Part II: A Transition and More Fun Than Should Be Allowed

I left ya'll last at the early part of September, where I was settling into a rhythm in Seattle. I continued the trend of fishing and cycling daily. I also began to date a wonderful young lady. This pattern of fishing, cycling, and a great personal life marked a ridiculously fun use of time without a job. I was crazy busy, and it was a blast.

In early September, I did the Mt. Baker hill climb, which ended with me getting caught with ~1.5mi to go in the final 8mi climb. It was great day with a beautiful view at the finish. Rocked out some camping after the race with Allison.

In mid-September I traveled down to the Sacramento area to spend some time with my coach, check out the area for a possible move, get some racing in, and then spend time in the Bay Area for Seth Berling's birthday. The racing was up and down, as I was a little rusty, but it was great to race again one last time before the season closed out. I got some great training in, and did my first performance testing. All-in-all, it was a fantastic week of cycling bidness. Then it was off for a nice little weekend retreat for Dr. Berling's 30th bday. It was also the reunion of Seth and I with our partner in soul, Gavin Grant. The three of us decided to make the 60 or so mile trek to Dillon Beach by bike. We'd meet about a dozen other friends there for a magical weekend of merriment.

After the Cali trip, I rallied back up to Seattle to get back to training before a Deschutes steelhead trip the second week of October. I also did an amazing fishless trip on the Wenatchee river with Allison. At this point, I'd settled into a rhythm with training. I was riding roughly 14-17 hours/week and doing a lot of aerobic base building through endurance and moderate endurance efforts. No real intensity. I got an early start, because I'm so new to the sport and wanted to work my way up to higher mileage come late winter.

The Deschutes trip was absolutely fantastic. Winter steelheading is probably my favorite form a fishing, but there's something so special about the annual week I do on the Deschutes with a rotating cast including: Seth B., Ryan, Parker, Seth D., Jeffrey Hickman, and this year a special time with Mike Duffy.

After the Deschutes trip, I settled back into training. That entailed more base building and working my way up in volume to consistently hitting high teens in hours/week.

At this point, we're in late Oct-early Nov. The next phase involves some amazing non-cycling trips, a move to Cali, and more training!