Happy Belated Valentine's Day

I hope you all had a wonderful pseudo holiday, and at the very least ate some good food and drank some wine. Which of course is exactly what we did.

We are still here in Breckenridge enjoying the mountains (thanks to one of those deals where we can have a cheap hotel stay as long as we agree to tour some condos they are trying to get buyers for). And so we spent Valentine's Day skiing at Copper. Being a weekday, there were no crowds at all and we got countless runs in. Plus the weather was warm and sunny. Most of the day we spent trying to do some jumps at the terrain park. But I have to say that my ability to catch air was mediocre at best.

The we headed back to get showered up and go out to dinner. We went to a place called the Hearthstone Restaurant which was phenomenal. We got there about 5 so we could take advantage of the happy hour in the lounge (which had a beautiful view and $5 plates of food), and then stayed there in the lounge for the rest of the meal. It was amazing! One of my sides was a black truffle creamed spinach, which was undoubtably the best spinach I ever had. I would highly recommend this place if you are ever in Breckinridge and looking to spend a little extra on a stellar meal.




The Hearthstone Restaurant in Breckenridge, CO.

Mediocre Tip: Happy hours are fabulous, and they should be taken advantage of. The drinks are sad when you don't.

Christmas, Marathon, KT Tape, and Snow

Ok, so I know I haven't blogged in months, but hey I do say up front this thing is mediocre to begin with. But I do promise to update the blog more often. So in a nutshell here we go:

1) We went to Salt Lake City to celebrate Christmas with Tomme's family (no they are not Mormon), and had a blast hiking in the snow.







2) I signed up for my first ever marathon with my buddy Jason.

http://www.ftcollinsmarathon.com

3) I discovered the wonderfulness of KT Tape while training for the marathon and having problems with my shin.



http://www.kttape.com

4) Took Pancake for her first snowshoe trip at Hoosier Pass.






5) Did lots of skiing on Copper Mountain.



6) And now we are spending a few days in Breckenridge doing all kinds of stuff. Like today we went cross country skiing.

U.N. Plots, a Shady DA, and an Anniversary.

Last weekend was Tomme and I's six year wedding anniversary. In the military getting to spend your anniversary together is a rare blessing, so we tend to make a fairly big deal out of the ones where we get to be together. So we headed up to Denver Friday night and stayed in our favorite hotel downtown, ate some awesome Ethiopian food, and got up Saturday and headed back into the mountains for a day of skiing. It was Tomme's first time on the slopes this season and we had a blast. We stayed in Denver again Saturday night and Sunday we had such a relaxing fun day walking and biking around downtown Denver and visiting our favorite book store (The Tattered Cover), and some of our other favorite Denver shops.

Downtown Denver has a pretty great little system called B-Cycle that is used in several U.S. cities and many European cities. Basically there are bicycle stations all over downtown and anyone can check a bike out from a station, bike to where they are going and drop the bike off at another station. It's a great program and we love being able to use it to get around downtown Denver. However this program became the center of a scandel in our recent gubernatorial race here in Colorado. GOP candidate Dan Maes said the bike sharing program was actually a part of a U.N. plot that is connected to cities all across the world.

Now I could try to explain such a comment, but I just can't. I mean how do you explain crazy? Feel free to read more about Maes' explanation for the theory at http://www.denverpost.com/election2010/ci_15673894. But honestly our politics lately has become insane and paranoid. The fact of the matter is bike sharing just makes sense. It's cost effective, an easy way to get around, and it's beneficial to the environment. Period. But wait...




Oh my God it's too late, they have already invaded! Oh no...








we were a part of the U.N.'s plot to take over the world!

But as we took part in this plot I looked over at Tomme while he was biking and he simply said "bicycling makes me happy" with a big smile on his face. And it is abosolutley true in his case. Tomme often does his 11 mile commute to work on his bicycle and there is no question that he is happier on the days he gets to do so. This past year has really been his first chance to get into it. When we first bought our road bikes he loved it, but within just a few months he had to take off for his first deployment to Iraq. And when he returned he lived in Colorado and his bike and I stayed in KY while I finished grad school. But this last year of he and I living in the same place with both our bikes we have really fallen in love with it. It just feels good I think to start your day outside on a biccycle than commuting in a steel box. But this is not how everybody feels about cycling.

