Babes & Beaches

Congrats to everyone who raced last weekend!! While others were tapering and gearing up for their big day, Dave and I were out West checking out some babes and beaches. But the babes we saw were not at the beach.



No, they were out in the desert at TriSports in Tucson, AZ.

As soon as we opened the door, there they were, rows of sleek beauties oozing sexiness in assorted colors, sizes and shapes. Hey, baby, wanna go for a ride? In addition, there were all sorts of other goodies, cute clothes, shoes, wetsuits and even a big Endless Pool to try the wetsuit in. It was tri heaven!

The purpose of our visit, however, was to get fit for new bikes that have not yet been built. They have a special custom bike fitting area with different seats and handle bars you can try with a Serotta Bike Fit System, which can be adjusted and used to fit people of different sizes. Good because Dave and I are pretty much at opposite ends of the size spectrum.

Dave has actually decided to get both a new tri bike and a road bike and needed to get fit for two bikes. Believe me, anything to get him to not work and travel so much is a good thing!

He tried three different seats and decided on the first one for his tri bike and the second one for his road bike, which is actually a woman's seat but his butt likes it. Both of us gave thumbs down on the third leather one. Oweee!

Then it was my turn to get fit for a road bike. I had to have some body measurements taken since we didn't have them on paper with us. There was this one medieval-looking spring loaded inseam measuring device that was not at all pleasant.

After fitting us, Mark, the bike guy (left in the photo), gave Dave (right) and I a no-photos-allowed behind-the-scenes tour of the store. He also gave us a nice goody bag to thank us for dropping a small fortune on the bikes. We'll be back in January for the final fitting and a test ride after our babies are built.

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Then we headed to San Diego or, more accurately, La Jolla. Dave had some meetings to attend and I tagged along too since I knew the area well having attended UCSD for grad school and would not be bored.

We stayed at the Hilton Torrey Pines. Being a Double Black Diamond Super 007 Frequent Hilton Hotel Guest, they gave Dave a really nice suite and said nothing about a woman claiming to be his wife who wanted a second key and free breakfast buffet tickets too. Hmm, maybe I should accompany him on more of his business trips?

We had a great view of Torrey Pines Golf Course with downtown San Diego off in the distance and an ocean view, too, in another direction.

I did some open water swimming down at La Jolla Shores Beach, where I'm more comfortable swimming alone at than La Jolla Cove. I did some laps out and back to a buoy located about 250 yards off shore right in front of the lifeguard station (they use it for their swim test). The water temp was 62 degs but didn't feel cold with the 70-80 deg air temps. When I swam there October 2006 to prepare for Ironman Florida, air temps were in the 50's and I dreaded going in the water (Who am I kidding? I just hated swimming back then, period.)

I also ran at Torrey Pines State Reserve, which was about a mile from the hotel. Having read the off-road adventures of RBR, Jane and Robin recently, I was inspired to give trail running a try. Of course, I tripped on something nearly right away and was promptly reminded to pick up my feet.

I took Broken Hill trail which led to ... guess what?

Down near the ocean, Broken Hill trail met up with Beach Trail and I followed that back up to the bluffs where I started. OK, so it was only a few miles but I didn't roll an ankle, fall (stumbles don't count), get lost, get stung by any bees or step in anything worse than soft sand. Note to self: Do this again soon!

Of course, no trip to San Diego would be complete without a bike ride along the coast. Dave and I rode from the hotel up to Oceanside about 20 miles away a couple times later in the week. I was thrilled to see how much I'd improved as a cyclist since I rode here last back in January 2007 with my travel bike on its first trip. Dare I say I'm starting to like riding hills?

Near the end of each ride, we enjoyed this magnificent view of the Torrey Pines State Beach. Then we had to climb a big hill back to our hotel, which was located behind the trees in the top left of the photo. Chalkings from a recent MS 150 ride were still on the ground to help motivate us. Great way to end a great ride!