Double nickels...

Serious as a heart attack. Makes me feel this way. ~ The Minutemen (D. Boon)

Must. Write. Update.

This past week is a bit of a blur. I actually can't believe it is March 21st. Holy crap it was just June, wasn't it?

Work has been keeping me relatively busy and I have been filling the free time with skiing, helping out with bunnies and whatnot. I was pretty whupped after last Friday's A-Basin adventure but skied at the Rock on Sunday and Monday then went back to the Basin with Luke on Wednesday for day 55 for the season. Fatigue had set in like a mo-fo and I didn't ski well. We were doing some Enduro training and I was having a really tough time with things. We did manage to log 21 or 22 laps in about 4 hours so that wasn't too bad but I now know that I need to go into the thing rested else the day will be even more horrible than it already will be. Was that English? Um... who cares. I am sure you get my drift. I took a torture bath when I got home (one would be surprised how amazingly cold the well water is at 9000 feet in the winter) and that actually made things a LOT better.

Luke shows us how it's done on Corona.

Thursday was spent learning Quickbooks. If I ever get hit on the head and start talking dump about how awesome it would be to become a CPA, pound me again with a shovel to knock me back to normal. Seriously.

I felt great today at the Rock and was skiing better, for the most part as well. Pete, Luke and I did a little ski test with 3 pair of Hippy Stinx-style skis to see which was preferred. Luke is headed to Crested Butte on Sunday for a K2 test session and wanted to be able to provide some opinions regarding the last 3 versions of their "big" skis. Good times.

Rach and I are heading to Gunnison on Sunday to visit the parental units so I am not sure whether I will ski tomorrow or not. I am leaning toward "not" since it is spring break and I could really use a little time off to recover. Maybe a light day would work but we'll see.

I watched a couple of movies lately that mostly don't merit mention but I'm going to mention them anyway, just for shits and grins:

• Bad Boy Bubby: I thought I had seen this before and was correct. At least I had seen some of it. The film starts out with a scene where the main character is poking a cat in a cage with a stick so I turned it off. My recollection is that it doesn't really get better but I didn't watch it so can't really say any more.
• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: This is mostly worth watching for the acting. Casey Affleck did a good job as Robert Ford. Other than that, it was a bit slow and never really captured me. I am not a huge western fan, however so again, don't necessarily take my word for it.
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin: Really funny. I have seen this one before and it was still quite amusing. A couple of scenes are laugh-til-you-cry funny.
  

Hmmm. I thought there were more than that. Shows you how much I know. Nichole told me about a kickass 70s trainwreck of a movie that I'll let you know about soon called Night of the Lepus. Giant killer bunnies, DeForest Kelly ("Bones" from Trek), Janet Leigh and Rory Calhoun star. It's going to be terrible. I can't wait.

Leap before you look.

~stubert.

Training day(s)...

I'm hungry and tired and my clothes are smelly. ~ Homer Simpson

So where were we? Oh yeah.... this week.

This was a hectic week. Lots of work stuff, meetings, and yes, skiing. I also went to see Shirley and she either: 1) Took it easy on me for whatever reason, 2) I am much tougher than I look, 3) I wasn't in quite as bad of shape as I thought, 4) Some totally whacked combination of the above. I am going to go with #4 just because it allows me to hedge my bets. And you know how much I love hedges.

Monday was spent in meetings in the glorious metropolis of Denver. Glad I don't have to drive down there every day. In fact, I am pretty friggin' glad I don't have to drive anywhere every day. The one thing I miss least about having a "real" job is the commute. But you probably could have guessed that.

Tuesday was more of the same with more commuting to meetings. Not good times but necessary. I then went to get tenderized by Shirley (see above) and then headed home for who knows what. I have learned my lesson (the hard way) about trying to go for a run.ride/whatever after being Shirley-ized so just took it easy post massage.

Wednesday I was a bit off, way off, actually. From the start this was just a wacky day as my brain just couldn't keep up with anything that was going on. I was late to meet Luke at Eldora because I somehow managed to lose my keys in-between my house and my car. Then he left his boot liners at home so that was a bust anyway. (I found my keys in my boot, incidentally. No clue how they got there.)