Often as we bike we have people yell things like "get off the road" (despite the fact that bikes are considered vehicles and that it is technically illegal to bike on the sidewalk). When this happens I often think how impatient we have become as a society. I mean really unless you are a surgeon rushing off to the hospital for an emergency, the 30 seconds you might have to slow down to get around a cyclists really is not worth getting so upset. Why does cycling make some people so happy and others assholes?

Well here in CO, one particular jerk seems to be embodied in one of our district attorneys. In Colorado there was a case of a Morgan Stanley financial manager, who handles accounts for wealthy clients, who allegedly veered off the road hitting a cyclists from behind. According to some reports he then fled the scene and pulled over later in a Pizza Hut parking lot to report damage to his car, but still did not report hitting the cyclists. The DA Mark Hurlbert decided not to file a felony charge against the defendant because of the implications a felony on his record might have on his job.

Well. This same DA decided he would file felony charges against two cyclists in a case where one of the cyclists had purchased an entry into a race called the Leadville 100, and upon finding out she could not do the race she gave her entry spot to a friend (who subsequently finished second in her age group under the other girl's name). One of the cyclists was a teacher, and the other was a nurse. Speaking as a nurse, having a felony charge on your record is a big freaking deal that can ruin your career. You have to report it to your state board of nursing, they can take your license away, and it could also make it very difficult if not impossible to get malpractice insurance. And as someone who knows a lot of teachers, having a felony charge can greatly hinder your career there as well. When asked why he decided to file these charges against the cyclists the DA said "After talking with people in the race, this is something very serious".

So apparently when it is a rich guy who nearly kills a man and then flees the scene it is not serious enough to warrant a felony charge if it may have implications for the defendant's job, but if the defendant is a nurse or teacher who gets second place in a bike race under someone else's name, that is a serious enough offense to warrant a felony charge despite the fact that it would have major implications for their careers. Me thinks someone has a thing against cyclists and a big thing for money?

Anyway the anger some people have against sharing the road with cyclists is overblown and misplaced. They are just people trying to get fit and have some fun so take it easy and try not to get too upset that you will make it to where you are going a whole 10 seconds later than you would have if the cyclists had not been there.

First Day on the Slopes

So as I mentioned in my last post I have been impatiently waiting for CO winter to arrive so I could break out all my winter sports gear and have some fun. Well winter definitely has not arrived here in the Springs yet (I plan on using my motorcycle today for transport). But up in the mountains ski resorts have started to open, and this past weekend my friend Anita and I took to Copper Mountain to get our boots on the snow for the first time this season.

This picture is Anita and I celebrating getting off the lift for the first time successfully. Her snowboarding season ended early last year when she tore her MCL while getting off the lift so we were very grateful to get off the lift in one piece this year.

It was a pretty good first day. Bright and sunny during the first half of our first run, then a blizzard came down during the second half of the same run. This blizzard was accompanied by lightening at the top of the mountain so they shut down the lift. Then about 30 minutes later it was back to bright and sunny and we got a couple more runs in before calling it an early day to take it easy on Anita's recovering knee.

It was a great day and it got me even more excited to get out there with my hubby and fly down the mountain!

Location:Copper Mountain, CO

Colorado Winter and my "Old Kentucky Home"

Well it is that time of year where the nip in the air and the snow starting to fall on Pikes Peak (as seen in the above picture) gets you giddy, and constantly checking the web cams at local ski resorts to see how close you are to all the winter fun that lies ahead.

This did not use to be my normal reaction to winter knocking on the door. Originally I am from Kentucky, and no doubt for all of you that have never been there you are inevitably thinking of chicken, horses, and hillbillies with no teeth or shoes. But I have to say that I LOVE my "Old Kentucky Home"! Kentucky is absolutely beautiful, and it has plenty to do for mediocre adventurers like me. Great hiking, biking, and climbing is right there at your finger tips. Plus my city of Louisville (I grew up in a smaller town of Lexington, but lived in Louisville for about ten years) has so much to offer. It is like the perfect combination of a big city and a small town. It also has GREAT FOOD!!! If I were to compare Colorado Springs (and possibly even Denver) with the city of Louisville I would be hard pressed to say that Louisville isn't the better metro area. In fact when you compare food, arts, activities, and culture, directly with the cost of living it may be hard to find a better bang for your buck anywhere else in the country.

