Peloton Bike+ →

Finally, after all these years of riding my friend’s and using hotel gyms’ Peloton bikes, I’m pulling the trigger first thing tomorrow morning. So if you didn’t know, this is the new Peloton Bike+. Also, if you wanted a cheaper, less expensive Tread, they also released that.

What’s really cool is that they have a $700 trade-in program and are automatically refunding those who bought the now “regular” Peloton $350 price differnce plus tax. So awesome! And yes, I have have a small investment in stocks and options which are what I’m going to be using to buy this new bike.

A Bike Tour of UCSD Through My Kids Bike Paths →

It was such a beautiful Thursday afternoon, w decided to head to La Jolla and bike around the University of California, San Diego / UCSD. Our kids love their Woom Bikes so much that and couldn't be more proud of their adventurous spirit.

We parked at Revelle College using the ParkMobile App in a (V)isitor spot then made our way towards Atlantis Hall, up by Argo, through Gilbraith (CLICS) down the main path pass "What Hath God Wrought," through the Student Center, passing by Mandeville Auditorium, down the forest and onto Library Walk and Price Center where we had a small picnic.

After we ate a delicious meal from Rubios and dessert from Sprinkles Cupcakes, we headed towards Geisel Library down to Warren but we had to walk up and down the Snake Path. Benji even rode his bike up and down it twice! After a prolonged detour and checking out the Fallen Star / House on top of a building, we made our way to the Engineering / CSE Bear. The kids wanted to climb the bear but we stayed away from that. We then p back to Library Walk, heading west up the CogSci Stairs, which weren't there before, into Marshall towards the Marshall Uppers, all the way across the bridge to Oceanview Terrace. We then took the upper route back to Revelle. All the while, Adelle and I reminiscing about our time on campus over 20 years ago. So much has changed! The kids loved the stories on where we met and wanted to retrace our conversation. Fun times for sure!

Filmed with GoPro Hero 7 Black: https://amzn.to/30Urgqg GoPro Jaws Flex Clamp: https://amzn.to/3kI5Ep3 Edited with iMovie, Thumbnail by Canva, Music by https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music

Mt. Woodson Clockwise Loop →

It's been a month of two since my last ride of just under 20 miles but I decided to tag along an awesome group of experienced riders for a 35 miler that included a 9% grade! Fun times for sure! This is the Mt. Woodson Clockwise Loop filmed via my GoPro on time-lapse on a beautiful August day in San Diego. It was a great ride, but hot dang, 4 hours of sleep, inadequate hydration and nutrients doesn't make for a good end of ride. I did try pickle juice for the first time and I think it helped a lot. Thanks guys for the ride and the support! I definitely want to ride this again but maybe leaving earlier. =)

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/3885651422

Garmin's New Tri Watch

Even with Garmin's latest iteration in their running / triathlon sports watches 935, Apple's Watch keeps on drawing me back in.

Check out Ray Maker's "In-Depth Review". If you ask me, $499 is a little steep. For now, I'll wait for the Apple Watch 3.

JC Trails Upping His Game! →

Check out JC's latest video debuting the 2016 Yeti 4.5c as well and his new GoPro Hero 5 Session paired with the Feiyu Tech FY-WGS-3-Axis-Wearable Gimbal!

Check out JC's Strava Data too!

Halo 2.0

Nows the time to take advantage of the Halo 2.0 with only a few days left is a VERY successful Kickstarter campaign. I wouldn’t be posting this if I didn’t back it!

Goes great on kids too especially around Disneyland at night!

Specifically for my motorcycle friends and enthusiasts, this is a tremendous product!

http://youtu.be/kpYClk58iR0

Bike Lane Nightmares

This is pretty genius in my humble opinion. I know there are bicyclists that obey and disobey the law, but this does prove one very great point; the bike lane isn't always the safest place to ride your bike. Watch the guy film himself versus the various threats and hazards that lie within riding in a bicycle lane. Watch it until the end. http://youtu.be/bzE-IMaegzQ

Motivation: Pushing Limits

Thought you had some amazing goals for 2012? Think again. Next year, James Ketchell will set out to do what no one has done; row across the Atlantic, climb Mt. Everest then cycle around the world. He's already done the first two tasks although in different years and while completing all these feats in a year is timely possible, I'm excited to track his progress. Check out his awesome video, following him on twitter, @CaptainKetch and track his story via his website, jamesketchell.net.

Pushing Limits from Tim Juby on Vimeo.

