Uff Da

Uff da (can also be spelled uff-da, uffda, uff-dah, oofda, ufda, ufdah, oofta or ufta) is an exclamation of Norwegian origin that is relatively common in the Upper Midwestern states of the United States. It roughly means "drats," "oops!" or "ouch!", especially if the "ouch!" is an empathetic one. In Norwegian Midwestern USA culture, "Uff Da" translates into: "I am overwhelmed." It has become a mark of Scandinavian roots, particularly for people from North Dakota and Minnesota

Yep, that pretty much describes the day. A chilly bike ride, a tough 50 min uphill/ 45 min downhill run with too much traffic, and then a short swim to end it took up most of our day today. We got a bit later of start than normal as we thoroughly enjoyed Stout Month at Mtn Sun last night as we tried to give Charlie and Tina some advice for the Mt. Taylor Quad next weekend. We even ended up buying two of the "I heart Stout Month" t-shirts. The bike wasn't all that terribly cold until we descended from Jamestown. As usual, warm on the way up, cold on the way down, even with more layers on. Then onto the run up Boulder Canyon to Four Mile to Poormans. Normally, there isn't that much traffic, but normal is at 7 or 8 in the morning. At 2 in the afternoon, lots of traffic. People, I know you live on the roads and know them well, but it doesn't make them your very own race course. The downhill is normally a lot faster but the icy trails slowed things down. Especially after my fall two weeks ago on an icy trail. Finally the swim, which was blessfully short (1500 m). We actually got a little sun during the swim, but when I say a little, I mean it. About 5 m of the pool was in the sun, while the rest was in the shadows from the next-door condos. But, it was our first swim in the light in a while. Although my hand is still messed up from the fall (still 9 finger typing and such). Wolfgang's advice of taping my fingers together is allowing me to swim. Normally, I'm not a big fan of swimming, but it was really annoying not to be able to do something. Wow, maybe I should break this into a few paragraphs. Nah. Now it is post out of order triathlon. A is off getting a massage. I am getting my legs squished by the NormaTech.

Next Saturday brings the Mt. Taylor Quadrathlon in Grants, NM. We have actually now lost track at how many times we have done the race. Who wouldn't love spending a good chunk of the day biking, running, skiing, snowshoeing to the top of Mt Taylor, snowshoeing, skiing, running and biking back to Grants. Hopefully we can both avoid bike issues (broken spoke 2 years ago and flat tires last year). The snow has been plentiful, so hopefully the ski down isn't too icy. My record is 4 (or was it 5) crashes on the way down. A snowplowed that year, didn't crash, and ended up with the same ski down time.

That's enough for now.

-E

One more thing

Anyone know how to get single workouts out of Garmin Training Center on a Mac? I'm willing to settle for an export into excel. Everything I have tried so far exports the whole history into one large, un-usable file.

Thx

Just sayin'

It has been awhile since we posted a blog update. Not really sure why it has been so long, we have been busy with lots to write about. Then again, we have been busy..... Just sayin'

Last weekend we were up at Devil's Thumb Ranch for the Governor's Cup 30 k skate ski race. It was a fun time and a fast day. E did not race since his hand was bothering him still from a fall on the ice while running the previous Sunday. Instead he helped with ski prep, ski selection, and race super-fan cheering. I felt very special. The next day we had a fabulous morning classic ski before heading down to Denver for a baby shower for another A & E who we have been friends with for over 10 years. Great food and visiting were had by all. Really, really good food!

And that was the start and end of our 2009-2010 ski season.... Just sayin'

Before that we have been working (lots, but not more than normal), got out for a 4 h cyclocross ride on the flatter dirt roads in Boulder County, got a new storm door to cut out some of the front-door drafts, and, well, did lots of boring married people stuff like that.

