Training Camp Day 4

Vacation will henceforth be referred to as "Training Camp." Camp manager is a drill sergeant. Seemed to make sense to have today be a shorter, flatter ride considering yesterday. 3,900 feet of climbing and 4 hours later, the short/flat ride was over. It was pretty hard to get my heart rate up to where I wanted it to be (low zone 2--that's pretty low), so I tried not to fight for it too much and went off of perceived exertion. Just because HR isn't responding doesn't mean the pace isn't decent.

The ride today involved a large loop that goes near Stanford, it's pretty popular amongst bike riders. I stopped an hour and a half into the ride for an ice cream bar (yeah, it was warm enough and the liquid sugar was needed for the ol' legs). That's when a group ride rolled past that I would have liked to have joined in on. Alas, the ice cream was only half eaten. Everyone else I've seen out on the roads are either individuals or a small group where it's obvious everyone on the ride are friends (vs a bone fide group ride).

At the end of the loop, there was a nice climb called Old La Honda road. I rode this climb with Lana last summer. Fortunately, I didn't remember most of it (possibly due to the fact that I was doing very hard intervals all the way up it last summer) so every twist and turn was a pleasant surprise. Here's the vista from the top, yes, those are clouds below at the top of the picture.After the climb and descending back down to the loop, it was time to be a tourist for awhile. I tooled around an outdoor mall area (Stanford mall?) and then ended up over in Palo Alto. This is a view of the entrace of the Borders bookstore! Cool or what?!

And here's a really big egg made up of stripped circuit boards. See the close-up below the egg. As much as I think circuit boards are cool, I'm not sure this piece spoke to me...at least not like these fish do!

If there's one place I've wanted to visit for years and years, it's IDEO, the company that I consider to be the absolutely coolest one in existence. They are a design firm, and the best of the best. These guys have helped design many of the things in our lives that we may take for granted. Check out their website for a list, it's wild some of the things that are explictly designed not just engineered.

A few IDEO employees visited Denver for a design project a few years ago for some firm that was going to be buiding lofts somewhere (we weren't entitled to the details). It was such an experience to get to talk with them and see how they asked questions to extract info from me and the group of interviewees. (They were already my heros years prior to that interaction.) Anyway, it was pretty darn exciting to be able to stand outside of their door today.

Dinner (a small garlic, basil pizza and a huge salad) was fetched from Trader Joe's (yes, they have lots of them out here!) Hopefully my legs are ready for a group ride tomorrow. I'm ready to log some non-solo miles.