Chilly Cheeks Duathlon #3 - Race Review

AKA "why am I racing in the winter?"
AAKA "my run training plan is to only run during races.  Maybe this isn't the best plan...."

This was the third and final installment of this duathlon series.  I signed up for this series for a few reasons:  

1. to keep me a bit sharp (maybe not as dull would be more appropriate) and to ensure that I rode/ran at least once a month during the winter.
2. I got free sweat pants that say Chilly Cheeks.  The sweat pants are ok, but they'd be even more awesome if the race name was on my ass instead of down my leg.

And the race series did fulfill both of these reasons.  Was it fun? eh.  I suspect it would have been WAY more fun if I knew people who were also racing.  For some reason, most people in my club did the running distance series.  I had no interest in training for 10 mile runs this winter, so I did this instead.  And I have lost all my running base, so perhaps this wasn't the smartest decision.

The premise of the race is that it will be held, snow or shine.  Saturday, we had both.  We had a "suprise!" snowstorm on Thursday.  Weather forecasters said a "dusting" and we had ~8 inches or something ridiculous.  Then Friday was sunny and warm, but not warm enough to melt all of the snow.

Per the pre-race safety meeting, the bike course was clear, except for a tiny (and avoidable) patch of ice at the turn around.  If you were paying attention, the ice should be easy to miss.  The run course was "3 inches of fluff"  and a small frozen "lake" for the trail portion and clear on the road portion.  And the sidewalk going from the bike dismount line to transition was snowy too.


I dismounted on the clear and dry street and walked my bike through this.  No way was I going to ride.

 I set up in transition. It took me a bit to get orientated, as it seemed illogical that the RD would have us bring our bikes along a snowy sidewalk into T1.  I set up where I thought was a good spot (and DRY) for easy racking in T1 only to realize that I was at the Run Out entrance.  Not so convenient.  So I moved next to an aisle spot close to the snowy sidewalk.  Very convenient.  And also very snowpacked.


Buzz isn't so sure about this snow stuff....

 I set up transition like normal.  Small towel as the base, then shoes, gloves, water bottle, etc.  It did not occur to me that it would be above freezing and sunny.... and that nice snowy base would turn to slush.  Making all of my dry gear wet and cold. Awesome.

This race was a 10.8 mile out and back bike and a 4 mile run.  There were ~200 participants, and they started us off in waves of 10 people, 1 minute apart.  As karmic payback for last month's first wave, I was in wave V.  Start time was 10:00... my wave was at 10:21.  Super!

Notice the aero helmet and the mountain bike...... Yeah, I don't know either.

Bike
The bike wasn't anything exciting.  Legs felt ok, although I had to granny gear it up some hills.  (I don't know if that was me being out of shape or what).  It was pretty windy, so that made things a bit interesting.  The race was held at a state park, and there were signs all over the place making it very clear that there was a bike race in progress.  Well, after I went past the east entrance road, some d'bag woman in a pickup truck decided to yell "get in the bike lane" at all of us, individually, as they passed us.  I wonder if she finally figured out what was going on as they drove past a pack of cyclists that were ahead of me.  She had plenty of room and hello, its a state park with tons of runners and cyclists.  Clearly, she had anger managment issues.  I did see where they parked - by an RV.  Not sure who RV camps in February, but the whole thing was very random. 

The park is ok, but the back half of the road has these very annoying asphalt patches that go across the entire road (and bike lane) every 3 feet, essentially creating a tiny speed bump.  Its annoying.  And gets really irritating as you are jarred every 10 seconds or so.

The turn around was a non-event, the ice was easy to spot.  And the whole bike was pretty much a non-event. 

Bike time: 39:34 / 16.2 mph
142/202 OA, 20/29 AG

Transition
I clipped out early (on the street) as there was no way I was riding my bike on the snowy slushy sidewalk.  The girl in front of me (walking her bike) nearly fell, as her bike got caught in a slush-rut and decided to go its own way.

I was pretty cold at the start of the race.  I had on black tri shorts, black running tights, my favorite light, long-sleeved shirt, my Zoot windproof jacket, and my full cycling gloves.  I got warm towards the end of the bike, so I chose to ditch the gloves and jacket for the run.  I didn't want to just chuck my stuff in the slush, so I probably took a bit too much time hanging my jacket up.

T1 time: 3:53

Run
Lucky me, the start of the run was all uphill.  And as an added bonus, the first 2+ miles were on the trail, which had 3 inches of "fluffy" snow.  Funny thing happens when you're in one of the last waves and ~180 people are ahead of you.  Fluffy snow turns into slush.  Lots of it.  The run was a mess.  And I am in a serious run-training hole.  I couldn't even go 1/3 of a mile (uphill) before my HR blew up and I walked.  Sad.  And pathetic.  But I had a feeling this would happen and never had an intent of being competitive in this race, so I just took it easy.  I was crusing along and ran past some non-racing runners and I heard "Hey, is that Erin?!?!"  Turns out it was this girl I had met during the Denver RnR half marathon who is doing IMTX this May.  Random!  She and a friend were doing a 16 mile training run.  Even funnier, she intended on emailing me this week for IMTX advice.  I ran with them for ~1 mile, which helped to pass the time.  I basically gave her the same advice that her friend was giving (friend: SEE, you should listen to us!").  I also told her about the Pacu fish that someone caught in Lake Woodlands about a month before IMTX, likely giving her fodder for nightmares for the next few months.  Whee!  We parted ways and I was by myself in the slush.  Boo.  I came across a girl who was walking and said something encouraging to her.  She was young and didn't seem to be having a great time.  She managed to hang with me while I ran and chatted my ear off.  Turns out she was in 8th grade. Sigh. (I did hear her parents say at the finish line that she sped up, so I'm taking credit for that).  The rest of the run was on pavement.  My feet were wet but the rest of me was hot.  I debated stopping to put a fistful of snow down my shirt but didn't feel like stopping.  The finish was mostly uphill, but I toughed it out and ran the last mile.  Or did something loosely resembling running.  (getting back into running shape is going to suck).  And then the very non-exciting finish line. 

Run time: 49:45 / 12:27 pace (wah-wah)
171/202 OA, 27/29 AG

Post-Race
Nothing too exciting, mainly because I didn't know anyone.  Got some snacks (homemade banana choc chip bread for Will) and got my stuff.  Which was now soggy because all the snow had melted.  Learned a lesson that I need to bring plastic bags with me for snowy races, as my race gear... and also the bottom of my transition bag, including the things inside the bag, were wet and cold.

Turns out towels get wet when the snow melts... and the rest of your stuff gets wet too!

Overall stats:
Time: 1:33:32
162/202 OA
24/29 AG

Team Sun-Rype

I'm sponsored!!  Again!!

Yesterday, I recieved a very happy email about my being accepted to Team Sun-Rype.  Woot!  This marks my third team in 3 years through Active Ambassadors. 2010 was with Team Jamba Juice and 2011 was with Team Sony Walkman.  Sony ended in January.  Normally the Active teams want fairly competitve people.  I am not one of those people.  At least in the traditional sense (I'm not fast).  I always put on my applications something like "I'm not fast, but I like to have fun".  Most of the time, it doesn't work.  Occasionally, it does (or, most likely in the case for Sony, all of the top athletes were already matched with teams, so the pickings were slim).

Sun-Rype was the first ambassadorship that opened up in 2012 and I did not have high hopes, because usually, the early teams go towards podium-type athletes.  I felt that this team was a good match for me, though, as their product is 100% fruit.  Since switching to paleo, I'm really trying to cut out fake food, and thought this sponsorship would be a good one.  I mean, who wants to be promoting a product that you don't like or can't eat?  Not me!  Sun-Rype must have thought I was a good match, as they invited me onto their team.  I looked at the athlete contract - its through Dec 31, 2012.  A full YEAR!  I was going to buy an Altitude Multisport tri kit this year (since I am on the Board of Directors), but it seems like I will be wearing a sponsor kit instead.  Hopefully its nice and colorful (instead of grey... *ahem* sony *cough*)  (and, I do still intend to be on Team Beef for Boise.  Really, I just want a tri top that says "BEEF" on it).

Not quite sure what sort of promo materials I will get.  I'm assuming I'll be getting some tasty fruit snacks to hand out :)  The athlete meeting is next week and I'm super excited to learn about my new team for 2012.

