big day tomorrow

spotty internet so i will keep it brief. we had a great day at USC with a decent turnout to our event. staying with an amazing family in alta dena who treated us to dinner and some ncaa basketball (hilarious to see the dad and kids rooting for different teams). glad to be in the guest house with kem and bobby, two really cool, interesting people. i keep saying it but this trip has been a blast so far and will only get better.

tomorrow we tackle 90ish miles mostly uphill. sorry mountains, you are all mine. ill get some pictures from the top.

more "so-cal"

huntington beach at sunset

laguna beach crew

tire dip

bizarre. if you asked me to predict this situation five years ago, i would have been way off. im sitting here at noory's place in koreatown, LA. he is playing a wii version of duck hunt. it is 2008. what? this was the first day of the ride and since i was in LA, i decided to meet up with the noory song.

let me rewind, so i was on support today and had to wake up extra early to get ready for the day. decided to wake up the group with some old school micheal jackson (support teams get to wake up daily riders). day went pretty well considering it was the first one. we started with the annual rear wheel dip into the pacific with friends and family present (sd pauley's joined as well, minus ali) then with the ride up pch. had to re-route the course at carlsbad because of a 5k. no problems though, break went fine even though four riders continued into camp pendelton. ended up as the "sweep" vehicle and did not have to pick a single rider up. great job riders. 78 miles down.

had a mini-event at laguna beach with the people of the laguna beach community clinic. i ended up giving the r4wh overview lecture which went better than the first time, in my opinion. it was small but still fun to have an interested audience. the clinic was impressive too.

finished the evening with a little mexican celebration across the pier at huntington beach then noory picked me up to hang out for the evening (mom, dad, and bhyia - noory says "hi"). had a bite in west hollywood then came back for some wii. fun day, looking forward to tomorrow.

here we go

i guess people are reading (hopefully enjoying) this blog so i think it will have to stay for the remainder of the trip. thanks by the way, it makes it fun for me too knowing my family and friends are interested. alright, done making chit-chat.

so this is the last day in san diego, it's exciting that we are about to begin our journey, but a bit sad that we have to leave this amazing city. kinda winded things down today, the group went for a short ride while me and a few others stayed back (i had to replace my chain) to finish up some last minute stuff. decided to take one last cruise out on PCH (i can call pacific coast highway "pch" now since i've been on it more than a few times) to enjoy the scenery and the weather. can't say how amazing it is to ride with the breeze and scent of the ocean the whole time. i think being out here makes you realize how long the winters are in the midwest. no complaints though, that is until i see the real winter in chicago.

i think i mentioned this before but i am on support the first day so tomorrow is probably more challenging for us than it will be for the riders. since i won't be riding, ill probably grab my bike for a photo opportunity and a quick wheel dip but then quickly throw it on the rack and get moving. apparently there is a 5k about 15 miles up pch that may force me to re-route the day. we will see, sink or swim, right?

fun day (minus chain)

Rob Pauley of PORK ("dirty and delicious") jammin'
pace-lining - probably should not be taking pictures while on the bike - van drops back after hammering for thirty seconds.
group shot minus a few at the top of Mt. Soledad (sp?) - im fourth from the left with the giant thighs (kidding)

another fun day. started out giving the group our infectious disease lecture. maybe wasn't as prepared as i should have been considering i didn't write the lecture, but i think it went alright. later got free smoothies thanks to lori and later free cali pizza kitchen. honestly not sure what we are going to do once we are traveling. eventually went for a nice climbing ride to mt. soledad near la jolla where it was like 800 plus feet in just over a mile - it was a rough climb but somehow everyone who started the climb finished it. hopefully will be a big confidence booster for some. us crazies (holder, joe, dizzle, van, cory) decided to go down then back up again the opposite side of the mountain which was challenging but the 50 mph downhill more than made up for it. on the way home, i was pushing it a little on a downhill and ripped my chain off the bike. which sucks by the way. so i had to wait for someone to pick me up and carry my chainless beautiful bike back to the JCC. a bit frustrating to say the least.

luckily we had the pauley family block party shortly after so i completely forgot about my chain. pulled in seeing robbie running towards the vans in a green chick-a-sauraus t-shirt (love that shirt, by the way) with a look of joy all over his face. the party was amazing with tasty local amber on tap, delicious food (especially the stew), the planning was amazing (thanks again lara), and it was nice to see Ali playing with the tiny kids and meet her friends and Alex breaking loose to "brickhouse" on the drums. oh yeah, and PORK, they were really, really good. the best part was that the people on the ride seemed totally relaxed, which is always refreshing (i think ive mentioned this, but we really have an awesome group riding with us). all in all a great time for all. i should probably get to bed so i can wake up and figure out how to fix my chain. night.