Hilton Motivation

The first day of my trip consisted of three legs starting at 9am ending at 4pm in Oklahoma City where I ended up "napping" till 12 midnight.  Call it the case of the Mondays where I have commute to work and am just all funked up for a little while.  Napping doesn't help either but it feels so good!  The gym at the Wyndham Garden isn't that great and I just choose to fill up on water instead of eating dinner.  I know it's bad but I ran a 5k the day before, hardly got some sleep and need to catch up on it.  I paid for it dearly when trying to go back to bed for the early 4am wake up call. The next morning consisted of only two flights (OKC-DTW-YYZ) and when I got to the Downtown Toronto Hilton, I found the energy in me and hit up the gym on Day 2 of the 3 day trip.  The session was set for a brick and I successfully completed an "easy" 1.5 hours!  Admittedly, the Downtown Toronto Hilton houses the best fitness center in our hotel system and this makes working out that much easier and more enjoyable.  The swimming pool was closed for renovations, but the gym was clean and ready to be used!  Hopping up on the bicycling machine for an hour, I ended up next to a woman who was running on the neighboring treadmill at a 10:00 min/mile pace.  She was 2/3s into her hour of running when I started beside her.  At the end of her hour, she took a break and surprisingly jumped back ont the treadmill for another hour!!!  I think she was gunning for a half marathon distance but that was just awesome.  That gave me motivation to up my effort level a notch.  I found myself yawning here and there as I was still a little exhausted from the lack of sleep but I had the Patriots at Bills game to keep my attention.

I struggled a bit in the beginning but as I pedaled along and found my groove.  I even hammered away hitting and sustaining 24mph for 1 minute intervals every 10 minutes.  My calves are still sore and now quads and hamstrings are too.  At about the 30 minute mark, I accidentally hit the reset button so I just guessed and added another 35 minutes for what I would know would be more than an hour.  The entire time I was sustaining a 75-80 rpm cadence as well an average speed of 15.0 mph.  All in all, it was a good ride.

By the end of that hour, I was soaked and dripping.  I got off the bike, cleaned and anti-bacteria-sprayed it down, drank a cup of water then immediately hopped on the treadmill.  I was thinking that I I could go for an hour but my calves weren't going to let me.  I could feel a light cramp creeping in my right calf so I just eased on at 6.0 and then back down at 4.5 when I would feel it coming right back.  I was able to finish 3.31 miles at 35:00 minutes with some light intervals. The last quarter mile I ran at 8.0 and got my HR to 174 bpm. Good stuff all around.

The crew met up for dinner and I enjoyed a good Salmon + Jasmine Rice Dinner paired with a side Caesar at Jack Astor's. Instead of alcohol, I found myself ordering water.  I was thinking of grabbing a Canadian beer and catch the rest of the Chiefs at Chargers game but I just wanted to feel good about my workout.

Of course, today's already been filled with long flights; YYZ-DTW-MTY-ATL where the last two legs blocked in at over 6 hours!  Now heading back home to San Diego on another 4.5 hr flight where right before boarding, I was running from E35, through customs, through security and all the way to gate B36!  Gotta love the commute!  Swimming tomorrow and apparently some hot yoga at Core Power?!  I still have to find a Master's class or a group of sorts to help me out with my swim techniques.  Any ideas?  My schedule sucks so I can't dedicate myself to any set class schedule so unfortunately that's out of the options. I'll have more this week!

Amazon's Kindle Fire Android Tablet Unveiling is this Wednesday!

Here's a picture of my "Atlanta Airport" Mile.  I didn't run from E - B but the total .50 miles of running was at almost max speed while pulling my rollerboard, flight kit and laptop bag!  I was perspiring like crazy when I got a seat in the back of the flight and as I finish this post, I'm just not feeling cooler.

Training since Last Week

If you haven't followed me in the last week or so on foursquare or twitter or on my Garmin Connect Profile, you can see that I've been busy traveling (working) everywhere and working out very lightly, if anything. It's hard to recover from a 55 mile bike ride then hop on the red eye back to work. Last Sunday, I was mostly mush and tried to run a little on Monday (.87 miles back and forth to the Crystal City Mall in Washington DC) but found out I was still sore so that was a no go. My true intentions were to pick up some daily vitamins from the GNC shop since I left everything back at home. <-- #FAIL

Here is Garmin profile of my ~55 mile ride that I did last Saturday with Trek San Diego. I rode with group B2 but then fell back to B3 then fell somewhere between the groups and ended up finishing on my own. It was a little rainy and I like to think that I performed well during some parts, but once again, near the end, I was faltering a bit and ended up resting too many times.

Ride w/ me this Saturday!

