So 50 days without rain and the driest two years on record have made Northern California a really strange place lately. The weather has been absolutely beautiful with record high temperatures for weeks on end while the rest of the country suffers from a deep freeze. It hasn't done my riding much good, after putting out some really big power numbers around the first of the year I decided to take a full month off from the bike. Work has been really crazy, seven days a week now for a few months so riding wasn't much of an option anyways.
To be truthful I was really just afraid of coming in to the training plan for the
Arizona Trail Race a little hot and blowing myself up before the race, it wouldn't be the first time that had happened. Last years race will always be one to forget. My legs were probably the best they have ever been, but toeing the line only 9 weeks out from major shoulder surgery was just plain dumb, I had no business being there and paid for it with a trip to the hospital to have 100's of cactus needles pulled and surgically removed from my body.
So after months and months of really great weather, my first week of training was met by rain and cold...... lovely. I couldn't much complain, we really need the rain and after training for this race for the past 2 years and over 5 years of the 24 hours in the Old Pueblo before that I should be ready for this winter time training thing.
Last weekend was a doozy, nearly 10 inches of rain fell in a 72 hour period, man it was just like old times here in Foresthill. We average somewhere around 60 inches of rain a year here with some years being above 80 ( the year I built my house...) so that amount of rain in a short period of time is not that unusual.
Monday was a beautiful day so I played a bit of hooky from work, well not really, I just worked till 8 pm in the shop after I got home so I still managed a full workday I guess. I did my favorite post rain ride, Yankee Jims over to Colfax and back. This ride will typically have some stellar waterfalls in a normal rain year and even though we are in the midst of an historic drought, the water was still flowing nicely, not near normal, but still a nice change.
Pictures tell a better story than I can.
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| I had to run down the hill that morn. to meet with a contractor, the ride down Foresthill Road can be stunning some mornings. |
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| Small creek on Yankee Jims. |
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| 60' high waterfall on Yankee Jims |
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| I could of walked across the North Fork of the American River last week.... |
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| Looking the other direction from the bridge over the river, flowing pretty good. |
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| Looking downriver towards Lake Clementine. |
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| Yankee Jims Rd. |
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Yankee Jims Rd.
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