Paleo Diet Update

I started eating Paleo/Primal/Caveman/Clean/[whatever label you want to stick] since the week of Christmas. Not one of my better ideas. But I survived. I started eating this way for a few reasons:

1. My metabolism hates me. Even with meds for my thyroid and insulin sensitivity, I can’t lose weight. I’ve had doctors tell me to workout more (?!?!) and when I tell them my workout schedule their eyebrows go way up. And then they tell me to eat less.  Helpful.  My metabolism is broken. I only lost 5 lbs during my IMTX training (ironically in the last month of training) and my clothes really didn’t fit all that much differently.
2. I already know that soy and beans to not agree with me. Beans = feeling like I have food poisoning. Soy really screwed up my hormones. Do you know how hard it is to stay away from soy? It's in EVERYTHING!
3. I went to a triathlon seminar a while back where the speaker was a dietician talking about nutritional periodization. A lot of what she said really rang true to me. Eat real foods. Limit grains during the build portion of your training. Train your body to burn fat.
4. I’ve had some good friends switch to eating this way with really good results.
5. With my hypoglycemia, I eat fairly low carb already and try to avoid sugars. This really seemed like a natural progression in my eating habits.

For those who don’t know, the paleo diet means no grains (including legumes), no processed food, minimal sugar, no (or some) dairy. Lots of meat, lots of fruit, lots of nuts, lots of veggies. Also: lots of cooking. I’m cooking a lot more than I used to.

So its been nearly 2 months. I really didn’t notice that much of a difference. I had some energy lags during workouts that are pretty common initially. I have maybe lost a bit of weight, but I’m not sure. I really wasn’t sure that eating this way was benefiting me much. Until we were in Idaho last week for my father-in-law’s funeral. Saturday, I had bread/pasta with EVERY meal. Sunday, my gut felt awful. REALLY awful. I had some sort of grain every day for 5 days. And my poor gut felt it. Bloated, cramping, overall feeling icky.

Those 5 days pretty much told me that I really do not need to eat grains.

So, what do I eat in a typical day?

Breakfast – apple with almond butter. Peanuts = legume, and are therefore off the list. I like Justin’s Nut Butter in maple almond, but I could make my own just as easy (and probably cheaper).

Lunch – mixed greens, meat (usually chopped up lunchmeat), hard boiled eggs, olive oil. Vinegar is iffy (depending on which paleo website you read). I didn’t believe it, until I put vinegar on my salad and felt awful 2 hrs later. So, my “salad dressing” is olive oil and maybe a squeeze of lemon. This lunch is easy and I can bring my own from home or hit the salad bar at work.

Snack – 2 clementines (I love Cuties!) and mixed nuts.

Dinner – meat and veggies of some sort.

Dessert – dark chocolate. Right now I have dark choc covered almonds which are way too good and they need to go away. Alternately, I’ll cook a fruit crisp with some sort of fruit, honey, coconut and a crumb topping with coconut flour or almond flour.

What are the challenges?

In the beginning, I struggled most with breakfast. I am NOT a breakfast person. Very few things sound good early in the morning, and still, sometimes I’m almost gagging as I eat. Also, I’m not much for savory foods in the morning. At first, I was eating a few hard boiled eggs, a Clementine, and some sausage for breakfast. But the eggs were hard to get down, were a pain to peel, and got really, really old really, really quick. Then I tried to make mini-egg “muffins” – egg, sausage, veggies, sweet potato. Did not like those at all. Then some blueberry muffins with coconut flower, which were just ok but left me wanting real muffins. Finally settled on the apple/almond butter combo. Its easy to bring to work, I don’t have to make anything, and really, I could eat this about every day. For now, at least. Weekends I’ll play a bit, making paleo pancakes, omelets, etc.

I’m trying to limit my carb sources. Cutting out bread isn’t that hard (as long as it's not in the house. You can’t eat it if its not there!). I miss noodles. I will have rice noodles occasionally (paleo websites say that if you have to eat a grain, rice is the best choice). I did find some crazy-good red yams at the grocery store. I do oven “fries” with them. Slice into wedges, douse in olive oil, sprinkle on some Hawaiian red salt, bake until done. TASTY. Again, I could eat these every day (but really, I shouldn’t). I also try to be creative with food. A good example is fajitas with guac. I’ll buy tortillas and chips for Will, but I forgo the tortilla and use red pepper and carrot sticks instead of tortilla chips as my guac delivery device.

Most paleo says you should give up all dairy in the beginning and introduce it slowly. I can eliminate all dairy except for my half and half in my coffee. I tried the coconut creamer stuff. It was nasty. I really don’t think that my splash of creamer will destroy my efforts. Also: a bit of feta in my salad or in my burger/meatloaf is tasty. And if you wonder, why give up dairy? Just do a bit of reading on modern dairy practices and all the nasties that go into milk. You’ll be giving it up. Really, milk is nasty.

Eating out, eating while traveling, eating with family is HARD. Eating out isn’t so bad as long as I pick the appropriate restaurant (ie Italian = fail) and make smart choices. Eating while on the road is impossible. Qdoba bowls (without rice) are about the closest thing to paleo as I could find. However, good luck finding Qdoba while driving from Denver to Idaho. Also: Qdoba bowls are impossible to eat while driving. So are salads. So, nasty fast food burgers or chicken sandwiches or whatever was at the highway exit was what we ate. Ugh. And finally, explaining my crazy eating habits to Will’s family is impossible. Especially when the person cooking dinner (who is AWESOME and I love) decided to give up any meat which the family did not raise (they’re ranchers), and dinner is a vegetarian stroganoff with pasta and bread. You should have seen the raised eyebrows at breakfast when I turned down toast. Essentially, its “eat what is placed in front of you or go hungry”. Basically, paleo is easy to do when you can plan, but its really hard to do on the fly.

Beer, technically, should be on the “food to avoid” list. But I love beer. So, for now, I drink beer guilt free.

 Tasty dinners I’ve made:

 It helps that I’ve had access to kick-ass meat, thanks to beef from Will’s family and meat from my CSA.

Grass-fed Idaho pot roast. Brown the roast in a pan. Put in a crockpot with onions, shrooms, and carrots. Add in half a can of tomato sauce (no sugar), some wine, and some salt. Cook for 10 hrs on low. Boil up some potatoes and serve as a side dish.

Sausage and sauerkraut. My favorite little grocery store has chicken sausage in all varieties for $2.99/lb. CHEAP. And they’re made with real ingredients, no crappy filler. Back in December, I didn’t know what to do with my 4 heads of CSA cabbage, so I turned them into sauerkraut. It was a bit scary (open air fermentation and the only thing I sterilized were the glass jars). But it turned out TASTY. Just put some sausages in a pan, add in kraut and maybe a little beer, then simmer on the stove for ~30 to 60 min. YUM.

Miscellaneous ground beef stir fry. I got a bunch of gluten-free asian sauces. Basically, sauté your veggies and set them aside. Sauté your grass-fed ground beef (or stew meat). Add veggies. Then add your sauce. Could be salsa, could be a tomato based sauce, or it could be some sort of curry. What you will end up with is something tasty (mainly because grass-fed beef is TASTY) and easy.

Will on a board

This winter, I've asked Will to really, truly, give snowboarding a try.  In years past, we would only have one day per year on the mountain.  He would take a lesson (sometimes) and generally be frustrated by his lack of progress.  Understandable.  So this year, I've asked Will to really give it a chance.  I bought a 4-pack of lessons and have a handful of lift tickets.  We went at Christmas (lesson) and he was placed in the next level up from "clueless" (which was the group I was in).  His instructor said he was ready to move up another level by the end of the day.  Two weeks ago we went with a group of people and he got tips from my friend who boards.  My friend said that Will looked pretty good, he just needed practice to get confidence.

I have 2 Copper pre-paid tickets and 2 more lessons at Winter Park.  Lucky for Will, that means another 4 chances at boarding.  Saturday was looking like a beautiful day, so I kind of twisted his arm and we headed up to Copper.

I felt that, if we got him on some blues that weren't too long, he could get some speed and really have a chance to figure things out. The area off the Timberline Lift was perfect for that.  Nice blues, long enough to practice on, but not so long that you get totally tired at the end and die.

How could you not LOVE skiing with views like this?!?!