Then we met with Ben and Dan, the lung brothers, for a Brainard ski. It was windy as hell and in addition to my brain taking a vacation, I was having some physical issues as well. I injured my shoulder lifting several years ago and it still creates problems for me on occasion. Wednesday, apparently, was one such occasion so my right knee (tweaked in January) decided to join in the fun and/or games. It really wasn't too terrible but I decided not to push it and headed back to the car before getting in any real skiing. We skinned up past Lake Mitchell then skied down some heinous wind-slab monstrosity (and I say "monstrosity" given the pitch was maybe a regular blue and all of 3 normal turns). It was actually a lot of fun to be out. The wind was howling but that made crossing the frozen lakes a blast. No pun intended. Luke, Ben and Dan skied the Flemish Giant in Rabbit Cages while I used the gale-force winds to my advantage on the skate back to the car.

Thursday I was off as well. and don't even remember what I did so it must have been a laugh-riot. Pretty sure I just worked.

Friday, Rach had to get up super early to go to the House Rabbit Society because 9News was coming in at 6:00 or some gawd-awful time to do a special on why getting a rabbit for Easter on a whim is a bad idea. Apparently the spot was supposed to air on the morning show but was preempted by the shocking news of snow in the mountains. (SHOCKING!!!) Have I mentioned recently how much I can't stand the MSM? So I'll let you know when it actually shows up on their site.

I headed up to the Basin to get in some Enduro training. The pass was closed so I had to go around the long way but it was worth it. They called in 6 inches but it was more like 10 and I started spinning laps an hour later than I had planned. Man, that was some good snow.

I rolled two laps on the Enduro course (down Standard) then headed to the car to swap skis. I have been trying to ski on my Hippy Stinx more lately to get used to them but Friday was definitely a day to bring out the big guns so the Hell Bents got the nod. Now we're talkin'. Good times were had by all.

I basically just rolled laps for most of the day, averaging just about 5 per hour not really trying that hard. I was just enjoying the pow and trying to find challenging lines to ski. I dropped into Dud's (there is a scary mandatory air into that line) and found a bunch more rocks to drop. Even fell off this hairy line in West Turbo Luke showed me a couple of weeks ago. Kinda funny, actually. I got on the thing and as I scootched down to get to my launch pad, all the snow just fell off the rocks. I started to rotate forward and then just said, "The hell with it, now or never," and went for it. Sprawled for the most part but it was funny.

After lap 15 or 16 I started to get a little tired so I just switched to alpine turns for the most part and really started to pick up the pace. After about 20 laps I ran into Pinsey who is the Basin master when it comes to mountain knowledge and had him show me a few lines with which I was a little less familiar. We spun about 8 more laps, hit the Christmas Trees last run down Pali and then went over to Exo for one last cruiser. 10-4:15, about 28 laps. Not too shabby, really. The Enduro is going to be really tough but I am fairly confident 50 laps is doable and 60 may be within our reach. I need to spin a full day up there really charging to be sure but Friday's effort made me slightly less terrified.

Today I am a little sore from yesterday's push and am planning to just take it easy. It is gorgeous up here, however, so I may go for a run this afternoon. We'll see. Maybe just a hike.

Seems like I have been flailing on the movie reporting of late. I can say that The Wire is vastly overrated. Do not bother with it. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was okay. They had to cut so much out from the book that it fell a bit flat but at least the acting is getting marginally better. Extras is amusing. Frank Zappa: Baby Snakes is interesting but pretty weird and Easy Rider actually still holds up pretty well for being as old as I am. The Passion of Joan of Arc is pretty amazing given that it was filmed in the 20s and Zodiac was slow but well-acted.

That's all for now, faithful readers. I'll have more for you soon.

Enjoy.

~stubert.

An even fifty...

Stepped out of the line, like a sheep runs from the herd ~ Green Day

Got back from Gunnison this evening after a 3-day visit. Went over to visit the parental units and get in a few days on the slopes. It was a decent trip, a little tiring, but good.

So I have skied the last 5 of 7 days. Hit Eldora on Monday and Thursday, rocked two days in the Butte Friday and Saturday, then popped over to Monarch on the way home today. Believe it or not, I actually feel pretty solid. Even after a lot of earners.

So the Butte was awesome, as usual. I met up with my cousin, David, which was super cool. I haven't gotten to spend much time with him so it was great to catch up. He is an oil/gas developer in Oklahoma but lived in Denver for most of his 20s and early 30s so he isn't afraid of the steep stuff. We didn't ski super hard but did get in a lot of skating and side-stepping up to the goods. Particularly the second day. I headed up to Teocalli Bowl and stomped a pretty big drop, which was really satisfying. Then I hiked all the way out to the fence on Third Bowl. There is some serious terrain out there. A must see for those able to tackle it. A lot of really great features and VERY steep pitches.

