1st Alpine Ski Tour

I have downhill skied weekly (every winter) since I was a toddler until I got an injury in my teenage years…. and since prices for lift tickets kept going up, it just became a once a year thing.  Entering the endurance sports world / life outside of the 4-wheel motorized prison world, my perception has changed.  It is a 3-hour trip one-way to our closest slopes (you always hit LA / Vegas traffic).  Then when you get there, $60-80 for a one-day lift ticket… where you maybe get 5 runs in due to long lift lines.  Mind you, my a$$ hurts sitting in that chair… I just sat for 3 hours, and need to sit for a 15 minute ride, to go down 2 minutes, and sit another 3 hours back!? Hey this sounds like a desk job scenario.

And what if this situation happened? stuck on a chair lift!

No more I said… when one day I saw a couple going up the mountain slope, who told me about alpine touring.  It is basically cross country skiing up the mountain, then downhill skiing on the way down.  Never do you need to pay for a sit (err I mean lift) ticket again!  The mountains here allow this, because the climb up is so tiring you will want to buy some beverages or food at the bottom.  Here is a video explaining more:

2014 in review

Thank you for following and visiting our blog in 2014!!  Your views and comments help us focus our writing, and get to know YOU better. WordPress posted our stats so I wanted to share with you. Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,000 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Carlsbad Half Marathon 1:40 Pacers (as a couple)

Roger was worried about this guy to the left, as he was with us the whole was till that last half mile dropped back. But we looked up his results and he got the goal with chip time!

To lead a pacer group is a right of passage for a runner who’s simultaneously likeable and capable of controlling his/her performance to the second.  After the past few years of focusing on our own running capabilities, we wanted to give back.  Roger signed us up to join the Road Runner Sports pacing group for Carlsbad Half Marathon this year.   The idea was to pace the same 1:40 group together. What an honor & sweet date! I would be returning to Carlsbad Half Marathon, which was my first 13.1 mile race in 2012, as a pacer.  Luckily, Roger paced the same group at Silver Strand Half, so he knew what needed to be done.

Fashion on the Blue Carpet: KONA 2014 Highlights

Early on one of Roger’s selling points to me on triathlon was since I liked changing into multiple outfits, triathletes get to do that a lot in training and racing. It totally worked! I now have almost as much swim/bike/run clothes as I do work clothes. Putting giggles aside, let’s talk best and worst dressed at KONA 2014.

Where’s the light out of this darkness?

Swim  It was the only area of sport that’s still underwhelming as far as design creativity.  Only a couple color burst speedsuits stood out in the sea of black, so hopefully more brands will start to “lighten it up” in the water.  It could be because the water is so tropically amazing that the only color that doesn’t blend into the corals for pictures is black?

Didn’t want to race since Bessy was away… but did it anyway

The company Bessy works for was sponsor of the Lifetime Oceanside race last year.  Thinking they would repeat and we can race together again, I signed up again for 2014.  Unfortunately her company did not renew, and decided to do Miami 70.3 instead. So here I was stuck alone for the weekend, it kind of did take my racing spirit out a bit – but I did pay for it.

I went up to Oceanside by car to volunteer at the tri club tent for the expo. Got to meet many people, and even the eventual winner, Joe Maloy stopped by – he who is an ITU racing pro. Post expo, I hit up zigzag pizza nearby the expo after for my carb up….custom build yourself thin crust pizzas and salads – I had a delicious sun dried pesto blue cheese bacon pizza, and a spinach steak salad on the side. I slept in the car near the start afterwards.

Work and Hobby balance

People see my volume numbers and ask if I work. Yes I do work,  efficiently.

Here is a typical day:

5 Lessons on Effective Fitness Recovery

Going from 1st marathon ever last year to 5 marathons this year while also racing all distances of triathlons requires some serious recovery sessions. Feeling every bone in my feet, and aches in leg muscles I didn’t even know could hurt makes me want to lay for days like this puppy.  As an ignorant/stubborn endurance athlete, I used to just know two modes: ON or OFF.

BUT – here are a few things I learned about recovering that have helped me in getting faster and stronger.