DH Morning Goodness

Wow, it's not even noon yet, and it's already been an AWESOME day! I hooked up with Howse and Kevin this morning round 7:00 to go do some DH shuttle runs on the Pipeline trail...It was my first day out on my new DH bike, and all I have to say is AWESOME! We each got 4 solid runs in, and I felt more and more comfortable on my bike with each run we took. I can't believe how many times I told Mike and Kevin, "Man, I would have been on the ground for sure on my old bike!" I've never been super psyched about racing DH before (just MX!!), but I think this year is going to be a different story!! Ahhhh yaaaa!!!!

Way better than the airport Super Shuttle!!

I LOVE my new bike!

First day out, and couldn't have asked for a better way to start the day!

Happy Friday!

Sea Otter Here We Come

Watch out girls!! If you haven't been practicing your slalom turns, prepare to get beat!! Libby, Lisa, and I knocked out several laps at the super slalom training course today. It was awesome. We went dirt jumping at Gunbarrel and then went and hit up the slalom track for some technical, punishing turns! I could tell a difference in my cornering just in the time that we were there. Such great practice and a good workout, too!

Lisa giving the clinic

Me actually loooking about where I should be

Libby ripping it up through the berms

Lisa, completely focused

Working hard to get my weight shifted before the next turn

If It's Meant to Be, It Will Be

I learned an important lesson today. If something is meant to be, it will be, all in good time. It might even be better than you could have ever imagined it to be, too. I have always wanted to be in complete control of what I'm doing and where I'm going. I'm learning, though, that sometimes you just have to relinquish that control and let things be. Most things work out in the end, even if it's not how you originally thought you wanted them to be. It's quite amazing, actually.

Molly's Whirlwind Visit

I haven't seen my wonderful friend Molly for quite a while. Last May she moved to Portland to attend the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine. She just went to D.C. to visit a friend and she arranged her flight back home to have a 12 hour lay over in Denver. I picked her up at 7:00 and we were off. Molly and I spent a lot of time at the Sun's last year drinking good beer and chatting endlessly about who knows what. So, a visit to both of these establishments was in order. We started at the Mountain Sun where we had a ton of catching up to do. One of us would ramble on and on while the other ate and then we'd switch. Pretty much we came to the conclusion that we both love what we are learning in school, boys suck (okay, not all, but damn near), and it sucks that Portland is so far from Boulder!!!

Good times at the Mountain Sun!

After a few beers at the Sun, we made our way to Hapa's happy hour to have some late night sushi and tasty rice beer. (Good beer is the theme for the evening if you haven't picked up on that yet!) Well, we got lost in conversation again and finally realized that they would probably like us to leave. It was only 12:30. Perfect. Just enough time to get to the Southern Sun before they close! Again, we stayed until the really wanted us to leave. 6 hours of conversation later, we still hadn't told each other all of the stories we had intended to, but at least we were caught up in the major events of each other's lives. 3 hours of sleep later and we were up driving to the bus stop for Molly's journey back to the airport and the end of her 12 hour lay over.

Man, it was good to see Molly. I really miss her. She is such a wonderful, amazing person. I often call her Wonder Molly, for two reasons, she's pretty damn wonderful, and she did the marathon portion of an Ironman triathlon in a Wonder Woman costume!

Wonder Molly

Awesome!!!

Neverending Day of Sleep

So, Friday I "call in sick" because I want to go snowboarding with my friend Kristin. Well, I end up not being able to find my wallet, so I can't go snowboarding. I decide to go back to bed and don't wake up until 12:30 or 1:00 in the afternoon. I get up, have some lunch, think about going on a road ride because it's such a beautiful day...I go back down to my room and feel a little sleepy, so I decide to take a little nap before I go on a ride. Well, my little nap turned into sleeping session #3. I slept from 2:00 until 5:30 or 6:00. I got up went to Kate's to watch a movie and then came directly home and went to bed just after 11:00. One might think I would have had trouble falling asleep and staying asleep with as much sleep as I had gotten earlier in the day, but I didn't. I fell right asleep and didn't wake up until my alarm went off at 7:30 Saturday morning. I think my body was trying to tell me something!! Taking full time grad classes, working full time, and trying to maintain some sort of training schedule has really been doing me in. I'm glad it's spring break this week, and that May 6th isn't too far away!!

