Tahoe

I had high hopes for an enjoyable altitude camp at lake tahoe and it has certainly not let me down. Since arriving 3 days ago i have settled into a good routine and certainly happy to have come here for a bit of training. The roads are great and the land scape simply breath taking. As is have eluded to in the past i am fortunate to live in some beautiful places but lake tahoe and the snow capped mountains and pine trees that surround it certainly provide an incredible backdrop for some gentle training rides. On day 1 i reconed stage one with my american team mate ted king. Like any stage with climbs not long enough to scare you but long enough to cause damage if an enthusiastic peleton decides to race up them, it should hopfully be a small bunch sprint with the likes of our peter sagen or the tasmanian from htc matt goss probably fighting out the stage victory. Having said that ted and i did debate how the stage would pan out for the 4hrs it took for us to ride it but certainly aggreed that anything could and most likely will happen.

With a good blow out under my belt the last 2 days have been alot easier as i give my body a chance to recover from the recent race, travel, time zone change and off course adjusting to the altitude. This has meant i have had the opportunity to check out the little town of tahoe and get in the swing of the american way of life. I have chowed down on some great mexican food, namely my burrito last night which weighed about 2kg. I was not your regular burrito as it contained a bowl of rice, half a kg of kidney beans, a giant piece of steak and off course some famous mexican spices. Not many meals slow me down but it took a huge amount of determination to jam this thing down my throat and the only way to feel a little normal again was to force a magnum ego down there also to put out the fire from the mexican herbs and spices. Was certainly a challenge i wont tackle again anytime soon. Aside from this on the food front i have been getting stuck into the french toast with a very very healthy drowning of maple syrip in the mornings for breaky. This is my favourite breaky treat but with maple syrip hard to come by in europe it is only usually an australian treat so great to get a few weeks supply onboard now also. Loaded up from the burrito and breaky i certainly dont think i will be running out of fuel anytime soon out on the bike.

Another great thing about being here is being able to watch american sports. I love how they make such a massive deal out of there national sports. The only difficulty is reading the tv guide to plan my days viewing schedule. America has about 150 different time zones so figuring out when stuff is on is a bit of a lottery but today was great as i saw the pacquio mosley weighin for tomorrows monstor fight, then the lakers maverics in the nba playoffs. The nba is incredible to watch, just how dahm accurate they are, they just never miss, they certainly earn there big pay checks. To top it all off i even got "take out" to watch the game at home in true american style so i think i could get used to being here. Yep i am giving espn a very good workout thats for sure.

Tomorrow i have a very american day planned, with a bit of training in the morning, followed i hope by a hit of golf, dinner at the hard rock cafe where i am told the hamburgers are exceptional so cant wait to test a big one out, and then off to the sports bar in the neighbouring casino to place a few bets and watch the big pacquio mosley super fight. Sure is going to be a jam packed day and i cant wait. All going along nicely here in tahoe

Cjw
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