Lonely Ride

Unfortunately, we didn't take a camera with us for our ride today. Our current cell phones don't have cameras since they are that old. But by Tuesday or so, we will be geeked out with Blackberries, so we can always have a camera with us.

Back to the ride. It was beautiful with all of the snow, the roads were mostly good with only snow chucks occasionally to deal with, and no other bike riders. For the first time that either Amber or I could recall, we rode Hwy 36 from Boulder to Lyons without seeing another rider. We finally saw another rider at 2 hr and 13 minutes into our ride at 75th and Hwy 66. I'm guessing that people either thought the roads would be bad or were waiting until later for it to get warmer. The nice part of riding when it was still a bit chilly was that the roads were dry as everything hadn't started melting.

The ride itself was pretty uneventful. A and I just wanted to spin the legs for a while as we are unsure if the Koppenburg is still happening tomorrow. The main uncertanity about tomorrow is whether the dirt road and hill can be cleared in time. If so, it should stay decently frozen in the morning for A's and my races. Reports from this morning make it sound pretty iffy though.

Time to go watch some basketball,
E

Ironman St. George

After a week sitting on the fence (not literally), A and I signed up for Ironman St. George last night. It used to feel weird signing up for a race a year in advance, but that's become standarad practice for Canada. This race is just over 13 months away (May 1, 2010).

When I initially informed A about the race, her immediate response was to sign up. Then, we thought about it some more and thought maybe we shouldn't sign up. Then, we thought we should. Then, we thought we shouldn't. Then, we signed up.

Last year, we weren't completely prepared for IM Arizona in mid-April (birthplace of the blog) and this will be only two weeks later, but I think we've learned some things to be better prepared. Also, last year we knew that we had Canada in August, so we didn't want to burn out with training in March (we saved that for July). Our plan right now is that St. George will be our only IM in 2010 as afterwards we will move onto other adventures for a while.

We drove through St. George last year on the way to and from the Halfmax in Vegas and thought the area looked nice. We probably would have look around a bit closer if we knew we were going to race there. We're most excited that its close to Zion Nat'l Park and Bryce Canyon.

So, if anyone wants to hang out in southwestern Utah next spring, let us know.
-Eric

Not Trying To Ignore You

Really, it's not you. It's us. We've been busy.

For a while we were too busy to train much. We were able to keep active by biking to and from work, but not much else. I (E) told a friend about our lack of training and she was concerned about how A was dealing with it. A's got to train as it is her nature. I'm a bit more able to go with the flow mentally, but my body doesn't adjust well as my back and legs start to cramp up with no training.

The last two weeks have been marginally better, but not by too much. For example, we missed Tuesday morning's swim so we we made it up with swim last night. Just 3.5 days late.

I ended up biking on the trainer today even though it was a beautiful day since I'm on call for work. A got out for a nice ride and then we ran together for 30 minutes. We should get a nice run in tomorrow morning.

Later,
E

Pre-blogging backpacking trip to Montana

I was trying to organize the office when I came upon a topo map from A and my backpacking trip to Montana from about 10 years ago. We captured some of the things that were happening during the trip on the margin of one of the four maps that covered the area we were in. The trip was seven days in the Lee Metcalf Wilderness Area, about an hour south of Bozeman, MT. We were coming from sea level and the trail started around 6000 ft. The elevation combined with our 50+ lb packs made for some tough days. Since, I haven't finished my "future adventures" post, I thought I'd share our trip recap from then.

Note: We didn't start writing stuff down until day four so the first three days are a bit light. Stuff in parenthesis are my new comments.

Day 1: Lots of climbing
Good views
Moose tracks at lake (not the ice cream, actual moose tracks where we camped)
Lentil stew - good (we wanted to remember which recipes were good)
6 miles
3000 ft up

Day 2: Up to Beacon Pt by 12:30 - tough climb, tough downhill
Saw fishermen on day hike at top (we didn't see anyone the first day so they were the first people we had seen)
Windy but spectacular on Indian Ridge
Walked along river in afternoon
Burritos for dinner - too many beans (I'll let you draw your own conclusions)

Day 3 -Down + Up (Amber takes over writing)
Early start, long day
Multiple river crossings. (she hated some of the river crossings with a 50 lb load going over a log)
No people, many signs of moose
Cheesy Spicy beans and ricey for dinner - good but bland (luckily we had little debbie brownies for dinners, good fuel for the cold nights)

Day 4 - Up down up down up down
Saw Lone Mt + Big Sky ski area.
Saw two groups of people/horses after a beautiful lunch @ Summit Lake.
Saw 1st wildlife - marmots
Camped @ Mirror Lake next to a party of 4 + across from 3 more people. (Group next to us had a huge Tibetan mastiff named Ziegler. Felt safe from bears with him around)
Will take a rest day tomorrow.
Curried veggies + rice for dinner - BAD (we built a fire and burned the rest of it)
Saw shooting stars - Had small fire (mostly to burn the food)
Briefly in Bear Basin

Day 5 - Rest Day
Left camp at noon
Mirror Lake to explore
Climbed up half of Blaze Mtn (I got freaked out and needed to go down)
Ate lunch overlooking camp + fly fishing school - lots of traffic down below
Climbed down + played on boulder field w/ big rocks (size of houses rocks)
Tomato paste gone bad, so spaghetti dinner was without - stole dried tomatoes from chili
Had bid fire - borrowed axe
Next time dried sauce + smaller pasta (I think the spaghetti wasn't easy to deal with)

Day 6 - Amber slept in, still on trail by 9:20
Walked down, up + over - hard day
Saw hikers leaving Spanish lakes - 1 large group + group of 4 w/ dog, 3 people on way up pass, + 2 people, 3 lamas, + dog near top.
People (naked?) camped @ Lake Solitude (maybe they took the name literally), so moved on to Jerome Rocks Lake.
People on far side of lake, but barely saw them.
Mushroom Barley Medley soup for dinner - good! (especially w/ rye crisp)

Day 7 - On the way out
All down.
Pretty trail, easy + flat toward end, soupy in middle.
Saw day hikers near trail head.
Ziegler (the Tibetan mastiff) + owners passed us on the trails (they were on horses)
Got picture of Pioneer Falls. (not sure why this was a noteworthy picture)
Cleaned up in river, got muffins in Bozeman, + hit I90 to Billings.
Ate at Country Harvest + Buffet (really crappy food, but it was the quantity that mattered)
Skies are hazy.