Sunday, 2.19.2006

We woke up the sound of rain outside, and with the weather report claiming a 70% chance of rain all day long, we had to cook up alternate plans. No mountain climbing in the pouring rain!

So we kicked things off by visiting the ADT Velodrome at the Home Depot Center in Pasadena. Man, what a place...first of all the whole Home Depot Center is amazing. There is a David Beckham school of soccer, the LA Galaxy plays here, there are baseball, softball, tennis and track & field facilities. Oh, and the best dang international-caliber indoor velodrome in these here Americas. I think the photo on the outside of the building (above) gives you an idea.

Once inside, we got a free tour of the entire track and training facility by Rich Sawiris of Wheelbuilder.com, who supplies many of the athletes who train here with support and wheel sponsorship. In fact, the 200m pursuit champ from England was in town. This dude puts out a peak wattage of 2400+. They train for 1/2 laps and over-distance work is a whole 400m. I told them we rode 4 hours and he was like "why would you do that to yourselves?" I guess it's all relative...

After the tour, we hit the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center and the gorgeous 50-meter outdoor pool. We hit the water to loosen up from yesterdays 4.5+ hour effort and dialed in a main set of 5x200 with 6 hard strokes at the 50 + 150 meter marks. Great solid main set and just hard enough.

We returned home to get some lunch and talk training strategy for a bit...then it was time to lace up the bike shoes again and get a short riding clinic done. We head out on a local bike path to the Santa Fe dam...the path is about 3 car widths wide and is just over 3 miles long...perfect place to work on aero position, pedalling skills, and drafting. We spend almost 2 hours out working on our technique and terrorizing the other recreational athletes outside enjoying the day! :)

Off to the mountains tomorrow....in the meantime, enjoy the rest of the velodrome photos!

Patrick