Renew

Winding up Little Cottonwood Canyon this morning I could feel that it was going to be a good day.  It was bitter cold, like 2 degrees, and my breath was cold smoke inside the durango, but I was all smiles.  When its cold like that it kinda makes you feel alive because you are in this primal struggle to stay alive.   Putting my ski boots on is misery, fingers responding to the arctic chill and toes resigned to a day of freeze and thaw.  As soon as I feel my binding grab my boot my skis become an appendage and the snow starts to churn under my weight.  Skirting across the Cirque traverse the cold and wind coerce to compel me downward and I realize my existence on this ridge is temporary; hang around here long enough and the very life in me would be frozen and dead.  But there is beauty here. The nerve endings in my fingers tell me this is absurd, and it tells me this in the language of pain.  But I'm still all smiles.  Its a give-and-take world we live in.  The joy is in direct proportion to the misery.  I drop in my line and fall past the trees, gravity always works.  I notice that I'm grunting and my lungs feel the cold burn, I'm caught in the middle of this struggle to stay vertical.  I ride it out and find safety in the glades below, still all smiles.  I know why I do this. Because it reminds me that I want to live.  Happy New Year.

Opening Day!!

Well, tomorrow is opening day for Snowbird.  They have gotten ideal weather for this past week or two and have decided to open a week ahead of schedule.  Needless to say I am WAY excited.  I can remember in years past the anticipation for the start of the season, even those days when I was living in Ohio, working at Cornett and looking at weather.com every 15 minutes to check out the Utah weather scene.  Finally I just put down roots out here and have found that the mountains offer boundless opportunities year round.  Today I definitely have a feeling of nostalgia.  It is funny how sometimes our passions direct our lives.  On a training note, I ran two 4 mile tempo runs this week (about an 8:50 pace) and I was gonna do my long run tomorrow, but seeing how I will be skiing tomorrow, I've decided to do that today.  I'm hoping to do 10-14 miles at an easy pace.  Love to all!!!

Weather rolling in

So I meant to post over the weekend but it just somehow passed on by.  Only thing I really did was run an easy 11 miler and rested the rest of the time.  Matt come over last night for about an hour and we talked at length about tempo, interval and endurance training.  Currently there is stormy weather rolling in and Snowbird is picking up some of the white stuff as we speak.  It looks like it is gonna be this way off and on all week, which is good for the targeted opening day of Nov. 20.

Long time

Its been a little while since I've posted, but there really isn't that much to talk about.  Snowbird announced their anticipated opening day as Nov. 20...that is close my friends!!  I'm taking a rest day tomorrow and doing a long run on Friday.  The weather has been fantastic in the valley this week with sunny skies and highs in the 60's.  TGR is premiering their new ski-flick on campus Friday night.  I love those guys.  I was in Jackson Hole for the 96-97 ski season when they made their first film.  Should be a ton of fun and a good way to get super-psyched for the season.  Jake and I are planning on going to the stadium friday morning for the taping of gameday, now that should be cool.  So it should be a great weekend.  Hope the best for anybody who reads this....which I think is about 3 people.

Friday rest-day

Ok, so I went off a bit yesterday, sorry.  I'm just so excited about cooler weather and the anticipation for an epic winter.  That is why I love Utah, you know its gonna snow 500+ inches of fluff in the canyons.  I'm in full-on rest mode today though.  I can't tell you how much I appreciate rest, it is crucial in training.  That is the mistake I made a few years ago and it resulted in a broken hip.  Also, I committed today to run the 50k (31mile) race on Antelope Island.  Paid the entrance fee.  I feel good about that decision, its motivation to stay in shape, and keep me running through the winter.  The date is march 26th I believe, so that is pretty much towards the end of ski season, which works out perfectly, I will be used to breathing heavy at higher altittudes.  That is pretty much it for now.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I'm meeting up with a really good friend of mine tomorrow who is also in recovery.  I love that guy, he is such a good buddy of mine.  Maybe I'll post pics.  later!!

Post-Moab

So, I've given myself a couple of days to get over things and the last two days I've been at the gym, lifting and running some easy miles on the treadmill.  I'm really surprised at how good I feel, I feel as though my fitness level is at an all-time high; i had a hard time getting my heart-rate up on the treadmill.  the only time I got winded is when I was maxing out on leg presses.  This makes me feel good about ski season.  let me tell you....I CAN'T F-ING WAIT!!!!. My skis are chattering in the closet!!!  As a southern Ohio boy, I never figured things would play out this way, but I'm SOOOO satisfied with being a lone-wolf, dirtbag, take-it-as-it-comes, agnostic, cynical, single, free-spirit mountain-man that I am.  Family life would just not afford that.  I cannot emphasize enough what adventures lay in wait......stay tuned!!!!

Redemption

The Moab Other Half was yesterday and it went really well for all of us.  Jake finished at 1hr 45min, Spencer finished around 1hr 49min, and I finished at 1hr 51min, so we were all within a couple minutes of each other.  My goal was to post a sub-two hour time so I'm happy with what I did.  I don't know how many more road races I'm going to do though because it beats me down, I much more prefer to run in the mountains.  The Antelope Island 50k in March will be perfect for that, its 0% road, but 50k is 31 miles so strategy and training will be much different.  Until then its going to be play time in the mountains, climbing and hiking until winter sets in and then ski like its my job.  I'm hoping to get in about 70 ski days this year.  Okay, so why did I call this post redemption?  Here's the story:  3 years ago I had signed up to do this race with Jake when I developed a stress fracture in my hip from over-training.  Things were not good all the way around.  I was just getting over the break-up with my fiance, was putting in a lot of stressful hours in surgery, and my drinking was getting worse.  When I was diagnosed with the hip fracture, they had to lay me off at work because I could obviously not stand for long hours at work, so I was at home on the couch or in bed with nothing to do but be depressed (and drink, heavily).  I won't go into all of the gory details, but lets just say that its been a long, hard road back, and yesterday at the finish line I felt like I finally could close this chapter of my life.  So now it is on to bigger and better things.  I have many endurance and mountaineering goals, all of which will be interesting indeed.  This half-marathon is something that was personal.  It was nothing compared to what I have planned.  So strap in and hold on, I'm just a pup in this world and I've only began to explore.