Let it Melt, Let it Melt, Let it Melt!!!

Monday night trainer session part deux (hopefully the last!) took place last night. Lisa decided to take a rest day (smart girl) so TJ and I hammered out 1.5 hours while watching Earthed 2. It wasn't too bad, but I'm about maxed out on my trainer time punch card!

Well, in celebration of the snow (hahaha) and to mix stuff up a bit, I was going to meet up with my friend Kevin to do some skate skiing this morning, but when I went to get out of bed, I about fell over I was so dizzy. I sprained my ankle yesterday morning walking to the bus (not even extreme walking! I'm just clumsy!), and it hurts a lot more today than it did yesterday, but I don't think that's why I was so dizzy. Who knows. Anyway, I called Kevin to cancel. I think he was relieved, as he told me that he had a fever yesterday afternoon and still wasn't feeling so hot. I went back to bed for a couple more hours of sleep. I decided to just come to work even though I don't really feel any better! I'll go to class, meet with the graduate committee chair about getting back into the chemical engineering PhD program, and then go home!! Gotta save up the sick days for "sick of work" days! =)

The sun was out and trying to melt all of this crap snow earlier. I don't know where it went! This is the pile of snow outside of my office. Hopefully it's all gone soon! It at least needs to be gone and nice out by next week so those of us who don't get to go somewhere cool for spring break can ride our bikes and have a good time stuck here in Boulder!

Happy Tuesday!

Playing in the Mud is Fun and Fear is a Strange Thing

I woke up to snow on the ground and falling out of the sky this morning thinking I wasn't going to get to ride my bike. Wrong. Got a call from Rudy to go do some muddy slalom turns. At first I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't. I bundled up, threw my bike in the back of his truck, and we were off. It was so much fun!!! It really wasn't very cold out at all, and the snowflakes falling were at least silver dollar sized! After about 45 minutes, it stopped snowing and the sun came out for just a little bit. The snow was subliming in the field across from the slalom track and it looked like a scene from Lord of the Rings. It was really an amazing sight!

I went to the show V for Vendetta with Lisa and Heather tonight. It was really good. It really made me think about a lot of things. I'm sure there were a lot of different things that you could have taken away from the movie, but I think the thing it made me think about the most, was fear. I've had a lot of experiences in the last year and a half that have made me not be afraid of a lot of things. I don't want to say that I'm not afraid of anything because, that would just be a lie, but I haven't really been afraid of very many things lately. While I was watching the movie tonight it struck me that there is one thing that I am really afraid of (no, there weren't any snakes in the movie, so I guess it would be more fair to say two things, but...snakes have been so long standing in that category that they don't really count anymore.) Anyway, it's pretty intense when you realize that there is something that big that really makes you scared. Go see the movie and see what it makes you think about.

Please make the snow stop!! My poor DJer is frozen to the top of my car!! I swear I would never let her sleep outside in the snow normally, but the damn lock on my bike rack was frozen when I got home! =(

Good Day of Riding Before the Bad Weather Got Here

I haven't been to the jumps out at Gunbarrel in awhile. I met Lisa out there this morning, and it was a lot of fun! I tried a couple of new lines, and it was fun to jump some new stuff. It's been a little while since I've jumped anything new. After about 1.5 hours at Gunbarrel, I headed in to the Fix for some more jumping. I love that place!!

I got there just in time for the gun show! hahaha Bill TeSelle spent the entire day (shirtless when it was nice) moving and shortening the first jump in one of the lines there in an attempt to make a medium sized line. That kid doesn't know how to take a day off! I know I appreciate all of the work that he puts into that place, though! I had an awesome session there. I feel like I am finally getting my flow back on the One Hit Wonder. It has been gone for quite awhile. Also, the Fix juniors were having a skills session with Lee and Bobbi Kae, so I jumped in on a few passes at working on manualing through the small triple. Well, I got it, sort of. I ended up looping out and landing on my head in a fairly graceful fashion. It was good though, now I know how far back my weight needs to be to keep my front wheel up that long. I also started hitting the 4th jump in the Kneecap line a lot more consistently. I really like the 3rd and 4th jumps in that line. Next mission, the 5th jump. It looks tricky when the cool kids do it all stylie!

