Bike season

Skiing is over. Boarding is over. Winter is done. Summer is coming. Time to bike!

Okay, winter isn't really over yet, there are still a few backcountry days to come, and a few days at Snowbird (they stay open until late June, early July), but most of the resorts closed yesterday for the summer. I went down to Solitude resort and hung with some maggots yesterday - only got a total of 4 runs in all day! Mostly sat in the parking lot, barbequeing, drinking, chatting, laughing, having fun on the last day. Good times. Grin.

Did get my first bike ride in though, last sunday. Drove out past the Army Reserve base, about an hour fifteen from Park City, and met up with Kirk & Schmalls and the doggie Mazie. An 11 miler, not very technical, but dry so no worries about rutting out a trail by riding it too early. So awesome! LOVED getting back on the bike! Can't wait for downhilling.....

Speaking of downhilling, I started work at the bike shop already. I know, they said they wouldn't need me until the 1st of May, but whatever. They started me early, and I'm having fun. It's super chill, we've been sorting inventory and changing out winter stuff to summer stuff, the owner's wife bought us some beer and we hung out after work just chilling / chatting. I think it's the PERFECT part time job for the summer. And maybe I'll stay and work through the winter too, tune snowboards and the like. We'll see, also don't know what their needs will be either.

I was going to take my big bike (mmmm, Stinky) in tonight to work on it, but couldn't get it out of storage! The little room is locked and I didn't know it, and Brad's in Las Vegas until late tonight and he's got the key. Or knows which of the hundreds of keys in his office it is. Grin.
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Running - haven't really updated this blog on running at all! In fact, it's probably not mentioned here at all either. So, in mid-October last year, I started running again. I was worried about my old back injury, since running made it unhappy the last time I tried to run (2+ years ago I think) and I ended up in a lot of pain.

To start with, I'd only run about a mile and walk anything more, and started doing my back exercises and THEN some, to strengthen my core more. I'd been doing my PT back exercises for years, but nothing beyond that, and it wasn't enough. So I picked up a bunch of new back exercises, and started doing them & ab stuff religiously. It's made such a difference - slowly getting a stronger back along with easing very slowly into running has made sure my back has only mildly bothered me. Doing yoga now once a week helps heaps too. I also run with little short steps to make the impact less jarring on my back. Most seasoned runners (supposedly) take 1400 steps a mile on average, while I take about 1800. Grin.

The "reason" (better word: excuse, since ) to start running was Jean Luc. I figured he'd need workouts, and to get out of the house, so I thought I'd start taking him on jogs. Could barely run a mile when I started, and it was such a staggering, huffing, puffing, miserable mile. But I kept at it. And it's been AWESOME to see the improvement! Now, I can run 5 miles without batting an eyelash. Ran 8-9 miles at onece a few weeks ago for my "long run," including some killer hills I actually had to walk up (walking, still had a HR of 165!), and it took me a long time since I'm a slow runner, but it was such an achievement! And last week, my 5.5 miler was the first time I'd had to use my inhaler on a run in months (probably due to allergies flaring up, but still, the running has helped my asthma too).

Anyway, there's a relay run in June that our office may do, where we run a total of 173 miles, each runner taking three legs of 3 - 6 miles in length. Should be a lot of fun! Also a half marathon in Alaska in June; I'd planned on a full marathon, but the distance training slows down my sprints, and I need to sprint fast for skeleton. Compromised by choosing a half marathon instead. Still run, but average 15 miles a week instead of the 30 needed for a marathon. Grin.