July training and racing

Back from our long trip to Wisconsin to visit family and race the 2011 Tour of America’s Dairyland, we have settled into a really nice routine back here in Birmingham. In the mornings, Kristine goes for a run while I am still waking up and feeding the kids breakfast watching the live coverage of the Tour de France. Then when Kristine gets back from running, I usually go for a 2-4 hour ride to finish in time to watch the second replay coverage on versus of the day’s Tour de France stage in about the same spot where I left off the morning live coverage.

On today’s ride, I set two new KOMs (fastest lap in my neighborhood plus the Verdure climb). Check out the map with annotated gradients on the elevation profile. Also, I named a loop on the ride after “Tornado” Tom Boonen who had to abandon today’s tour stage because of injuries sustained in a wreck two days ago. Also, I named one of the sections after Bradley Wiggins, who broke his collar bone in today’s stage.

Annotated map of a Hoover climbing route

Then, in the afternoon, I sometimes go for another ride – e.g., yesterday’s Twitter ride with Jamie Butler.

Twitter ride with Jamie Butler – lots of climbing!

Ok, enough procrastinating, back to work! Almost forgot, two upcoming races I am really looking forward to:

July 15-17 – Huntsville racing
July 20-24 – Georgia cycling gran prix
July 30 – (hopefully) Presbyterian Invitational