and swimming a mile in Antarctica. He started out his career in advertising, working for his father, whose business he ev...

https://ift.tt/PdrYAXw Saturday two friends from my local riding group and I carpooled up to Sunnyvale. Our parent club, Almaden Cycle Touring Club , had a bird-watching ride that looped from Sunnyvale over to the shoreline trail along San Francisco Bay, then past a special street in Mountain View next to the Google campus where egrets and herons nest. There were surprisingly few birds in the bay compared to other times I’ve been on the shoreline trail, but we had good luck seeing the nests and mama and half-grown baby egrets. It was all in all a very nice adventure. Twenty five miles in about two and a half hours Surprisingly hard work for a flat ride (Average heart 124, max 159), on my non-assisted upright. There was a headwind for a good bit of the ride. Pelicans on this slough next to San Francisco Bay Blue Heron. Sorry it’s blurry Now the path is next to south San Francisco Bay The Space-age looking building to the left is the most striking building of the Googl...

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https://ift.tt/BR53tIV Today I did a dry run of my route to Vasona Lake that I’ll take to go kayaking. I confirmed it is just under three hours round trip, so I can only do this on days when I can devote about five hours to allow time on the water. The good news is it is a pleasant and safe route. I already knew how to get from my house to Almaden Lake Park in South San Jose on a nice route. It is a little trickier to get from there to Vasona Lake in Los Gatos without going on busy streets that don’t have bike lanes. I mapped out the route using ridewithGPS , and I cross-referenced it with the Vta Santa Clara bikeways map . When in doubt I used google street view to make sure any main roads I was using had bike lanes. It is a bit over six miles further to go from Almaden Lake to Vasona Lake. I good chunk of it is on the Guadalupe creek path, which was a nice discovery. I’ve ridden on the Guadalupe trail that runs mostly north-south. You can take it from Almaden Lake park many miles no...

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https://ift.tt/hPNE0GQ Yesterday’s group ride was a brisk flat one, on the rural roads southeast of Morgan Hill, then working our way north to the Coyote Creek trail for an out-and-back. We then had lunch on the patio at Coyote Creek golf course’s restaurant. It was a pleasant outing although the humidity was a little high for this area in the summer. Morning fog breaking up over Loma Prieta in the distance

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https://ift.tt/DypvXTO This is the title of an inspiring book by Laura Clark. Laura, a single mom in her late 30s (at the beginning of the book), living in the Colorado Springs area, started by hiking or climbing all 58 of Colorado’s “Fourteeners” (peaks with an elevation over 14,000 feet). She did all of these solo. I had thought there were 53 of them, it turns out there are 53 “official” and 5 “unofficial, as described here. The unofficial ones have peaks over 14000 feet, but the peaks do not rise at least 300 feet from the nearest saddle. I lived in Colorado in the early 1980s, and I did 3 Fourteeners in three years. She did the 58 in just over one year. She then went on, over the next couple of years, to summit the 200 highest peaks in the state, all over 13,000 feet, again solo. http://www.Amazon.com/books This is an amazing feat from just a logistical standpoint, Colorado is a big state and these peaks are spread all over. Laura had to do a lot of long drives and get by on ...

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https://ift.tt/C0NKYXU There is a large fog bank that hangs off the coast of California that meteorologists call the marine layer. Often in the summer, the pattern is for hot air to rise in inland valleys. Cooler air from offshore rushes in to replace it, and often brings some fog with it. This cool onshore breeze is our natural air conditioner, and it switched on nicely today. I actually needed a jacket on my ride. The fog was breaking up a bit after 10:00 am, but there was still a cool breeze