San Francisco Day 10 - Wednesday - Muir Beach

I just love how the strawberries grow in the wild.  There is a type of wild lavender as well, at least the leaves smell like lavender.

Fantastic weather, so Erik has gone on another 2 1/2 hour ride with Greg.  I went and explored the Coastal 1 highway and a little of Mt Tam.  Picked up some amazing coloured rocks, one I suspect is copper.

Watched nine hawks spiral together in different layers in the thermals.  Just loving the meadows that are interwoven between the redwood and pine trees.  I guess the deer and rabbits keep the length down.
Erik encountered another bobcat on his bike ride.  Exciting.

Bob cat on the bike trail

We were going to go toy shopping in the afternoon, however Erik needed to rest as he finally managed to finally get a lactate threshold test done. This is basically a fitness test, to see just how hard he can exercise before his body starts generating too much lactic acid. About half an hour on a stationery bike as the resistance went up and up, pushing his heart rate to the max, with lactate measurements taken every four minutes.

The results were fascinating -- Erik can actually exercise much harder than he thought before it becomes unsustainable, though the penalty once he start to push it harder than that is severe. So the trick is to do most of his training at that limit, but not to go beyond it. 

Smilie (who worked with us back in the early 90's and now runs a performance testing lab here in Marin) gave Erik some amazing training ideas to help improve his riding. 

Denise made us Salmon for dinner.  Thank you for being a wonderful host.