January was a return to swim-bike-run with some ski thrown in for good measure. Was good to get back into the routine, especially since IM St. George on May 1st seems pretty close these days. Izzy-dog has liked the return to more of a run routine, but not the fact that most of our biking is on the trainers (they freak her out and she goes and hides on one of her many doggie beds). The swimming has been..... slow..... but the skiing was great. Really, really great. We got in a fabulous classic ski at Eldora (!!!!?) which is usually thin in the track and squirrly at the beginning of January, then a skate the other weekends after that. All should be good prep for my favorite February race: Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon on Feb. 13th.

We have been cooking some great food, including a batch of Chile Verde, a butternut squash lasagna with hand-made noodles, a cabbage-tomato-bean soup, baked ziti...... you get the point. Next up: tackling the 18.5 lb squash we brought back from my aunt and uncle in MN at Christmas time. I'm thinking chunking and roasting will be a project for this weekend.

Well, that's about all here. Seems to be near bed time. Today marked our first treadmill run in a long time (like nearly 2 years). It was not pretty. Let's say that me vs. treadmill had the treadmill out ahead. I think it is all mental and welcome the chance to throw down in the future since today I somehow just let it pass by. I got all the physical stuff done right, and got in a good workout, but, well...... it was not pretty. Just sayin'

'Til next time, train fast, train honest, train smart, and have fun

-A

It's snowing!

I love a good storm. I am too much of an optimist to fully acknowledge that this might mean a delay to some of our plans. Right now, I'm just in love with the snow. It is white, fluffy, and not very cold here.

Perfect.

I think last night brought us ~6". We are in a lull in the storm, and snug inside getting ready for Christmas Eve Dinner, so it is easy to have warm fuzzy thoughts about our weather situation. All of that might change if family can't make it here to help eat the 13 lb turkey and 4 lb of Christmas cookies. And a change could be in store if the storm picks back up tonight and tomorrow like they are predicting.

Until then, we'll keep getting ready for What's Next.

So far, that has meant washing the dog (Izzy was a bit, well, filthy. Not good for guests ad petting, which just seems to be part of Christmas) planning When We Start What with the cooking, putting the final touches on the wrappings for gifts, shoveling the steps, changing out the shower curtain (it was time. 'nuf said), and making sure we can get to church for the family program at 4, I think E will come, too.

Next up: a fresh snow Stomp. Walk seems too normal. Ski and run are going to be hard until the groomers and plows catch up with the new snowfall........ I must admit, my hopes and wishes for new snow did not account for the possibility that new snow would mean a change to training. I'm trying to stay flexible, but too much snow to ski was not what I had considered. Ah well, I still love all the white stuff!

Merry Christmas!

Vacation

Hello blog. Long time, no see. Sorry 'bout that......

E and I are in MN on vacation. We are splitting the time between our two families, which are about 3 h apart by car. We start with the Rydholms then move on to the Hofstads. All has gone well so far. The drive was loooooong, but uneventful. The roads were dry until Des Moines, then just wet not icy. The winds were either absent or steady, no gusts. The stops were few and brief. The only slight disappointment was lunch (we normally pack food but did not get to that in time so we ended up at a Hardees. I used to crave their burgers (mushroom and swiss!) as a kid, but I have much higher standards now and was just.... disappointed. Nothing was bad, it just wasn't good. And the fries were cold.)

Since our arrival, we have been busy skiing (Murphy-Hanrehan! My first time! What a neat set of trails. Snow is good, but bring the rock skis), running, shopping, cooking/eating, even went to a movie (The Blind Side, good stuff). Last night we cooked up some dinner and headed to my sister and brother-in-law's house. It is neat for me to see my little sister all grown up, and it was a fun time to sit and visit some in person.

Today will be a run, some visiting with E's dad and Bonnie, and prep for Christmas Eve dinner, which we are cooking. It will be turkey, mashed potatoes, Fiona's green beans, and fresh, made from scratch biscuits. Today we start the turkey brine, but are trying a dry brine for the first time. Oh, and waiting for the biggest snow-storm of the past 30 years to hit. That might be a kink in our plans of travel to the Hofstads on Christmas day, but we do have the snow tires on, you never know what'll happen. We'll try and turn a new leaf with the blog and be better with updates for 2010. Or at least during this vacation. Maybe even post a few photos.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

E's cross race 1

Our first cyclocross of year (my first ever and A's second ever, although first on a cross bike) was a couple of weeks ago now. We had some family visiting but we still dragged them on a cold, wet day to Broomfield to race in Boulder Cycling's 2nd race.

