The Life of Evan Guthrie: Tucson is like Warm

Well Howdy there,

I've been in Tucson for about 6 days, 22 hours, and 14 minutes so far. And up to this point its been warm, its snowed, I've roomed with drunk heroin addicts, cooked some awesome meals and done a bunch of pedaling in the desert.

My first couple days I decided to live like a cheap cyclist, although I did live cheaply..I also shared a 6-bunk hostel room with some "interesting people". And by people I really only mean one dude. You can read the full story here:http://evanguthrie.blogspot.com/2011/02/drunk-heroin-addicts-in-my-room.html. To sum up quick, I had an experience with a drunk herion addict puking and peeing all over the room. And it was a good thing I had a top bunk, otherwise I would have smelt pretty interesting.

After this incident I decided it was time to relocate. I luckily found an open room to rent in house for the same price as the hostel. Thanks to the one and only Cody Canning, yes he is from Alberrrrta. Luckily right before I left the hostel I spotted a nice bird eating another bird.

Now to the reason I am down here. I decided it might be nice to get out of the cold and snowy Okanagan for a couple weeks and ride my bike, as the season is approaching quickly. And since 98% of my endurance work has been done on the snowshoes I knew it was time to actually ride the bike and why not in the sun. So far everything's been going great, the rides are getting longer and feeling easier. Which is a good thing, because this time last year I was down here training with Mononucleosis, and of course I didn't know. But to ride 4 hrs with 2 hrs of coasting I felt like I had just raced a 24hr solo. So this year things are back on track, and I'm ready to race again all healthy and mentally fresh!

I've had a couple chill coffee rides so far, and we tend to ride over to the University and people watch. We sit on a street corner and do this:

I experienced my first Shoot-Out ride on Saturday. It was hard and it was damm early in the AM. I was on the bicycle at 6 am sharp for my hr commute to the start. Then we proceeded to ride out of town in the Master group, having not done the ride before I didn't know why we were so much faster...Then it hit us. So we stopped and waited for the actual normal ride. I would have rather kept rolling slowly because the "normal group" had Todd Wells in it and oh boy let me tell you, never try and stick his wheel on a long uphill sprint for your "endurance ride". I think I did 1000 watts for 20 sec trying to stick it. Then I quit.. Honestly it was a wicked ride. A bunch of US U23 National Team guys were out for a training ride as well. We finished 140 km by 11 am. Then headed to the University to watch some local crit's.

Oh and by the way, the people down here are interesting. Half of the time I have a Canada vest on, and people keep asking me " Are you from Canada...Eh? haha" Sometimes I reply with no, I just like their clothing.. I've also heard some people down here talk about "ice hockey". Yes "ice hockey", not just "hockey". Had some master guy roll up beside a group of us the other and asked the same "are you from canada" question, but this time we replied with "yes". And he asked "do you kids know the Sedin sisters?" And we were all like said hold on a minute there buddy. But he quickly came back with "do you know what colour skirts they are going to wear for the playoff?" I gotta give it to him, it was somewhat funny.

It actually snowed down here a bit the other night. Just a light dusting. but it was funny how big of a deal it was. Haven't seen a day that nice back home since like Oct.