Page and her BFF Aviv playing at the Stanford Park. Tata says they like to hold hands… So sweet.
Archive for the ‘Life in the Santa Cruz Mts’ Category
Strava Classic Climbing Challenge
Thursday, March 29th, 2012
Strava is a San Francisco startup that has produced an app that allows you to track your bike rides (and runs) and compare yourself against other local riders, and yourself. I can race up a certain hill on my ride, Strava records my time, and when I look at the app, I can see if I’ve got the fastest (or 124th fastest …).
Strava regularly posts challenges. The current challenge, and the subject of this blog, has been their Classic Climbing Challenge. The Challenge is to ride the total vertical distance of the Spring Classics (Paris-Roubaix et al) times three. That means 32,100 metres of going up! In 47 days.
I completed the challenge this morning. Fifteen days after the start.
It wasn’t easy.
To complete the challenge I had to change my commute from a leisurely ride up the Los Gatos Creek Trail:
To a testing ride up Black Road and over the Saratoga Gap:
Doing this meant that I have been leaving home in the dark, and arriving home just before Page’s bedtime. All Page has known of me for the last two weeks has been “Dadda”, “Helmet”, “Bike”, “Work”, “Yight”. But both she and Alex have been a fantastic support crew. Alex has been cooking for me and buying me sugary treats. Last night, Alex and Page met me at Mount McPherson, the highest point of my ride, and drove behind me so that I could see. And then they drove me back down the hill. Going downhill gets no points from Strava, so I didn’t want to waste the effort, and besides, I couldn’t see …
To be honest, the physicality of the challenge has not been the hardest bit. The mental game of getting out of bed early and thinking about riding up a 10% grade, and doing that every single day was tough. Particularly with our late winter here. The first two days of my commute were very wet. Then my first Saturday ride was cut short because of snow. Then I got hail and snow on the Sunday … it rarely got better.
At least today was dry, and I completed the challenge by racing up Mt Pierce and passing another bemused cyclist on the way to work this morning.
Somehow I got competitive with this challenge. I had originally just aimed to complete it, but after the first couple of days I was in the top 100, so I just kept the scoreboard ticking over, and pegged my way up towards the top. I was able to get into 5th place at one stage, battling a couple of Utards. Unfortunately last night a Melbourne rider passed me to push me down to 6th. I know that I can’t complain about my weather more than his, so good luck to him.
I’m glad I did this challenge. The ride to work over Saratoga Gap is beautiful, with views over Monterey Bay, and either snow on the Redwoods, or occasionally sun streaming through them. Now it’s Alex’s turn!
(Amazingly, I got no flat tyres, and only one broken spoke slowed me down.)
My new helmet
Monday, March 5th, 2012
Brendan brought back pressies from Utah today and as needed a helmet for Page. She had a bit of a crash while I was on the phone with Grandma Sam the other day. She decided to undress herself and go for a bike ride, ride out the front door and off the front step and had a little bump to the head. So now we have a helmet! She is so excited. We pulled out Jack’s jersey from “Still to big to wear” drawer, but who cares (thanks Tescher!)
First time ever going over the bridge
Ok, I can get used to this
Again!
Feeling brave and trying the hill outside the driveway
High five Mama! I did it!!
Truck!
Friday, March 2nd, 2012
Page and I are solo this weekend. Originally we were all headed to Park City for a long weekend, but we let Dad be a bachelor this weekend and ski and hang out with his buddies (in other words I was too tired from pulling all all-nighter launching our PAIFF site to connect the travel dots…OOPS)
So Page and I were hanging out in the bath and all of a sudden this very loud voice said “EVACUATE, EVACUATE, CARBON MONOXIDE LEVELS DANGEROUSLY HIGH.” and then a bunch of other scary words. So Page and I got dressed and ran out of the house before it blew up. Not knowing what to do we asked Google, of course, and it said to call 911.
Long story, short. Three very nice firemen came and rescued us from our faulty carbon monoxide reader and Page got to sit in a fire truck. She could not stop talking about it after they left, for about an hour. We called Grandma Sam and she got an earful. Pretty funny that Page is now telling stories and that our tax payer money goes to moms with carbon monoxide that need new batteries!
Today was brilliant
Saturday, February 25th, 2012
Today was brilliant. I will try and count the ways.
– Page told us she had to go peepee and went peepee! When we got all excited, she did a casual shrug and a “Ya” like she was a pro already
– Brendan went with me and Page to get coffee at our fav coffee shop (he usually doesn’t go as he doesn’t like coffee)
– Brendan and Page dropped me off at home and left me home alone by MYSELF for almost 3 hours. I watched a movie, stared at the ceiling and took a nap, amazing. The troops went shopping and bought the most adorable shoes and clothes for Page, she was so excited when she came home to show me her new shoes. The girl definitely likes to shop.
– We all went together to the new library and got some new library cards, the library world has come a long way since the Dewey Decimal System.
– We walked down to lake on the way home and watched the sun set
– Came home, listened to some tunes, popped in a pizza, played night-night with the bears
– Page asked (what is THIS?) to go to sleep at 6:45 without one whimper or complaint
Ok, so no rad bike rides or world record mountain climbs, but I’ll take today over any day. It was perfect.
PAIFF Update
Friday, February 17th, 2012
Hi Friends & Family!
I am overjoyed by the recent successes of PAIFF. Everyday has seemed like Xmas with all the support from the Palo Alto and film community. Here are a couple highlights:
– We are in talks with Ford who will be ‘owning’ the Festival. They are opening a research center in Palo Alto, its a perfect fit and will bring us in OVER our fundraising goals. YES!
– We have a very dynamic Talk program where we will host 10 conversations between Hollywood celebrities and Silicon Valley tech professionals. Variety, The New York Times Talks, and Fast Company are all signing on a media partners. HUGE win for us! I can’t wait to share the lineup…
– And the best news of all is that we are blessed to have the support of a company called Palantir, they are a Palo Alto company worth loads of money and help the gov’t fight terrorism (or something like that). They have given us the biggest gift all by converting the Varsity Theater BACK into a theater for us to use!!!!!!!!!!! The Varsity was converted into a Borders bookstore in the early 90’s. It is now being restored into a state of the art theater. We will be able to use all year long for our film series, etc. But it will be ready this summer and will be our main PAIFF venue.
Lots more updates to come and I will keep you posted. But today I get to hang with my sweet little girl, time to head to the library for story time!
More fun w/ Tata!
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
I love getting these pics from Natasha, its fun to see what my little girl does during the day while Mama and Dada are busy working. Page is growing so fast!