We started the day in West Village, took the Union Creek lift up and did a warm-up on a green run.  He was all sorts of fail on that green run.  It really made me nervous for the rest of the day.  I also felt really bad for him, he was struggling and I don't have the slighest idea on how to help.  On the lift back up, I asked him to think back to his lesson in December, to focus on the steps and to not get overwhelmed.  We took a green run that connects over to Timberline.  He looked better, but not great.  I asked Will if he wanted to try a blue or stick with greens.  He said blue.  So we went down Copperfield, which as I remembered from my powder day last month, had potential to be fun.  Suprisingly, Will did much better.  There were still a few wrecks, but he was a bit more relaxed and was turning.  I managed to find a bunch of tree trails and jumps, so I'd go off and play for a bit, and pop out every once in a while to make sure Will was ok.  We did this run another couple of times and realized it was noon.  Time for lunch!  Rather than heading back down to the base, we ate at the cute little grill next to the lift (mid-mountain).  I really love this place, especially when its sunny.  Today it was SUPER sunny and temps were in the mid-30's.  Perfect for eating outside on the deck, soaking up sunshine.  Eating outside on a sunny ski day is about one of my favorite things to do in life.

its documented - he was smiling while on the hill!  (during lunch....)

After lunch, we headed back up the lift and did a different run which had a steeper pitch at the start of the run.  That went really well - he was getting the hang of turning on both edges and was a bit more relaxed.  He also skidded down the steep pitch because it was scary, which meant that we had to do it again.    That time wasn't so good, as Will twisted his knee somehow.  And he was getting tired.  We agreed that this was the last run (besides the one to get to the base).  Will was nice enough to hang out on the deck by the lift while I did a couple of quick bomber runs.  I felt the need for speed!

And I almost manage to jack up my left knee on the first speedy run.  Flying over an unfamiliar hill (which small semi-moguls and crud) may not have been the smartest decision.  Fortunately, the knee is completely ok today.

After two bomber runs (I was so fast, Will thought I had only done one!) we took the green run down to the base.  The cool part was that the green run was the VERY same green run we did at the start of the day.  And Will managed to go down it without wrecking.  Woot!

We wrapped up at 2:30, headed back to Denver by 3.  Traffic is usually very crappy on the way back in, but suprisingly, we made it back home in 1.5 hrs.  Cool.

Will wasn't "I LOVE SNOWBOARDING" this day.  But I was really happy to see improvement and progression.  Next time, we'll hit WP so he can get a lesson.  He needs an intermediate lesson so he can figure out how to be comfortable going faster and when doing steeper stuff.

only good things from here on out

I am tired of my life resembling a sine curve.

what's a sine curve, you ask?

Two weeks ago, we had a Superbowl Weekend Ski Extravaganza.  Will, myself, Will's sister Amy, Will's cousin Chase, and our friend Deanna had planned a weekend get-away.  We rented a house with a hot tub, pool table, and 42-inch tv for the weekend and I had procured cheap lift tickets to Copper Mountain and Winter Park.  FUN.

Mother nature tried to foil our plans with SNOWPOCALYPSE.  Chase's original flight was cancelled due to snow.  Then his late flight was delayed because Micron's CEO crashed is airplane at the airport he was leaving from.  Deanna had a stressful drive down from Boulder with snowy roads and I-25 closing down due to a wreck.  But once we got people in our house, life was good.  Saturday morning, Chase, Deanna and I took off for Copper Mountain.  Will stayed behind to pick Amy up from the airport and then head up to the rental house.

Skiing was EPIC.  The snow wasn't that great, but we had great fun.  We closed the lifts down and headed to Tabernash and the rental house.  Good dinner, fun conversation, a soak in the hot tub, and a roll in the snow.  Although, I managed to cut my big toe open on something in the snow.  Thank goodness I have thick calluses, as it didn't cut too deep. 

Sunday was Winter Park with the whole gang.  Amy hasn't skied in 13 years, Will is still pretty new on his snowboard, and Deanna brought her skis along (this is her first year skiing).  We went as a group, hanging pretty much on a green run.  I got a bit bored and taught myself how to ski backwards.  I got pretty good and was actually skiing backwards faster than some were skiing forwards.  It was a beautiful sunny day and everyone had a blast.  We came home to an amazing beef roast (crock pot) from Chase's family ranch and ate yummy food and watched the Superbowl. Tried to soak in the hot tub, but the breaker tripped overnight (and Will couldn't get it to reset until morning), so it was a bit chilly.  And then the breaker tripped again and wouldn't reset.  So, we decided that was a sign and went inside.  Chase and Deanna started some sort of flirty thing, which was cute and really sweet (and I'd be lying if I didn't say that it wasn't REALLY entertaining, but in a good way). 

Monday, Chase, Deanna, and I went over to Mary Jane to ski some hard stuff for a while.  Will and Amy hung back and we had arranged to meet them for lunch in Idaho Springs.  Again, skiing was EPIC.  Trees and bumps.  And tired legs from 3 days of skiing.  Then it was down to Idaho Springs for a late lunch at Tommyknocker, and then a lot of trying to stretch out the rest of the day.  We all had so much fun, and with Chase leaving that night, I wanted to give Chase and Deanna as much time together as possible.  So we windowshopped and hung out at a dive bar.  Finally, around 4, we split ways.  But before leaving, Amy dared Chase to kiss Deanna.    No hesitation at all.  In fact, he almost slipped on the ice in his excitement.  And now they've been outed.  Fun.  Then back to Denver, hanging out at the Breckenridge tap room to wait out traffic, and then dropping off Chase at the airport.  Really, this weekend was the most fun since I can't even remember.

Then Tuesday, Amy was still at the house, planning on flying up to Idaho to see their dad that night.  (We placed Carl in hospice care a month ago).  Then Will got a phone call from hospice.  Carl's heath was declining and he likely had days to live.  We went from EPIC fun weekend to sadness and heartache.

Carl died on Wednesday afternoon (Feb 8th).  Amy and their aunt (Carl's sister) were with him.  We flew out on Saturday. Funeral was last Monday.  This is our 5th loss in 12 months.  Today marks the anniversary of Grandpa's heart attack, which was the first of the losses.

I think we've paid our dues for sad things.  I want only good things for now on.

2012 Race Schedule

Every year, I say I don't want to plan out my season.  And every year, I end up planning it all out anyways.

This year, most of my races have used some sort of exellent coupon, making the race too cheap to pass up.  This will lead to an interesting season, as I'm doing some really random stuff.  Also: for this year being a "down year", why am I racing nearly EVERY month?  Racing addiction, anyone?!?

• January 21 - Chilly Cheeks Duathlon #2
• February 25 - Chilly Cheeks Duathlon #3
• April 15 - maybe do a relay entry for the Platte River Half Marathon
• May 20 - Colfax Half Marathon  (a half marathon for $50.  sweet!)
• June 9 - Ironman Boise 70.3
• July 21 - Survivor Mud Run ($18 through Schwaggle!)
• July 29 - Rocky Mountain Triathlon (probably Olympic - $33 through Schwaggle, although since its in Silverthorne, I'll probably have to get a hotel, negating the awesome deal)
• August 18 - Rattlesnake Oly
• August 19 - Rattlesnake Sprint (yes, the Crazy Back to Back)
• September 22 - Denver Rock n Roll MARATHON ($70.  lets see if I actually do the full this year!)
• October - December..... who knows.  I'll probably drink beer and reclaim my spot on the couch.

This makes me a bit tired just looking at it.

Hello people searching for mexican jello flavors

This is a recent (and not so recent) phenomenon.  Waaay back in August 2005, I wrote a small post about mexican jello flavors.  It seemed to be a draw to my blog, as I had people visiting my digital space to read my entry. 

It appears that, 5.5 years later (!), people are once again searching for mexican jello flavors and are coming here to read my thoughts on it.

random

And if you are one of those searchers/visitors, please post a comment expaining exactly why mexican jello flavors is something that you're searching for.

Powder days and power outages

I bought a season pass for this winter with the idea that I'd be skiing every weekend.  Season opened mid-November (or earlier, I can't remember).  I've been 3 times.  Partially because the snow has absolutely sucked, and partially because life has taken over.  I think I need to go 8 times to make the pass worthwhile - hoping I DEFINITELY make it up there at least 5 more times in the next 2 months.

The snow this winter has been very sad.  We got a ton in October, the ski areas opened up with enthusiasm, and then its barely snowed since. (sad face).  The past 2 weeks, however, have been really snowy, with the areas consistently getting 4 inches every other day or so.  Last weekend was the first big powder day - finally.