We had just gotten my bike and ordered a bike for Amber, so we would be sharing mine. Fortunately we ride the same bike size and almost identical seat height, so fitting isn't an issue. Unfortunately, A's race was immediately before mine which left me unable to 1) pre-ride the course (kind of key for cross racing, but...) 2) to practice clipping into the Candy pedals that we just put on the bike (this turned out worse than #1).

There are a few new skills to learn for cyclocross that we just don't practice while swimming, road biking, running, or Nordic skiing. Oh sure, some triathletes work on flying mounts onto their bikes, but since we focus on long stuff, we just don't. And not many triathlon courses (road tri's at least) put barriers in your way. Or had sand on the bike course. Or off camber grass sections.

Naturally, we would have been practicing these skills before racing, but more naturally we started racing first. Kinda like the swim of my first triathlon. I did get a bit of practice dismounting and re-mounting while commuting, but did get a good scrap from falling on the gravel path from an unsuccessful dis-mount.

Anyways, we showed up to the race with the tiniest bit of practice for me and zero practice for very nervous A. A and I signed up and then got her on the bike for about 10 minutes of mounting and dismounting. She then pre-rode the course a bit and got ready to race. I walked around a bit to see some of the course and heard from A that there was another set of barriers on the far side of the course. Shortly after the start of her race, I went to change and ride the trainer a bit to warm up.

With a bit of warm up in, I went back to the start line and watched A finish. She was worried that the rear wheel was flat, but she thinks that during 65% of her races (the other 35% being ski or run races). I got the bike and headed to the start.

I got lined up pretty far back, but was fine with that since I didn't know the course well. Starting a race with 60+ cat 4 guys can be a bit sketchy and having that race be a cross race just adds to that, but the start seemed pretty well controlled. I had one foot clipped in, but had some trouble getting the other side in until we were near the first set of barriers.

The 1st set of barriers seemed very tall the first time around (pretty tall the rest of the time, but not as bad). I just ran through the first sand section based on earlier observations and rode the second section. I didn't worry about getting clipped in during the sand section, but started to get annoyed when neither side would clip in. We had a pretty mild section of path and grass until the next set of barriers during which I got passed by a few guys that I had just passed while riding. This would become a familiar theme of passing people while riding and getting passed back over the barriers. Skills, I need skills.

Over the barriers and through the woods (actually there were only a few trees) I continued to struggle to get my feet clipped in. It took almost all the way to the start/finish line to one side in. On the s turns, my lines were terrible. Too much speed going in, too wide and slow going out. Skills, I need skills.

On the second or third lap, I had a nice little slide down the off camber grass section. It might have been fun except for the facts that I was racing at the time and it knocked my chain off. I eventually had a bit more luck clipping into my pedals, but still spent at least 70% of the race with one or both sides not clipped in. Maybe that's why your not supposed to race on new equipment.

The rest of the race was pretty uneventful as I only hit the ground one other time on a slippery 180. The 45 minutes of racing went by very quickly and I was soon done. Many lessons learned, but it was a lot of fun.

Cross Action

Yo,
We haven't wrote for quite a while, but we finally has something worth blogging about. The awesomeness of cyclocross!

Well, that sentiment is somewhat tempered by my hip which too the brunt of a crash (not the only) on Sunday. But, this morning I told A that I felt like I got kicked by a small horse, which is an improvement over yesterday when I felt like I got kicked by a frigging Clydesdale.

Last year, A suffered through a very snowy cross race using my mountain bike. Not good times. She was pretty convinced that her life you be complete without every doing another cross race. Fortunately, I was able to convince her to try again and in the course of the last two weekends, we've done three races. We're hooked. More details on the races and photos to come.