TEAM CLIF BAR athlete Meredith Kessler is an anomaly in pro sport. Although she is a professional triathlete performing at the highest level, she refuses to sacrifice the important things in life in order to achieve success out on the course. Meredith’s daily training routine is, therefore, a super-focused regimen that fills in the spaces between her full-time job, family life, and other passions and hobbies. This is not to say that she trains lightly. Meredith recently took me through her routine, and trust me – it’s brutal.

Meredith is on the treadmill at 6 a.m. for an hour-long interval session, then in the pool for a good, long swim before heading into her downtown San Francisco office to put in a full day’s work. After work, it’s off to Velo SF to teach an exhaustively long spin class which serves as a warm-up for her regular TRX workout. Only then does she get to head back home for some well-deserved family time. It might seem crazy for a high-caliber athlete to try to maintain this type of balance, but apparently it’s paying off.

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Clif Bar & Company is a supporting sponsor of Teton Gravity Research, and their newest release is—titled Deeper—features the likes of none other than TEAM CLIF BAR riders Jeremy Jones and Forrest Shearer.

If you haven’t heard the buzz or know the back story, you must check out the trailer below. Deeper, “follows Jeremy, Forrest and other top freeriders as they travel to the world’s snowboarding meccas and venture past the boundaries of helicopters, snowmobiles and lifts to explore an untouched realm.” Looks truly spectacular...and utterly insane.

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It takes all the right ingredients to be a successful professional triathlete.

You surely know Chris McCormack. Macca has the ideal mix—a great ambassador for the sport, a terrific accent and one of the world’s best triathletes. But even Chris experiences pre-race jitters and gets a tad nervous in the hours before a race.

Take a special behind-the-scenes look at how TEAM CLIF BAR athlete Chris channels his energy so that he’s ready to rock when the starting gun goes off.

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Last week TEAM CLIF BAR rider Sean Piper sounded off the first three day of RAGBRAI 2010, an annual seven-day ride across Iowa beginning near the western border and ending along the eastern border at the Mississippi River.

As promised, here are the final four days of what proved to be an amazing journey.

Day: 4 – Not all roads are as smooth as the other

On a multi-day ride, you tend to go through a variety of emotions. Today was just one of those days that began on a bumpy road. Sunglasses were misplaced, debit cards disappeared, and saddles unseated themselves during the morning prep. Several cups of coffee later, compliments of our awesome host couple, we had managed to locate most of our AWOL items and some of our sanity, but Aily was still without a place to seat her bike shorts. Luckily, there happened to be a bike shop/farm or a farm/bike shop down the road from our digs. The CLIF Team captain had to peddle standing the entire way, but actually managed to look quite heroic in the process, resembling a cavalry officer of old, leading a final charge on the enemy. The bike shop was small, but well stocked, manned by a bike mechanic nicer than my grandma, and best of all, had the essential part we needed. The bike now repaired, another stop was needed to fix our hunger: Farmboy’s Breakfast Burritos.

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TEAM CLIF BAR had such great success at RAGBRAI in 2009, that we decided to come back to Ragbrai in 2010, bigger and better. If you’re new to RAGBRAI, it’s an annual seven-day ride across Iowa, beginning near Iowa’s western border and ending along the eastern border at the Mississippi River.

One of our TCB riders, Sean Piper, was cool enough to jot down a recount of each day of his seven-day adventure. Below are the first three days, and head back Monday Wednesday for the rest. Enjoy!

Day: 1 – Bring the Noise (on a bike trailer)

I awoke this morning in Sioux City, Iowa bestowed with an unusual sense of energy and fluidity. For today I know, Team Clif Bar begins the great adventure of RAGBRAI: a 442 mile bike trek across the state of Iowa. Upbeat, psyched, excited, geeked was my demeanor at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning, amazingly without a single drop of coffee having yet passed my lips. I felt all this and more as I magnanimously bade farewell to the modern comforts our hotel rooms had afforded us the past evening. “So long Big Fluffy Hotel Bed.” “See ya later Hot & Cold Running Water.” “It’s been real Four Walls and a Dry Roof”.  I am off to discover the great state of Iowa on a bicycle. I suit up in my Clif Bar duds and exit the sliding glass doors with all the swagger of an arctic explorer. Sir Edmund Hillary in spandex. 

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