My pass is for Winter Park and Copper Mountain.  It looked like Copper would get more snow than WP, so my friend and I decided to go to Copper.  Good call - Copper had 9 inches of fresh snow, WP had 4.  We were up on the slopes by 9 AM and strangely, there weren't a bazillion people out.  I actually got to cut fresh tracks in a few places.

I am not a very good powder skiier.  I'm more of a "spring skiier", meaning groomed, packed, and sometimes icy slopes are what I'm used to.  Powder is tricky.  Instead of leaning forward, you have to lean back, or else you'll catch your tips and tumble.  Its also a LOT more work.  You can't ski as fast and you have to be more alert and able to pick up a ski quickly if it gets buried.  This is the one time where snowboarding looks better than skiing.  On mogul runs (we took several), my friend was gliding all over.  The definition of the bumps were harder to make out under the powder, which freqently led me to go *oof* into a knee-deep gully of powder.  Much more work.  Fun work, but work.  (especially after racing the day before).

We had done 5 long powdery fun runs and skiied down to the center base to hit the Super Bee lift and see what the bump runs looked like on the far side of the mountain.  Halfway up and the lift stops abrubptly with a pretty serious bounce.  A bit freaky as we didn't have the bar down on the lift.  Stopping on the lift isn't unusual, however, stopping and bouncing like that is.  We waited a bit.  Then waited some more.  And some more.  For what seemed like an unusually long time.  A guy on our chair whipped out his phone and saw that Copper had updated their facebook page:

A little more facebook investigation, and we discovered that Copper had to fire up diesel engines at the top of EACH lift to get us up the mountain and off the lift.  Huh. 

Occasionally we'd see a pack of people ski under us, presumably newly rescued from their own lift.  We were still stuck.  And we couldn't see the top of the lift, or any other lifts (trees, clouds, snow, and wind obscured our view) to see if things were moving. We also saw Copper staff hauling ass up and down the hill on snowmobiles, moving too fast to give us an update.  We assumed they were the mechanical crew zipping around, trying to get things running.



Also: it was COLD.  I had somehow decided to wear an extra layer before we left the car.  I had a new jacket and I wasn't sure how it would do in the forecasted windy conditions that afternoon.  This new jacket had vent zippable flaps under each arm, which I had unzipped that morning.  Sitting on that lift in the wind, I had to zip those suckers back up.  Once I did that, my body was pretty warm.  I just had a cold spot on my cheek (I think the wind was getting under my goggles at that spot) and my fingers were incredibly cold.  I kept making a fist inside my glove and moving my fingers around, but they were pretty cold and tingly.  I think if we were stuck another 30 minutes, my fingers would have been in trouble. 
Finally, the lift moved forward with a jerk.  And then it stopped.  And then we inched forward a bit, and stopped again.  We weren't bouncing so much, but a few chairs back were bouncing quite a bit.  Lots more stopping and starting, and each time, we were just hoping that we'd eventually make it up the hill.  Finally the lift was moving (although quite a bit slower than normal) and we could see puffs of exhaust from the diesel engine.  And hooray, we were finally off the lift after 30-45 minutes of being stuck.  A very nice Copper employee was handing out free comp lift tickets to be used later, which was a nice surpirse.  I would have been happy with a voucher for hot chocolate.  But seeing as the ENTIRE RESORT was out of power, hot chocolate probably wasn't even an option.

We took a bit to re-arrange our gear and to try and warm up our hands and took off down the mountain.  This was the final run of the day, so we had to make it count.  So we did, by taking a long bump run.  We got to the bottom at 1:30 and debated sticking around.  In the end, we decided that without power, even getting food or using the bathrooms at the base would be challenging.  Factor in traffic from thousands of other Denver people getting their powder on at the other resorts and crappy road conditions from snow and we decided to pack it in.  I would have liked more runs, but 6 is respectable, given the situation.

All in all, I think Copper handled things as best they could.  I would have appreciated more information when we got to the top of the lift (turned out they kept aux power going on the 4 main lifts to stay open for the rest of the day).  But in a power outage, communications even become challenging, as radios are operated by power.  And how do you communicate things to thousands of people spread out over an entire resort? In in the end, everyone was off the lift safely and pretty quickly (all things considered), and the free lift ticket is a nice bonus.

The only after effect is that my right index finger is numb.  I only notice it when I type or use my mouse.  Its weird.  And it tells me how close I was to getting frostbite.  I may have to look into getting better gloves....  Hopefully my next powder day goes a bit smoother :)

Veggie Garden Planning - 2012

I somehow have some time on my hands, so I thought it would be fun to start planning our 2012 veggie garden.  Last year, we constructed a raised bed and planted seedlings we purchased from a nursery.  I think we spent almost $100 on the seedlings.  The problem was that due to IMTX, we couldn't actually work on the raised bed and garden until June.  Sadly, our garden hardly did anything.  I think I got a total of 1 zucchini (from 3 plants), 4 cucumbers (from 2 plants), and a ton of basil.  The egglplant and peppers had fruit but they didn't actually grow or mature into something edible.  The winter squash and cantelope were a complete bust.  The herbs did really well, although it wasn't until August when the basil really took off.

Weirdly, our strawberries (which produced TINY but awesome berries) are still green.  In JANUARY.

The plan this year is to start plants from seed in March and then plant them in April or May, depending on temperatures.  My plant list is based on some items that I really LOVED from the CSA last year (romenesco summer squash), some herb favorites, and some veggies that I really like but didn't get much of with the CSA.  I also had to keep in mind which plants I recieved in crazy amounts from the CSA and resist planting them myself.  (although, I did buy cilantro and green onions.....). 

In addition to the veggies, I bought one pound of seed garlic to plant in the yard.  I got 4 varieties and it turns out that one pound equals about 60 individual cloves.  You plant the clove of garlic in the fall and they magically turn into full bulbs of garlic.  So.... I'll have 60 (!!) bulbs of garlic next summer.  Interesting.

The list:
Golden wax bush beans:

Delicious, golden-yellow pods are stringless and are of good quality with extra- fine rich flavor. This old-time favorite has bush plants.

(my mom's turtle LOVED these last summer)








Telegraph improved cucumber:

Smooth, straight, dark-green fruit, to 18 long. Flesh is very crisp, tender and mild, superb flavor. Very few seeds, vigorous high yielding vines, great for greenhouse production; also good cultured outdoors. This is an excellent English heirloom variety, introduced around 1897.

(I did get a ton of cukes from the CSA, but I like the idea of having my own home grown ones too.  Here's hoping this variety does better than the 2 types I did last year)




Malaysian Dark Red Eggplant:

Tender and delicious violet-colored fruit are long and slender. This productive and tasty variety comes from the Southeast Asian country of Malaysia. A hard-to-find but very good variety that is perfect for frying.


(I LOVE eggplant, but tragically, the CSA only gave me ONE of them last year.  And my garden eggplants fruited but never actually grew.)

 
 
 
 
 Early purple vienna kohlrabi:

Delicious cabbage-flavored bulbs that grow above ground. Purple skin and sweet, white flesh good cooked or raw. Kohlrabi makes a real staple crop, with high yields; cold hardy. A pre-1860 heirloom.


(I freaking loved the kohlrabi I got from the CSA last year.  Excellent raw in salads.  Texture of jicima (crunchy) and tasted sort of like a broccoli stalk.)
 
 
 
 
  Rocky top lettuce mix:

Hopefully we won't get tired of salad.....
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ho shi ko bunching onion

An heirloom Japanese, perennial bunching onion; talks grow and divide from the base. Mild and tasty. These are an essential ingredient in both Oriental and American foods. A non-bulbing white type.


(I got a ton of green onions from the CSA.  I'm planting these out of sheer curiousity)





Orange bell pepper

Super sweet, brilliant orange fruit are blocky with and good-sized thick flesh that is flavorful and among the best tasting of all peppers. Plants produce large yields of this most magnificent pepper
(who doesn't love a good pepper?)








Romenesco squash

Famous ribbed zucchini from Rome, Italy. The distinctive long fruit are fluted with medium-green striped skin. The cut slices are scalloped. When small, they are popular fried whole with the flower still on. Rich and very flavorful. A perfect gourmet variety for the market grower.


(I FREAKING loved these.  Very buttery tasting.  Yummmy!)





