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.