California Dreamin’

After the Joshua Tree Camp, my wife and kids flew down and we spent the week in Cathedral City. It was a great vacation and we enjoyed a little “down” time together.

The weather was great–in the 70s or 80s each day and the sunshine was strong enough to induce a nice tan even with spf50 sunscreen.
While we had never been there before, the Palm Springs area proved to be a great spring/fall vacation spot. After years of vacationing outside the USA, it was nice to feel like we were at “home”, too.

It was the kids first experience with swimming pools and they spent no less than two hours a day in the water. Lots of jumping in and even a little doggy-paddling!

On Monday and Thursday, I was able to meet with Juerg from FaCT Canada and do their full physio testing. This was definitely a highlight of the trip.

FaCT uses the Fitmate and Physioflow to analyze cardiac and respiratory biomarkers during a cycling performance test. The first test was done when I was relatively fatigued from the previous week at camp and the second after 72 hours of recovery. Hopefully the data will prove effective in future training efforts.

On Friday and Saturday I was able to do two great local rides. The first was a road ride beginning about 30 minutes west on the freeway and up over the San Jacinto through Idyllwild then back to Palm Desert. A beautiful ride through many different lifezones and lots of great climbing/descending.
Saturday I got up early and explored some of the local MTB trails. They are awesome and I look forward to our next trip so I can spend more time checking them out. Springtime was great for wild flowers but not ideal since many trails are closed for “lambing season”. Still lots to ride and the best part is that no car is required to access the trails.

Thanks for tuning in!
VP