Patisson golden marbre scallop squash

A unique French scallop squash; fruit is a beautiful bright golden-orange color, very beautiful. Young fruit are very tender and well flavored! Also makes good winter squash. Tall bush plants are very attractive, and yields are good. A favorite of mine.


(I have no idea if these will be good or not.  Its an experiment)





Green tomatillo

Deep green fruit; a standard, richly flavored type. Huge yields as with most tomatillos.

(I've never grown these before, so its an experiement.  Something tells me we'll be innundated by tomatillos.....)







Herbs: genovese basil, sweet thai basil, dill, and cilantro.  I will probably go and buy some oregano and thyme that's been started already.

Chilly Cheeks Duathlon #2 - Race Report

PSA: anytime you are thinking to yourself the week before a race, "hey, I'll do a heavy weight workout AND a heavy bike workout 2 days before a race.  Surely, I'll be recovered enough and I'll be fine".  Don't do it.  Just don't.

This was the second race in a three race series.  Its the winter "snow or sun" duathlon series.  If you sign up for all three, you get sweat pants.  I'm a sucker for sweat pants.  I just wish they said "Chilly Cheeks" on the ass.  Instead, the text is down the leg.  Ass placement would have been much cooler. 

Anyways, I did NOT attend the first of the series because of this.  For the second race, the weather gods decided to be kind.  No snow all week and highs in the 50s and 60s.  No snow on the course (ok, there was a tiny bit of crusty ice) and no freezing temperatures.  Woot!

This race format is really funky.  1.6 mile run, 3.6 mile bike, 2.5 mile run, and a 7.2 mile bike.  THEN a 50 yard sprint to the finish.  Strange.  So strange, that I really couldn't take it too seriously.  And honestly, how serious can you be when the only time you've ran in the past 3 months was during races.  Seriously, my total running mileage since October has been 10 miles. 

Pre-Race
This race was pretty awesome because it didn't start until 10 AM.  That meant I could sleep in!  I left the house at 8:30, got there by 9.  Had to pay admission to the state park ($9! boo!).  Parking was easy, racking was easy.  I decided to wear layers.  My Sony tri shorts under my light running tights (I don't know how people do the reverse - cycling with those running tights seams sounds awful!), my favorite light weight longsleeve tech shirt, my Sony jacket, and my long cycling gloves.  I got everything set up and then hung out eavesdropping until the race started.  It was a bit funny, as people were taking this thing WAY seriously.  Disc wheels and aero helmets seriously.  ok!

The race had ~300 participants and was broken into 3 waves.  For the first time ever (!!) I was in the first wave.

Run 1
I was freezing, so I just kept my jacket on.  I figured I could tolerate being warm for the short run.  We gathered at the start as a group and took off.  Immediately I was left in the dust... only I was running a 9:15 pace, which is WAY fast for me.  Holy crap, people are fast.  Damn.  A whole herd of people ran away, off into the distance.  I had about 6 people behind me.  I passed a few people and then I was by myself (and I really tried to slow down a bit so I didn't die later).  I loosened up about halfway through the run and felt really, really good. 

Run 1 time: 13:52 / 9:54 pace.  good!

Sooo many people did the first run with their cycling gear on.  Very serious stuff.

T1
Way too much time was spent trying to put on my VERY tight long fingered cycling gloves.  PSA: its a good idea to put your helmet on BEFORE you put on your gloves.  Seriously, my T1 time was ridiculous.

T1 time - 1:51

Bike 1
I hopped on my bike.  I was smart enough to remember to set my pedals to the correct position for easy clipping in.  I got on my bike, being completely unfamiliar with the course.  First up was a big hill.  Remember my PSA about lifting weights?  Yeah..... my quads were VERY ANGRY at me during that climb (and pretty much for the rest of the race).  And my heart rate was crazy high... really, way too high for what I was doing.

The hill wasn't that bad, really.  I will admit that I'm a bit cranky that I wasn't stronger going up it, with all my weight training and heavy bike intervals.  Boo.  The rest of the course wasn't that hard.  There was a sweet downhill where I easily hit 30 mph on.  Nothing to exciting, except the ride was really over before I got started.

I wish I could find a picture of Serious Racers.  Tons of people (with their fancy wheels and aero helmets) were riding with their running shoes.  I guess the 15 seconds it takes to swap shoes is too much when you're on your bike for 8 minutes.... Instead, I found a pic of a guy with an aero helmet, aerobars, and a mountain bike....

wtf?

Bike 1 time: 11:49, 18.3 mph

T2
I nearly forgot how to get off my bike, its been that long (September).  One poor lady next to me hit her brakes too hard trying to avoid someone and toppled over.  I went to my rack, ditched my cycling stuff, and my gloves and jacket and took off running.

T2 time: 1:45

Run 2
Oh wow.  Unhappy legs and heart rate.  This run was a different course than the first one.  It was on dirt and paved trails with a bunch of roller hills.  My heart rate was screaming.  Legs weren't awful compared to the heart rate.  For a whole 2.5 mile segment, I had to walk twice.  My heart rate limit is ~176 to 180.  Definitely 180.  If I see that, I start walking until its down to 160.  That happened 3 times.  Boo.  Maybe I should run more often than once a month, during races!

Run 2 time: 28 even, 11:12 pace (not horrible for walking so much)

T3
Decided to skip the jacket and gloves and hit the road. 
T3 time - 1:34

Bike 2
Decided to skip the jacket and gloves and hit the road.  Pretty uneventful as this was a repeat of the previous bike, only it was for 2 loops.  A bit windy, but nothing crazy.

Bike 2 time: 24:21, 17.7 mph

Sprint (!!) to the finish
Some people changed into their running shoes.  Really?  For a 50 yard sprint across a parking lot?  I kept my helmet on, took my cycling shoes off, and just ran across the parking lot.  Probably looked like a dork.  Fortunately, there aren't any professional race photographs of this.

Sprint time - 52 seconds (which included time to rack my bike and take my shoes off)

Total time: 1:24:01
24/33 in my age group (W30-39)
157/200 overall

Colorado people are fast.  I am not (yet).

Seeing progress and a cute for the day

I haven't been very dilgent with my weight lifting.  I'm supposed to lift twice a week.  I just checked my workout logs for the past month, and there has only been ONE WEEK where I've managed to do this.  Damn.


blue is weight lifting.  sad.

 So clearly, I'm not very consistent.  (bright side - at least I've been lifting once a week!)

Last week I couldn't lift because I was out of town.  The week prior, I had bumped up my resistance.  Yesterday, I went to lift and I wasn't sure if I would be able to maintain my resistance from before we left.  To my suprise, in nearly everything, I was able to not only maintain, but increase my resistance.  Woot!  The only decrease was in chest press, but really, I hate chest press and don't give it my all.  Leg press and lunges, I love, though.

So, yay!  progress!

And here's your cute for the day.  Zipper really is a fantastic fetcher.  She'll fetch until either a) she loses her mouse (they keep disappearing under furniture, but she permanently lost 3 in the first 2 weeks of playing.  I think the house ate them)  or b) we get tired of throwing the damn mouse.  She really won't stop - its tremendously cute.

Wednesday Ramblings

On a cheerier note, here's some rambling about other things that are going on...

Paleo eating is going pretty well.  Lunch and dinner are super easy.  Lunch typically consists of a salad with some sort of meat.  I either bring my own or I can very easily do a paleo salad from the office cafe's salad bar.  Dinner is also super easy.  We have a faux-Whole Foods grocery store here called Sprouts.  Its like WF but soooo much cheaper and easier to navigate.  They have all sorts of chicken sausage varieties (brats, southwest, apple, basil) for $2.99/lb and they don't contain any funky filler ingredients.  WIN.  I've also found that their yams (the skin on these guys is almost red) when sliced, coated with olive oil, seasoned with red hawaiian salt, and roasted are to die for.  Really, we could eat those things nearly every night.  So a basic dinner would be some sort of meat and some sort of veggie.  Pretty simple and easy.  Breakfast is a bit more of a challenge, mainly because I'm so dang picky about breakfast.  I was eating hard boiled eggs for a while, but they got tiresome really fast.  Then I made up some paleo pancakes and they were just ok.  This week I did omlette muffins and they're also just ok.  Dang gag reflex in the morning just makes things tricky.  Last week was a complete disaster in terms of paleo.  Something about driving across 4 states and me not really planning ahead for food made it a disaster.  And working my ass off in the house and not having time to actually cook.  I didn't really eat anything awful (lots of subway, although we got Wendy's on the way to Idaho and both of us felt sick after.  I think that says a lot about how healthy we've been eating and how shitty fast food really is).  But really, it was a bunch of bread and some stress dessert eating of really yummy homemade chocolate chip cookies.  But this week is a new week and I'm back on track.  I still don't know if paleo is life changing but I'll give it another month and see how things are.

