As funny as it sounds I am actually sad to be leaving Tucson. I've been here for 15 days, and 14 of them were just beautiful, and one had some snow...I stayed my first few days in a hostel, but once a heroin addict started staying the same room as me and deciding that it would be a good idea to puke everywhere, roll in it and then piss on the other beds I thought it would be a good time to leave and move into a suitable training environment. I found a gracious lady who was willing to put me up. I was so excited I forgot to even ask if she had internet. And most of you know how dependent us cyclists are on inter-webing for a couple weeks of training. So that left my pre and post ride time spent reading, cooking and hanging out with a couple good buddies Boris Martin and Jacob Schwingboth. Boris is down here for 2 months and has a wicked tweaked out VW Golf. So it was a treat when he would be pick me up/drive me home. And sometime we would drive very safely and of course abide by the rules of the law. Who says that when the speed limit is 80 k/ph you can't do that through an intersection while turning??..

So firstly the riding down here is pretty good, not going to rave about it..but you can't beat the consistant sunny skies. I have not been this burnt in a long time, and I have also not had such a sore a** in such a long time, due to the very smooth well paved roads. I have logged some serious miles, as unlike last year I was able to ride long and feel good and strong throughout and after all the rides. Once I got down here I was a little disapointed I didn't decide to bring my mtb, but I think its for the best. I needed to really get some hrs on roadie bike in. I think my best ride was yesterday, I saved Mt Lemmon until my last day. Because no matter how easy you ride up its still dam hard, especially once you hit up around 7,000 ft I could definitely feel that thing they call altitude..I have to say my favourite part of that ride was the absolutely massive chocolate chip cookie at the top. Nothing says burst of energy more than a cookie the size of a dinner plate that is probably somewhere around 600 calories of deliciousness. Here are my meals for my Mt Lemmon day:




And here are some more photos so you can see what I saw!:











And some food of course:

Sun tanning's been going well, trying not to get them cyclist tan lines just yet. Hoping to look like the boys from Jersey Shore by the time I head home. Oh yah and the bike riding has been going well, like 28 degrees the last fews days. Anyway I'd like to share some of the favourite moments of the past few days:

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.


Saw a beauiful redone Model T the other day:

Mr. Cody Canning showing us how its done when your from Alberta:

Enjoying some fine coffee:


Blending in like the part-native I am:

And some of my chefing:

Drunk Heroin addicts in my Room.

So a new guy showed up at the hostel yesterday. some black gangster dude. He was pretty effed up. Introduced himself like 3 times in 10 min to me. Then lastnight he comes in just when I was going to bed, drunk as can be, high on heroin and taking his "recovering heroin medicine" as well. So he went to bed breathing like he was running a 100 M dash. Then he wakes up and starts telling me he was almost shot and stabbed. Then he sleeps again. Then he starts saying I"ll kill you all". Then its quiet again. Then he throws up all over himself, the bed, and the floor. He starts hacking and spitting everywhere. Lucky I am on a top bunch. Downside is I'm the only one in the room and scared to move, so I stay quiet. This bastard of a guy lays down in his puke....totally normal I know. He's still talking jiberish for a while. Then says "get me outta here! don't keep me here!" Then stands up and says "I gotta piss now" and pulls on that junk and pisses all the floor and in some dudes bed. By this point my HR was beating like deer when its running from a cougar. And not the good kind of cougar your thinking of....And all of sudden hes on his hands and knee's walking around the in the piss, I think he might have even been crying..Then gets back into his bed and lays in the puke. I really didn't know what to do at this point. Other than lay their quiet and hopefully he won't know I'm there. When I'm about to fall back asleep he yells "get up, get up you fuck!" so I pretended like I was sleeping and said "yah what huuh?" and hes just said he had a bad dream, and apologized for waking me up. Then introduced himself again and went quiet. So I got up and went out to the manager and said hell no am I sleeping in their tonight. So one of the girls said I could sleep in the ladies dorm with them. So that is my best hostel story of my 20 years on earth so far. This has prompted me to move and rent a room at someones house now.

Now time to enjoy the 20 C weather and ride bicycles.

Last week of below 0 c

Had a my first outside rides in the Okanagan since last November. I have been drinking excellent coffee, having unreal breakfasts and even better dinners this past week. My awesome mother had probably done one of my best dinner weeks of all time.

Gathered all the best clips of 2010, check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8-AeuwKJsI

Food

So food is a topic I like to talk about every once and a while. Its one of my all time super awesome favourite things to do. What about you? Every morning I wake up I think about to what to eat for breakfast and what to take to work for lunch. Then I let me Mom do the even better cooking for dinner. I won't lie, I am a sweetsaholilc. I have been told I should be some counciling or go to therapy. I am expecting an intervention one of these days...And yes I had 6 of these cinnamon buns before 9 am on Christmas morning.


Do you eve have those days where your out doing a long snowshoe or ski and all you can think about is getting back to that warm up and making like the best sandwich ever? Anyway, here's a couple nice little meals I've had the last few days..



I've also found an awesome new beer: Kelowna's very own Tree Brewing Vertical Winter Ale. Which had a nice hint of vanilla. http://treebeer.com/home.php

So last week all the snow was melting, and it finally seemed like it was time to ride the bicycles. But I guess God granted my wish late, and it dumped snow Sunday/Sunday Night. We got another like 8-9 inches. So that meant more snowshoe exploring for this weeks weekday weekend.

So for starters, I work at a XC Ski Hill on Sundays and this past Sunday happend to be the Western Canadian Championships. Caught some good racing while sitting in a chair. The kids would embarrass the hell out of me, so I decided not to ski after work that day.


After work on Sunday, and by work I mean the last hr was doing chores on the snowmobile. Sweet I know, Anyway there was so much snow I couldn't make it up my hill. Attempted it 3 times, my last resort was reversing up, which usually works but not that day.


Monday morning came along and I caught a ride to my car, dug it all out and was ready to go shovel my Grandparents and of course I left my keys at home. Luckily my super wicked awesome neighbor was plowing with his tractor and told me jump on and he would give me a ride to get my keys. So I hitched a ride on my neighbors tractor hitch.