However, the KY winter is fairly depressing. In fact it may be a U.S. center for seasonal affective disorder. The skies are generally grey, it is fairly cold, and it rains more than snows. So I have to say that winter in Ky was never very exciting, and for the person who likes to go outdoors it can be a real bummer. For the most part people just hang out in their homes and wait for spring.

This is definitely where I have to say that Colorado has KY beat. Most days in the Springs the skies are clear and sunny, with all the beautiful snow dropping just to the west of us in the mountains we can see everyday. All the sunlight makes the temperatures feel milder than they do most of the time in KY, but the mountains which are about 1-2 hours away get so much snow that you find as much to do outside in the winter as you do any other season. Last year in addition to our normal snowboarding and skiing, we added ice climbing, snowshoeing, and cross country skiing, to the list of activities we would enjoy over the weekend. So as winter and the colder temperatures approach, instead of feeling the normal gloom and doom, we find ourselves excited and impatient for winter to find its way to us. Colorado is great place to be in all seasons, and that is probably the best reason to love it.

Half Marathon Pic

Me crossing the finish line on the right.

"The Other Half"

This was a stellar weekend for me. First I got to watch the University of Kentucky football team finally pull off a win against Steve Spurrier and South Carolina (while sitting next to my good friend Jason, a South Carolina alum). Then I finally got to run the half marathon (13.1 miles) that I have been training for over the last few months, and it went swimmingly. The race is called "The Other Half", and it takes place in Moab, UT. I ran it with my friend Jason, which is who you see me standing with in the picture above. We both felt really good throughout the race and had a blast.

Since the race was bright and early Sunday morning, we drove into Moab Saturday afternoon, picked up our packets, and found a place to eat and watch the game. After the game we went to the grocery store to pick up some bananas for the morning and some Vaseline to prevent race chaffing (I had forgotten the stuff I normally use). While standing in the checkout line I turned to Jason and said "Does it look bad that we are buying bananas and Vaseline and nothing else?". Jason responded by immediately moving to the next lane with the bananas while I remained in mine with the Vaseline.

As far as results go I was ecstatic. As I have mentioned before in the blog I am not exactly a fast runner and my goal for this race was to run somewhere between a 9:45 to 10 min/mile average pace. Well I have to say that training at nearly 3,000 feet higher than the race's elevation helped me out tremendously. I ended up running at a pace just under 9 min/mile and finished with a time of 1 hour and 58 minutes. This got me 427th place overall out of 1537, and 37th place in my gender and age group out of 204. I was really pleased!!!!

But I have to say a few things about the race venue itself. The backdrop for this race is just amazing. The entire race is on a road running right next to a river in a gorgeous desert canyon. It was unbelievable. At one point I looked to my left and saw the La Salle mountain range in the background and nearly stopped running to stare at the view. And at the beginning of the race we were getting to see all of this as the sun came up. It was without a doubt the prettiest race I have ever done.

However, there is a downside to running a race in a place so far out and beautiful. Number one is that there is no easy was to get to the starting line. All runners had to meet at one of two locations in the town of Moab to catch a shuttle to the start at 6:30AM. From there we took the shuttle about 40 minutes out of town to get to the start. Secondly, because it is so remote, you don't have as many encouraging spectators on the side of the road cheering you on. And finally this course is pretty flat for about the first 7 miles and THEN the hills start. Having to do all of your hills in the second half of the race kind of sucks, but at least the last mile was downhill.

Tomme came to cheer me on and take pictures and I was so happy when I saw him near the finish line. After the race Jason and I got our complimentary post race beer and relaxed. It was a really great day, and as excited as I am for the race to be over I enjoyed it so much that I am already considering doing another one next year.




Me seeing Tomme near the finish.




Jason at the finish.

Mediocre tip: Buying Vaseline and bananas at the same time looks shady.