My plan to ski every weekend really hasn't happened yet.  Mainly because the snow here has been shit.  The ski areas opened up around Halloween which is really early.  Things looked promising with a 20 inch base in October.  Then at Thanksgiving, the base was a whopping 21 inches.  And Christmas.... 25 inches.  The past week the mountains have been consistently getting 4-7 inches every few days, so I'm hoping that the rest of the season can be salvaged.  Still, we're doing better than Idaho.  Bogus Basin in Boise still hasn't opened.  Nothing but dead grass on the slopes.  Its sad.

Training (in a very vague sense of the term) is going ok.  The cycling I've been doing is going ok (when I do it - I seem to only get in 2 of the 3 workouts each week).  Lifting is very much the same story as cycling. Swimming is getting a bit better.  Still, I'm behind on fitness and getting ready for Boise in April will be interesting.  I've got a duathalon this weekend, so it will be an interesting test of my fitness level.  Its a weird one, though.  1.5 mile run, 3.6 mile bike, 2.5 mile run, 7.2 mile bike then a 100 yard dash to the finish.

Our kitties are really turning into great cats.  Zipper is hilarious and exactly what we needed.  She loves to attack drops of water on the shower glass doors as we shower.  She's also a very enthusiastic fetcher.  Ernie was a good fetcher, but it was on his terms and he wasn't very good about returning it to you.  Zip will fetch any time of the day (or night - she's brought her toys to bed) and she's really good about returning the toy within arm's reach.  She loves it so much that we'll often tire of the game before she does.  She's also a daredevil and lately, has taken to jumping on the railing at the top of our stairs, which forms a bit of a balcony with a ~20+ ft drop.  I saw her jump up there one night and it was not graceful.  I know she's managed to pivot 180 while on that thing.  Hopefully she won't fall, but if she does, there's not much I can do about it.  Gunny is slowly coming out of his shell.  He's very responsive to me and loves to be on my lap, kneeding and purring (although we call it dancing).  Lately, he's been jumping on Will's lap during the day, which is huge progress.  He's still really skittish and jumpy.  Hopefully he'll chill out in time.

Clearing hurdles

Last week was a rough week.  Will's dad's (Carl) heath has been pretty bad for the past 3-4 years and has rapidly been declining over the past two months.  To the point where he needed to be placed into Hospice Care.  Complicating this need is the fact that Will's dad is flat broke.  No money for retirement at all.  No money saved up at all.  None. 

(related PSA - PLEASE do retirement planning for yourself and get long-term health care.  And make sure your loved ones do the same)

So last week, we drove 11 hours up to Idaho to get stuff done.  It sucked and I'm more than a little angry at Carl.  His place was disgusting (cat pee and a complete absense of house cleaning.  I actually painted over human poo on the wall in the bathroom.  not awesome).  But Carl is now in a nice assisted living facility and his home is cleaned out and on the market.  Hopefully it will sell soon, or else things get really complicated.

Not the best way to kill a week's vacation, but honestly, there was no other way.  My efforts last week weren't for Carl - they were for Will.  Poor guy is really taking this hard, so I did what I could to stay organized and make sure we got everything done that needed doing.  I feel good knowing that when we left on Sunday, it was mission accomplished.  Carl is getting good care now and his house is listed to sell.  There were a lot of hurdles to clear last week to get to that point, but somehow we got it done.

Now all we can do is sit and wait.  For the house to sell and (unfortunately) for Carl to die.  Yep, 2012 is well on its way to not being a great year.  I wish I could fast forward and get to 2013.

2011 Distance Wrap Up

As suggested in my last post, 2012 most likely won't be a good year. This feeling was more or less confirmed by my truck being diagnosed with a cracked head gasket yesterday, while getting a routine oil change. Who knows how long its been cracked - my suspicion is at least a year, maybe more. We were lucky that it didn't totally blow up while driving around in the middle of nowhere or while we were moving. Timing for this is perfect too, because we're driving to Idaho on Saturday and need my truck (with a new hitch installed) to haul back some things. Good times.


Moving on, I want to compare my 2010 and 2010 totals. For grinsies.

2010

Bike: 106h 20m 16s - 1438.6 Mi
Run: 125h 24m 37s - 652.94 Mi
Swim: 101h 05m 38s - 254039.3 Yd
Pilates: 15h 50m
Yoga: 36h 05m

2011
Bike: 156h 20m 12s - 2124 Mi
Run: 89h 49m 24s - 497.56 Mi
Swim: 77h 59m 24s - 209457.5 Yd
Strength: 4h 30m
Core Training: 1h 50m
Elliptical Training: 48m 08s
Hiking: 13h 30m
Skiing: 4h 00m
Snow Shoveling: 20m
Snowboarding: 5h 00m
Spinning Class: 3h 00m
Yoga: 2h 00m

Bike - it is important to note that the majority of these miles were before May 21, 2011. Only 335 of those miles were post-IM. I'm a bit disappointed I let my bike fitness crash and burn like that. We'll see how it rebounds as I train for Boise.

Run - my IM focus was the bike, and my running was mostly 60-90 minute runs with the occasional 2-3 hour run. In other words: I really didn't train for a marathon. In 2010, my initial summer and fall goal WAS a marathon, thus the higher training mileage. And in 2010, I wasn't injured from March - Oct (where I quit running all together)

Swim - I'm down by nearly 20%. I'm guessing this is because I took 2.5 months off. hmm.

Notice the complete absence of pilates and pitiful amount of yoga. I loved this stuff.... I just didn't have time in 2011. Maybe I will look into doing more of this sort of thing in 2012.

But look, I have logged some diverse activities. Hiking up a 14'er. Skiing. Snowbarding. Sweet. Diversity is a good thing.

2011 Retrospective

On my way into work this morning, I realized that it was a year to the day since we left Houston and started our life here in Colorado.  Wow.

I would like to say that 2011 was everything I wanted it to be and more.  Say that it was an awesome year.  But I can't.  While we had some big highlights to the year, 2011 was one mostly marked by loss and drama.  I've never really had anyone or anything die on me before.  Nothing could have prepared me for losing 4 close souls this year.  I still can't really think about it much - it still hurts too much.

I would like to say that I have high hopes for 2012, but we have some more family health hurdles to get past.  Big, uncomfortable ones that will be drawn out and painful.  Lets just say that I'm hoping for a good 2013.

Some highlights have been:

• 30 min PR at Texas 70.3, while taking it easy (thank you IMTX training)
• IMTX (really, this is THE highlight of the year)
• Exploring Colorado on my bike for IM training, even if I whined about it a lot.
• Beer.  Lots of beer.  Probably too much beer.
• Buying a great house in a town that we really love
• Camping
• Being able to spend time outdoors, pretty much anytime I want

Looking forward, some vague goals are:

• Surviving the next few months getting Will's dad into assisted care (or nursing care).  This means dealing with Medicare/Medicaid, selling his house, blah blah blah blah.  More stuff then one should deal with when your dad is 68.
• MOAR skiing.  This is of course dependent upon the ski areas getting some snow.  Its pathetic right now.
• Getting stronger on the bike.  I got tired of getting my ass kicked on the hills here.
• Enjoy training with a group.  My club is doing IM Kansas 70.3 as the club race.  Boise is the day before.  This means I have instant training buddies.
• I would put a time goal down for Boise, but with the crazy weather, I know better.  Lets just say I want a stronger performance on the bike.

And really, I can't think past June at this point. 

Snowboarding Fail

Will and I both had last Friday off and decided to hit the slopes.  I had bought a 4-pack of lessons for Winter Park, thinking Will could really figure out how to snowboard (he's ok, but I think he needs some instruction so he will really enjoy it).  I said I'd use one of the lessons to learn how to snowboard myself. 

I think I learned how to ski when I was 5.  At any rate, I've been skiing for 30+ years.  That's a long time when you think about it.  In the past, Will and I have only had maybe one day a year to hit the slopes.  Will usually was good for a half day of snowboarding before the frustration took over and he was done.  I would spend the whole day skiing.  Will wanted me to take a snowboarding lesson, but each time I'd refuse because I was NOT going to spend my one day a year on my ass hating life.