We watched the cold front move in over the mountains the whole time I was at the Fix. It's pretty crazy to be enjoying a 50º day watching the 25º storm roll in for several hours. Luckily, the storm held off till we got done tearing down all of the race venue stuff for the CU crit today. It would have really sucked to tear all of that stuff down in the freezing rain!

Well, I am working on a design for a new tattoo. I have invested a lot of time on the design in my head, now I just need to get a good rough "sketch" of it together. Oh ya, and a bunch of money to get it done. Looks like it might be next fall before that happens. Oh well, then I'll definitely be sure I want it.

It's raining and trying to snow right now. =( Ahhhh, spring time in Colorado...

All Things Irish

Corned beef was on sale at the grocery for just under $1/lb! Craziness! I had never cooked corned beef before tonight. It takes a long time. I am not a very patient person. Things that take 3 hours with no variation are hard to deal with. Luckily the mouth watering aromas helped to keep my interset throughout the project. 3 hours after I tossed the corned beef seasoned brisket in the boiling water, the makings for Reuben sandwiches were in the works! Add a couple of very tasty Irish stouts, great conversation with a wonderful friend, and you've got a great way to spend a Friday night!

Happy St. Patty's Day. I hope your day turned out as good as mine.

I LOVE my car!!

Oh wait, I mean I HATE my car and I LOVE my new bike!!! I got my new DH rig for the year yesterday. It is Giant Glory, and it is my favorite color...blue. Not my favorite shade of blue, but it's blue nonetheless! I can't wait to take it our for a test drive! Right now it's parked two feet from my bed in my room! The garage isn't good enough for her! I'll post some pics soon!

Why I hate my car: It locked me out today!! You might be saying, ya right, you locked yourself out, you idiot, but I truly didn't lock myself out of my car, the car did! VW has taken great measures to outsmart you so you can't lock yourself out or your car. They also have this neat little feature whereby if you unlock the doors but you never open a door, it will relock itself after about 2 or 3 minutes. So, here's how it happened. I unlock the door. I open the door tossing the keys in the front seat (so I don't have to look for the later). I notice that I need to fill my water bottle. I grab it and closed the door (with the keys still in the front seat). I am pouring out the old water in the bushes 5 feet from my car when it suddenly goes, bleep, bleep. That's how I've decided to spell the lovely noise the car makes when it's LOCKING ITSELF with my keys in the front seat!!! And yes, I DO have a spare, but it was in my purse, also in my car with my computer and my bike! Normally, I would have just been annoyed by this little antic my car decided to pull. However, today I actually HAD to be somewhere. Well, I always "have" to be somewhere, but today I had gone dirt jumping with Lisa at Arbor in the morning and was already getting to work late. The more pressing issue was that I had homework due in my class today and hadn't really started on it. Also I had to give a presentation that was only on the computer, in my car!

Yea for AAA!! They opened up the door 45 minutes later, and I was on my way to work...at 11:00. Luckily everyone else at work called in sick today! I guess that was the yang to the yin of getting locked out of my car BY my car!

Happy St. Patty's Day. East some corned beef and drink some cold green beer, or maybe just the corned beef. =)

Trainer Riding 101

So, yesterday the weather was still pretty cold, there was still a bit of snow on the ground, and I couldn't ride until dark anyway. I had a stroke of genius at about 11:30...If I'm going to have to ride the trainer for 2 hours tonight, then how can I make it as painless as possible?? There is a huge screen with on overhead projector in the classroom next to the lab that I work in. I've always thought of getting a bunch of friends together with some beer and pizza and having a movie night in there because it would be like watching a movie in a small (okay, really small) theater. The only thing is that the chairs aren't the most comfortable. However, it is a nice large room with plenty of space for some bikes and trainers! So, I emailed my training partner in crime, Lisa, and we decided to make an evening of it.

We thought that the trick to making riding the trainer much more enjoyable might be to put some hot boys riding their bikes really fast and dirt jumping like crazy on a 5'x 5' screen!! It's amazing how well it kept our attention! The line up: So Hot!, Earthed 3, and Unchained (select sections only, as we've seen it so many times that it's really only worth watching the really good sections any more!) We made it easily to 1.5 hours. The last 20 minutes were a struggle for sure, but we knocked out 2 hours and watched some amazing riding at the same time.

The key to making the trainer time doable! Thanks Cam!!