vishal, the answer to your difficult question is "run's house" or "what is 'run's house'", depending on the game

woops

forgot to blog already. this is for yesterday (thursday)

briefly, awesome day with tire repair, chain/bike cleaning, lessens by van. sliced foot by chris (don't ride bikes barefoot!), flat tire by me and van during ride (ironic, huh?) and another nice weather day in san diego. finished the day at the gupta family's house with a great dinner and a bed to sleep in. really great to see them. and that tan line i spoke of the previous day was a touch of a burn so i used sunscreen and will continue to do so.

for those people that called me - raju mama and lalit - i will try to get back to you soon. the 3 hr time difference still throws me. i should probably stop, i have a lecture to prepare. later.

the tan lines begin...

event day prep take 1 (picture left)

what a day.....(for reference, im just kinda making pertinent points of the day, chronologically - if anyone has any comments about how to make this better, please shoot me an email) alright so (i also like using "so" a lot) i woke up a little early this morning with some homemade espresso that was a huge success - maybe larger than i would have liked. and later was surprised to see a load of einstein bagels/coffee given to us by a friend of the ride. awesome. had two more riders join us, caitlin from _____ who starts an mph/nursing degree program in the fall and ashley from portland (shout out to my boy, b. portland, what?!) who will be training in IM in seattle (i don't know anyone in seattle so no shout outs here) .

had a short meeting about r4wh and it's history and a short review of basic riding techniques and eventually started our long 11 mile journey at about 10 mph to the senior center that Lara runs the activities for in Solona Beach. the event was, in my opinion, very successful. joe, kt, and i spoke about the ride and some of the details surrounding it to about 50 seniors then had lunch with them with a few of us sitting at each table so we could chat a little more personally. not to brag (i am a little narcissistic as you will see if you continue this blog), but i had a former ballet dancer from england (danced in front of the king and queen), a former 5x wimbelton tennis pro, and a female physician from the class of 1951. anyway, it was a ton of fun for all the riders and hopefully the seniors as well.

after the event, we split into two groups based on experience and went on a group ride in the perfect sunny san diego day. ended up splitting from the experience group forming a new group with just nate dizzle, van and i as we got ourselves lost in the hills of sd (which was a blast, finally got to ride at decent speeds) then eventually finding ourselves 10 miles north of where we started. and to tie this to the title, i actually avoided all warnings about sunscreen because i wanted my cycling tan lines to start coming in, and indeed, they have started. came home to free chinese food (sweet) and an excellent lecture by seth on poverty and healthcare.

oh yeah, and blogging reminds me of run's house (one of the better tv shows on now), because rev run blogs on his blackberry in the bathtub - with the exception that i am not famous, don't have a blackberry, and don't take bubble baths, among other more obvious reasons.

day 2ish

i say "ish" because it is the second day in SD, but not necessarily the second day of the ride. today was an exciting day because we finally got to meet some of the people that we've been emailing for months. nate and i picked up bobby (works for a non-profit in atlanta aimed at increasing green space by planting trees) and stephanie (4th year from nymc, headed to colorado for IM, actually met her on an interview at michigan) from the airport and a few others came later - carissa from tufts, jamie from osu, seth from michigan, kem who BIKED HERE FROM PHOENIX (by himself, with his stuff - still shocked about that), and van from loma linda who is staying on for IM.

day was relatively relaxing with a few activities planned. started out with a starbucks coffee first thing in the morning (big surprise, i know, thanks nate) then went for a ride on the pacific coast. ended up going down a big hill mostly around 40mph with the potential of another 10+ mph the next time we hit it. basically rode up and down the coast from la jolla up to the encinitas/carlsburg (sp?) areas. reminded me of ny/nj riding because you constantly see cyclists of all levels. all in all, did about 40 miles at a variable pace since we were all riding together for the first time. oh and that hill that i spoke about earlier, yeah that was a brutal climb that had me at a heart rate of upper 180's just to keep a 12-13mph pace. ended up doing dinner at this happy hr mexican joint with 3.00 big draft beers ("mmm...beer"). heard sd is notorious for mexican, specifically fish tacos (not rubbing it in brother) so should probably check out some of the mom and pops mexican places.