Now we live here and I have a season pass.  I think that means I have more than one day a year on the mountain.  This also means I didn't have an excuse to not give boarding a try.

I went into it knowing I'd be spending the whole day on my ass, but I was optimistic.  I'm a great skiier.  I was excited to learn something new from scratch.  Think about it, how often do you get the opportunity to learn something completely new?  I went into this with an open mind.  I came out with very bruised knees and probable moderate whiplash.

The 4-pack had two options.  A semi-private lesson whichs started at 11:30, meaning we'd waste the morning waiting for the lesson to start.  Or an all-day group lesson with lunch included.  We did the group lesson.  I know Will was hoping to be in my group, but he can do things like stand, turn, and stop.  I could not.  He was placed in the beginner group.  I was placed in the novice group.  And we parted ways for the day.

Winter Park.  See all those trails?  Well, I didn't go on hardly any of them.

I had ~10 people in my group, ranging from high schoolers to some guy who was maybe in his 40's.  I wasn't the oldest, but I was probably the second or third oldest.  At least I had altitude and endurance training to my advantage, as most people were from out of state. 

We started the lesson figuring out our bindings.  Pain in the asses, those bindings are.  We strapped one foot in and practiced scooting along like you'd ride a skateboard.  Only I'd never ridden a skateboard so the motion was incredibly awkward. We practiced scooting up the hill like that.  Hey, I was good at this and beat everyone up the hill.  Then we practiced turning by leaning back towards our heels with our back to the hill (one foot strapped in, the other loose).  Ok, it felt weird, but I got it.  Next we practiced turning by leaning forward on our toes.  Got it.

Then it was time to go up the lift!  Scary!  We had very minimal instruction on going up the lift.  I figured I could fake it, if needed.  The guy who was supposed to ride up with me freaked out, almost got tangled up in the lift side pole, freaked out even more and didn't make it onto the lift.  At the top of the lift, I successfully dismount and did not crash.  We all got to the top, but were missing random guy, so our instructor zoomed down the mountain to get him.  Only as soon as the instructor took off, random guy appeared.  Ugh.

First lesson - standing up.  You can either sorta dig you heels in and magically stand up or you can be a yoga master and dig your toe side in, do a back bend sort of thing, and stand up.  The easier sounding way didn't work for me - I kept sliding down the hill as I tried to stand up.  Good thing I've done a bunch of yoga, as that worked for me.

We finally made it over to the "bunny hill" area, which is a bit weird since its mid-mountain.  We practiced falling leaf patterns, where you zig-zag across the run.  First we practiced leaning back to our heels and turning/stopping, then going across the other way.  It was awkward.  Also: it was easy to lean the wrong way (down the hill) and fall on your hands and knees (and face).  Knees don't have much padding.  Falling on them hurts. After a few runs of that, we practiced going "toe side", where you face uphill and lean towards you toes to turn and stop.  This was HARD.  Very tough on the calves and feet, as you're almost tippie-toe.  Heel side is much easier, even if its hard on the quads.



Cropped view of the area I snowboarded.  Yes, that tiny yellow shaded area.  Very sad.

The hill we're on is pretty flat.  Half the time I have to jump around or throw my feet around to get going.  A bunch of the time, my balance sucks and I crash. 

Lifts suck on snowboards.  First, you have to undo your back foot and scoot around everywhere.  Then if you don't angle your leg just right  as you get on the lift, your knee gets turned awkwardly as you take off.  Then the dismount.  The bunny hill lift has a harder dismount than the first lift we went up.  So you'd point the board perpendicular to the lift and place your free foot on top of the board.  Then you'd gently push off the lift and coast downhill.  Each time, I'd crash HARD on my tailbone.  Only I couldn't sit there and curse to myself.  I would have to gather myself and move quickly out of the way.  Then I'd have to stand up (which isn't hard when you have one foot free) and scoot to where my lesson people were, sit down, and buckle my feet in.  Buckling in sucks.  You wouldn't think it sucks, but it does.  Especially since, when I ski, there is none of this up and down, crash, stand, sit, buckle business.  You just get off the lift and go.

So after ~maybe 2 hours of this ride the lift, crash, sit and listen to our instructions, board falling leaf style, crash a ton, and ride up to do it again, it's lunch time.  We board part of the way to the lunch spot (Snowasis), only the slope isn't quite right and we get stuck and need to walk most of the way there.  We have lunch and walk back to our little bunny hill.  Only we had to walk through a pretty busy flat spot, where the skiiers/boarders hauled ASS to get through.  So it was like we were playing frogger.  Not cool.

Apparently over lunch I'd forgotten what I learned that morning.  I was having a lot of issues and crashed pretty hard backwards, which made me really appreciate the free helmet that came with my rental.  Yup, definitely not liking things.  And each time you crash, each time you have to awkwardly stand up.  And each time, you'd have to flop your board around to position it so you can stand up.  Such a pain in the ass.  I finally figured out that I could face the mountain, stand up with my back pointing downhill.  But that was only ok if it was flat enough for me to hop around 180 degrees so my face was pointing downhill.  If it was too steep for that, I'd have to get up the other (more challenging way).  Somewhere along the way, I tweaked my shoulder and my hand.  My knees were killing me.  And my ass was well on its way.  We practiced some more, in a way that was more like "real" snowboarding, where you point the thing downhill and use your heels and toes to guide you.  I'd get freaked out and heel it all the way down, which was a ridiculous quad workout.  I think I had maybe 2 runs total where I didn't crash.  They wweren't fast runs, but I didn't crash.  I think at the end of the day, I had 3 lift dismounts that were successful. And each time up the lift, I was spending more and more time (while buckling my foot to the board) gathering my wits to head back down.

So I'm watching my watch (please, when will this end!).  I was trying to figure out how we were going to get down the mountain to the base.  Lessons ended at 3, and it was 2:40.  Our instructor gathered us and announced that we'd be heading down after another run.  I asked how we were getting down, if we only had 20 minutes.  He replied that we were walking to the Gemini lift (the one we originally took up), and TAKING THE LIFT DOWN.  I have never in my life had to ride a lift DOWN.  Oh, the humiliation!  Ugh.

We got to the base and I found Will.  I'd seen Will a few times during the day (he was on the same bunny hill for part of the day), but he generally kept his distance since he knew I wasn't happy.  He had a good lesson and learned somethings.  I had an awful day.  Honestly, the best part was riding the lift up each time.  It was a spectacularly sunny day with fresh snow on the mountains.  Beautiful.  But I was dead.  And frustrated. And sore.  And I missed my skiis.

So we went and had beers and really tasty gorgonzola/spinach/artichoke/bacon dip at the Cheeky Monk and then went home.  I told Will he can have the remaining 2 lessons.  I'm not snowboarding ever again. :/

Not what I had in mind for a workout this morning

8 inches of snow.  And dummy here left her laptop at work.  My arms are tired now.

I only shovelled my side of the driveway

8 inches on the ground and the snow pile was probably 3 feet high.  fun.

What a week (and its only Wednesday)

I started eating Paleo Sunday night.  I went to a tri seminar a few months back, and they had a dietician talk about metabolic periodization, where you restrict grains during the build phase of your training schedule.  I've been feeling like crap for months now and have had a little voice telling me to think about Paleo.  After doing some reading the past few weeks, I'm giving it a shot.

My first full day eating Paleo - my coworkers dropped off a bag of chocolates.  Ugh.  Bad week to start a diet which restricts sugar.  Fortunately, my boss was asking around for chocolate, so I gave her the whole bag.

So far its not awful.  I think my stamina is a bit reduced (which is common).  Yesterday was sprint day for swimming, and I was more gassed than normal.  And I was sweating more than usual during my lunch time weight workout.  Supposedly after the 2nd week, your energy goes through the roof and you access your fat stores.  We shall see.  If anything, it will be an interesting month.