I was thinking of making this an awesome type ride where if you beat me, I have to buy you lunch, but I'm thinking that it might get a bit costly. So instead, I'll buy a round of beers if you come out and ride! My plans for this week are to get re-fitted on my bicycle, and get a quick tuneup (it's been about two years for a professional tune). During the Week 6 ride, I didn't feel that good in terms of positioning on my bike and even had to stop and raise my seat a couple of times. Definitely frustrating. The ride this Saturday is Week 08 of the Spring 2011 San Diego Century Training series sponsored by Trek San Diego and will once again start out at Peet's Coffee in Torrey Highlands. This is a 55 mile ride slated to ride past Top Gun/Mission Valley and include the La Jolla Loop. It's going to be a great morning with temperatures in the low 60s with a slight chance of rain but I'll be crossing my fingers. I'm hoping that the forecast improves but that it doesn't get too hot. Last ride, I ran out of water at 10 miles to go and my Garmin Edge 500 said that it got to around 89.5F!

The full details of the ride can be found here. I'd love to see you out there w/ me and a few of my other friends. And hey, while you are at it, check out my Tour de Cure fundraiser page and support me in my ride. Just head over to http://main.diabetes.org/goto/elijah. Any donation would be awesome!

Trek San Diego Century Training Week 6

I started receiving emails about Trek San Diego's weekly rides but it wasn't until today that I was able to finally participate and ride with the gang. This ride was setup as Trek San Diego's Century Training Week 6 // 45 miles. I invited a few people but when it came down to the final start, it was Matt Krawczak and Brian Dudley that showed up. Granted it was an early 7:30AM start but it was all worth it. I went to sleep a late last night clocking in only 5 hours of sleep, which on a scale of 1-10, only ranked about a 6. Maybe it was the anticipation of the ride or maybe the fact that I ate an entire California Burrito at 12:30am which served as my carb loading.

I woke up at 5:30am without an alarm and couldn't get back to sleep so I just gathered my things, drank some juices, ate a Fiber One bar and headed out. I still felt full but excited and when I arrived at the parking lot, it only got more more energized.

Starting out the ride, we kept a casual pace saving the energy for the climbs that were along our route. An easy pace throughout until we got to those hills. If you click on the map below, you'll be able to to go through the entire route along with my speed, elevation, heart rate and cadence charts along with a temperature chart. I'll rate this ride also a 6 out of 10. I haven't ridden in such a long time and I've been only targeting 1-1.5 hrs so this was a challenge. Good company all around made it a great ride followed by some burger goodness at Islands!

There are more rides coming up so check out the schedule and don't forget, this training is all for my goal of riding the Tour de Cure Century this upcoming May 7th. Support me by donating anything from $1.00 to whatever you can to help and find a cure for diabetes. Click here to reach my Tour de Cure page.

My Tour de Cure Page

If you haven't already clicked on the link leading you to my Tour de Cure Page, I thought that I would also put it here on elijahnicolas.com.  Here it is! Growing up and why I ride

Accompanying my grandmother to multiple eye exams, ultimately an eye transplant and seeing her struggle with the pains in her feet was all part of my growing up.  I would massage her after a long walk around the block, up hill to the local 7-11 then back and just always thought it was normal that she would ache.  I didn't understand until my middle school years that my grandmother was actually suffering from diabetes.  Her kidneys started to fail thus her start on dialysis when I was in middle school.  It always left her too weak to do our walks and I hated seeing her get back from the treatment but it was necessary.

We moved her to the downstairs bedroom so that she wouldn't have to climb stairs anymore and I got use to checking her glucose every morning before leaving for school.  All part of a normal morning of a twelve year old right?  I remember some mornings when she would start acting loopy, which I got use to knowing it meant it she was low on sugar.  So, I would rush to take her glucose reading, which sometimes fell to the 20s, to where I would begin to force feed her mini Snickers and orange juice and sometimes we had to call 911.  It was tough and she passed on strong, quiet and ever so thoughtful in November of '95.

Seeing her struggle with the disease made me more conscious of how detrimental it could be to not only the individual suffering through it but the family surrounding the person.  It is why I chose to support this cause.  I just so happen to also be of Filipino / Asian descent which increases my chances of living the same plight.  So I ask of you...

Please Support Me in Tour de Cure!

I will be cycling in the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure fundraising event this year and you can support me with a donation by selecting the "Click Here to Sponsor Me" link. No matter how small or large, your generous gift will help improve the lives of more than 23.6 million Americans who suffer from diabetes, in the hope that future generations can live in a world without this disease. Our efforts will help set the pace in the fight against diabetes. So let's get in gear and ride to beat diabetes!

Thank you for making a generous contribution to this cause that is so important to me!  This ride is for you Grandma Meli! Love, JJ

About Diabetes

Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy needed for daily life. The cause of diabetes continues to be a mystery, although both genetics and environmental factors appear to play roles. There are 23.6 million Americans living with diabetes, a disease that is outpacing heart disease, cancer and AIDS. Diabetes is a disease that has deadly serious consequences, and there is no cure.