I highly suggest this setup for everyone's time on the trainer. If you aren't so lucky as to have this option available to you, well, then I guess it sucks to be you! =)

It's supposed to be super windy tomorrow, so hopefully our Wisconsin training grounds will be dried out for some dirt jumping and Sea Otter berm training on Thursday! We did some digging out there today, and it is drying out nicely!!

Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't snow again! (Someone needs to keep them crossed on both hands to cancel out Eszter's finger crossings for more snow!) It's almost spring, and I just want to ride my bike (my dirt jumper, not the trainer, as you may be thinking after reading this post!)!!

Long Lost Friends

It's always so much fun to catch up with friends who you haven't seen in a long time but are never far from your thoughts! I got to hang out with my friend Kristin Dole, actually her last name is Goddard, but from a story that I've long since forgotten most of the details, I and a few others, call her Kristin Dole. She is one of the most fun loving people I know. We have had some awesome adventures, and I am psyched that she has recently moved back to Colorado!

Me and Kristin: Our orthodontists would be proud!

Early Mornings and Late Nights

Well, today it is snowing out like crazy, unfortunately. It snowed on Wednesday, too. Luckily, we had really nice weather last week and got a lot of really great riding in before Mother Nature decided to open up on us!

Early morning at Arbor, ahhhh...

Last Thursday, 5 of us headed down to Arbor for an early morning 7:00 a.m. dirt jumping session. Fisher, Wentz, TJ, Lisa, and I all made the trip down in the morning. Although it was a bit chilly, we had a really great session. It's such a nice way to start your day off: adrenaline and good friends. It's a great combo!

Fishie on the 20"

Lisa is killing it dirt jumping lately!

Steve

TJ

Me on the only line I can do at Arbor, but not for long!

Lisa isn't having ANY fun at all!

I was hoping that I wasn't being irresponsible by playing all morning when I should have been studying, as I had a midterm in one of my classes. Normally it wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but the professor of the class is the woman who I am thinking of going back to grad school and working for, so I wanted to make a good impression. Luckily, the early morning dirt jumping then eggs and bacon at TJ's were just what I needed. I did really well on the exam and made a really good impression with Stephanie, so all is well!

On Saturday, Lisa and I got blown down to Evergreen. We ended up digging more than anything, as it was really windy! Lisa is killing the set of REALLY big jumps down there. It has been really great watching her dirt jumping progress over the past couple of months since she got cleared to ride from her August '05 injury. She has helped me with my dirt jumping skills so much! After some great food at Scott's, we headed up to Arbor to finish off the daylight for the day. Although it was a little windy up there, too, it was a tail wind, so we got some pretty good jumping in there, too.

On to the late nights...hahaha My roommates had decided earlier in the week to have a party at our house, so Saturday was assured to be a late night, as their schedule's usually involve going to bed somewhere around 3:30 or 4:00. Pancho arranged for a keg of yummy Fat Tire. About 50 or so people came over, and we all had a good time, especially playing on-the-floor foos ball.

Bama, Kim, and Tom at the party

Happy Feast of Maximum Occupancy Day!!

A few months ago a few of my friends and I decided that we were tired of all of the commercialized holidays and that we were coming up with our own new holiday: the Feast of Maximum Occupancy day. It is officially celebrated on the day after the 28th of February. The celebration requires that you bring a food from your favorite holiday and wear a bathrobe. It is a celebration of gluttony for sure, and it is also a requirement that you show up with grievances to be aired. There were some common themes among the grievances ranging from boys who are mean to roommates that tap dance, but Bishop's list of 6 took the cake, I think. It started with getting scabies while traveling in Japan and had blown out tires and broken ribs thrown in as well. We had a pretty good representation of foods from many other holidays as well: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mardi Gras, and Cinco de Mayo just to name a few. So, like many other holidays that have "mascots" like Santa and the Easter Bunny, the mascot for the Feast of Maximum Occupancy is an unkempt, overweight, sitting-on-the-couch Matthew McConaughey (NOT the hot guy one might think of when you hear his name!). So, we are all completely gorged with yummy homemade dinner and dessert right now, and we all feel a lot better after having talked about the annoying people/things in our lives right now! Good times with great friends, you just can't beat that!

If you've ever looked for an excuse to have fun hanging out with your really good friends, the Feast of Maximum Occupancy may be the holiday for you. Only 364.5 more days till it comes around again! I'll have pictures from Erica coming soon. I know the blog gets boring without any pictures...