Last night, I got conned into going to this sort of self help seminar by a coworker.  She's a friendly acquaintance and did this seminar and it changed her life.  I really didn't want to go but she wouldn't let it drop.  I went, and its basically a cult.  Or cult-like pyramid scheme.  Do some googling of  L a n d m a r k F o r u m.  I'm glad my radar went off in the first 30 seconds I was in the building (everyone was SO HAPPY) and it kind of went downhill from there.  They even had a portion of the evening dedicated to registering for the 3 day course ($500).  I didn't want to give them any trackable information, so I didn't even get a name tag at the event entrance.  I saw that you had to fill out a contact card when you got your name tag, so I just kept walking.  Even though several worker people said "I see you don't have a nametag, have you been offered one?"  The whole thing was weird.  People were having epiphanies (but they call them Breakthroughs!) but while people were talking about their problems (Breakdowns!), the moderator was guiding their words to match the program's bizzaro language.  Sometimes it was subtle (and the people mirrored his wording with barely any promting), sometimes he flat out made them repeat his statement.  And while the words were english, they were assembled oddly.  They said specific sentence structure led to empowerment and words were powerful.  And magically, by using the modified language, they reached their Breakthrough! I thought it was creepy.  And when said person reached their Breakthrough! the whole room sighed in amazement and applauded.  Even my coworker was saying "you just witnessed 2 breakthroughs tonight, wasn't it amazing!" (the issues were not life changing, and in one case, the class led some guy to apologize to his ABUSIVE FATHER.  The son apolgized to his father because the son had allowed their relationship to lapse.  Call me crazy, but I'm thinking if you don't want a relationship with a guy who beat the shit out of you and your family, that's probably a good thing!)  In fact, you couldn't simply talk to someone.  You were "sharing" and "having a conversation".  Everyone was talking and using identical phrasing.  Sooo weird! I'm sure it helps some people, but I really do not need an organization telling me how to think, right down to how I express my thoughts.  Ick.  Seriously, I get the heebie jeebies when I think about last night.  I'm so glad I didn't get sucked in!  I'm sure my checking account thanks me as well!

And now I have a coworker who was/is friendly to me, but she is in what I believe is to be a pseudo-cult.  Awkward!  I really am destined to not have any friends at work.

I just want to get through tomrorrow and then I'm off for a 4 day weekend.  Will and I are going to learn how to snowboard on Friday.  The snow is shitty, but you really don't need good snow when you learn.  Hopefully I won't die.

So that race didn't happen

I woke up Saturday to this:

maybe 3 inches and another 2-3 on the way....

Big puffy flakes, wind, and really cold temperatures.  This was at 7:30 AM.  No road plowing had been done.  I hung out for a bit and debated going.  Then I decided that even driving to the race was sketchy, much less racing it.  So I went back to bed and slept in until 10:30 AM.  Will and the kitties were very happy about this decision.

This was my second ever DNS.  My first was for the Kemah Olympic tri, where I had a horrible stomach virus the night before (morning of?) where I was puking every 30 minutes from 11 PM to well after the start of the race. 

I checked out the race results, and it looks like over 100 people raced.  On their bikes.  Colorado people are crazy.

I, on the other hand, was very happy to be home, in my jammies, fire going, and being lazy. 


Zipper likes to try and catch snowflakes as they fall outside the patio door.



mountain bike... what is that?

It snowed all day yesterday.  It will snow tonight and tomorrow morning.

The problem?  I have a duathalon tomorrow.  4 mile trail run and a 10 mile bike.  With snow.  And the roads/ground was nice and warm, which meant that the snow melted at first and turned to ice, and then got covered with more snow.

I have seriously thought about turning my tri bike into a ski bike.

Condition update from the race director:

*** DECEMBER 3RD RACE UPDATE!!! (updated 7pm Thursday December 1st) As always, we issue a course conditions report the Thursday before each Chilly Cheeks race. Yesterday, the roads and trails were dry. Tonight, there are a few inches of snow on the ground at Cherry Creek State Park. It's Chilly Cheeks Season!!!
  
The forecast for Friday calls for morning sunshine and afternoon clouds with temps getting just above freezing. So... I would anticipate some slick conditions on at least a portion of the bike course on race morning in the form of packed snow and patches of ice. Saturday's race forecast is for temps around 20 degrees at race time with the potential for light snow falling.

 As always, your bike choice is up to you, but a mountain bike might be a good option. If you arrive on Saturday and you are uncomfortable with the bike course conditions, you can switch to the run-only prior to the start of the race. Just let us know when you pick up your number.

 Here are some last minute instructions for everyone. Packet pick-up will open at 8:00am, with the race starting at 10:00am. Please bring photo ID with you to packet pick-up. Your race number and timing chip can only be picked up by you on race morning.

 Directions to the park are listed below this update. Please enter through the west gate off of Dayton. Parking will be available in the Hobie Hill lot, immediately adjacent to transition. Once this lot is full, we will cone off the entrance, and you will need to park in the marina parking lot, just 200 yards further down the road. Please do not park on the grass (park rangers will ticket you) or attempt to park in the Hobie Hill lot once we have closed it to parking. Any available spots you see are reserved for race volunteers and our ambulance. We are only permitted to park in these two lots. Please do not park elsewhere or it will jeopardize our ability to hold these events in the future.
  
There will be two starting waves on Saturday morning - all men at 10:00am, and all women just a few minutes later. During the first 1.75 miles of the run, you will need to stay to the left side of the road facing traffic. There will be an aid station serving water at 1.75 miles. From there, you will run on dirt trails for about 1.5 miles, then on bike path for the remainder of the 4 mile run.

 Run-only participants will conclude their event when they cross the 4-mile timing mat (all miles will be marked), and a volunteer will retrieve your timing chip. Duathlon participants will continue to transition, grab their bikes, and head out for a 10.8 mile ride. Helmets are mandatory on the bike, and must be buckled before you start. You will not be allowed to start without a helmet.

 The bike course will be open to light park traffic, so please stay to the right except to pass, and no crossing the centerline of the road (even if it is covered with snow, you know where it is). Also - this is a low-key fun winter event, but please - no drafting on the bike. You must leave at least 3 bike lengths between your front wheel and the rear wheel of the bike ahead of you.

 There will be volunteers at all intersections and turns on the bike course to direct you. The finish of the bike will be the same point as the start line for the run. After crossing the finish mat, slow down immediately and return your timing chip. Please do not blow past the chip retrievers as you will cross the path of runners who may still be on course. You may also miss out on a great raffle item that we award to random finishers at the finish line. We have helmets and glasses from Rudy Project, training DVD's from Carmichael, gift certificates from Boulder Running Company, Koobi Saddles, KompetitiveEdge, Excel Sports, and more. Lots'a great swag!!!
  
Once you are done, stop by the food tents for home made banana chocolate chip bread (my house smells so good right now!!! As well as hot cocoa, hot ramen noodle cups, and plenty of other drinks!

 I know, after weeks in the 50's and 60's this blast of winter is a real shocker, but this is what Chilly Cheeks is all about. Come out and have some fun with us!!! Online registration closes at 5pm on Friday, and race-day registration will be available. We'll see you on Saturday morning!!!

I have a mountain bike that I bought ~10 years ago.  Will and I used to ride them a lot.  Then I found masters swimming and really didn't want to work out 2x a day (swim in the morning, ride after work.  little did I know what my future would hold....)  Then I got a tri bike and have completely forgotten about the mountain bike.  The only time in recent memory that I rode it was a year ago, only because I needed to get to/from the car detail shop by my house and I didn't have the time to run to and from the place.

So, I busted the bike out last night.  Aired up the tires (hopefully they hold air - those tubes are original.  probably just cursed myself here).  Played with the shifters so I remember that they do not shift like my tri bike.  And wow, this sucker is heavy.  (Will actually told me not to whine about how heavy it is before I went in the garage to mess with it)

Dressing for this thing is a whole different animal.  My transition time will be ridiculous.  For the run, I figure I'll wear my fleecy run tights (with tri shorts underneath), a long sleeve shirt, my SONY jacket, a hat, and my new windproof baclava (that I just got for skiing).  And probably gloves.  For the bike, since I'm using my mountain bike, I won't mess with the cycling shoes.  I've debated about putting my SPD pedals on my mountain bike for more power, but I've decided that its probably safest if I'm able to quickly put my foot down if I start sliding.  I will bitch about not being able to pull up on my pedals, but its only 10 miles.  Still debating on wearing my warm winter cycling gloves or my ski gloves.  I will also probably have an insulated water bottle with warm water for the bike.  And maybe another jacket.  Although with the mountain bike, its not like I'll be generating that much speed/wind.

When I heard about this, I thought it would be interesting to race in the snow, but secretly hoped that it wouldn't come to it.  Guess I'll find out tomorrow if snow racing is fun or horrible.