I spent the latter portion of both days doing the traditional "power hour" but in the bumps on the Twister lift trails. As I may have stated in the past, I am not a bump skier. I certainly can hold my own in the V-dubs but I don't enjoy it. With the Enduro coming up, however, I need to log some time in the stuff that makes me groan. So I set my mind to conquering my least-favorite terrain. Got a few hoots from the chair so I guess I was doing okay. Good times.

Monarch was actually pretty sweet as well. It doesn't get a ton of traffic so I seem to always be able to find untracked when I go there. Again, I was hiking for the good stuff and trying to get in some more training to whip my sorry ass into shape. I am actually feeling pretty strong but the Enduro is going to be a bear so I need to keep cracking. I was anxious to get home so only stayed a couple of hours but did get in some sweet pow turns WAY up in the atmosphere (summit 11,962 feet).

I was planning to get in another day tomorrow (Monday) but got booked into meetings. Tuesday as well. I may try to sneak in a pre-dawn ascent but will have to see how things go. Wednesday is a go for me for sure and I'll probably try to go on Thursday and Friday as well. Today was day 50 for me, which ties last year's tally... but we have 3 months to go in the season so 75+ is a definite possibility for me this year.

I have been thinking a lot about the Leadville 100 and am still targeting '09 for a do-over on that bad boy. I really miss running and it is tough to figure out how to start putting in the miles with so much snowpack this season. I am interested in doing the Leadville 50 in July so will have to get started logging the hours here soon. Last year was easier in many ways as I was working in Boulder so lunchtime and post-work runs were a cinch. Right now, I am just going to keep focused on the Enduro and try to start doing some power workouts (probably intervals on steep hills) then get back to my standard 3-4 hour runs and throw in some speed work here and there to try to improve my form.

Shake your money maker.

~stubert.

Off the couch...

March 1. 60+ degrees. Stu out getting dumb.

Holy smokes, you need booze! ~ Dr. Nick Riviera

I think I overdid it a wee bit yesterday.

I decided at some point that I wanted to go for a run. Other than that, my options were fairly wide open seeing how it was about 60 degrees up here. Well, not so wide open but at least not excruciatingly cold or anything. Plan A (ride the motorcycle to Boulder, run Mesa) didn't go so well as my battery was dead so I opted for Plan B: Run a half marathon, at altitude, probably in snow off the couch. Note to self: have someone else make up the plans from now on.

I actually felt pretty great to start. Took it fairly easy (though my heart thought otherwise) at a leisurely 12 minute pace. I ran pretty much everything on the way up to Panorama Point via Gap Road (and a sojurn through Meadow Lake) and was just cruising. Once I made it up to the Racoon Trail cutoff, it was decision time and being a dork, I chose to do the loop.

After post-holling for a bit the trail finally packed up and was runnable down to the low-point. Actually a lot of fun just humming along downhill through the snowy woods. Once I reached the bottom, the fun began and I had to alternate run/walk cycles due to the steepness of the trail and the sloppy conditions. No biggie, I've been there before. I quickly made it up to the top then began the slippery, mushy descent back to the cutoff.

Once I made it back to Gap, I decided I only had to log a few more miles to get the half marathon. This is where I started to question my judgement as I had to walk on several occasions because stuff was starting to hurt. I made it back to my road feeling okay but then realized I needed to tack on another mile and a half or so to get the full distance. My options were: 1) head uphill now and get a nice downhill finish or 2) run downhill past my house and then back up for the bonus miles. I opted for number 1 and suffered up the hill. Not my best performance and really horrible on the scale of what constitutes a good 1/2 marathon time but whatchagonna do?

Today, I was pretty sore despite having stretched a bunch last night. We cleaned bunny cages at the COHRS and then I headed home. Turns out the high today was about 30 up here and we got about a foot of snow. I considered going to the Rock for a few turns but decided that I had work to accomplish and that my legs needed some rest. Tomorrow, though...

Here are a couple of shots from last week's adventure. Hope to get out more and not ski like a total Fred.

Luke ripping it up. | Me trying to make it look mean. Shots courtesy of Jonny Copp.

That's about it for now. I did see Persipolis last week, which was good. And watched Big Fish yesterday while stretching. I also checked out Into Great Silence and Frank Zappa: Baby Snakes. Extras is also quite amusing if you haven't checked it out. Quite the mish-mash if I do say so myself.

Take your vitamin I.

~stubert.