Dancin' on my Bike

I love my spinning class.

I'm just saying.

A Better Week

It's been a good week - I've stuck to my resolutions, for the most part, and feel a little more balanced. My goals this week? To keep it up - it's easy to stick to goals for a week, much harder to do it for a few months. We'll see how it goes.

After a good week, I was pretty happy to be looking forward to a fun and busy weekend. Friday night was a Halloween Dance, where I got to dress up and spend the night dancing and dancing and dancing some more - we had an absolute blast!

However, the highlight of the weekend was the Pumpkin Carving Party I attended on Saturday. This was my first time carving a pumpkin but most of those at the party were seasoned vets and had planned some pretty elaborate carvings! The host of the party is an old friend of mine who has won numerous national competitions - he really is one of the most talented and detailed person I know - the picture below is of his pumpkin that won nationals last year. The details are unbelieveable!



I chose a pattern of a haunted house that I had seen in a book - ironically, this was the exact same pattern that Doug had created to win the competition last year! If you look at the picture of his winning pumpkin, you will notice a haunted house on the upper right corner. That was my pattern - the picture below is my carving - I didn't do half as good of a job as him!



The real highlight of the night was a multi-media light show, featuring all of the pumpkins that were carved that night and music composed and performed by Doug as well (yeah, I said he was talented). Doug had built a huge stand to display all of the pumpkins. I'm not even going to try to describe it - below is a short clip from the show so you can see if for yourself (my pumpkin is on the top).





I didn't win the competition, my friend Glenn took the top prize with a thanksgiving theme (pic below). But I certainly had a great time, pumpkin seeds and all.




I'm already planning for next year - maybe an adventure race theme is in order?

An Inspired Idea

I found this blog a while back and just loved what this guy was doing. He has a somewhat similar story as me - he was out of shape and at a transitional place in his life, thus he decided to do something drastic to change things up. And so he did this...

"The 2008 resolution was this; Have at least one solo 24 hour adventure every month of the year."

He's done 24 hours on a bike, 24 hours on a mountain, and my favorite... 24 hours in a tree, and so on. AWESOME idea! Check out his blog for more on his adventures - 24 Hours of Kip

My mind is working overtime - what can I do for 24 hours??

A Major Funk

I knew this would probably happen.






My spring/summer was amazing - I attended my first adventure race camp and learned how to mountain bike, rappel and white water kayak; I raced 4 adventure races, from 4-12 hours long; I ran my first running race, a 5 miler in the Garden of the Gods; I attempted to climb 3 fourteeners (I AM going back to climb those next year); rode 100's of miles of mountain bike trails that, most of the time, scared me to death; I climbed numerous sand dunes and had sand in places I never imagined; I camped and climbed and trained and laughed and spent wonderful hours with amazing people who have enriched my life and become dear friends; and I've seen places and scenery that would make anyone stand in awe at this amazing world we live in.


So it makes sense that, after such an amazing 6 months, I would feel a little lethargic and out of whack. Life has slowed considerably - no more races for me to train for, no more quick weekend camping trips, and so on. And while part of me is welcoming the slower pace, I'm also having a hard time adjusting to the change. And because of that, my schedule and usual discipline is all out of whack.

One thing I have discovered about me (well, more the "new me") is that I love warm weather (I hated it when I was big). We went for a ride last weekend in 30 degree weather and during that ride I made the big realization that I'm going to miss the warmth of summer and the longer days that allowed me to hike, ride and just enjoy being outside late into the day. The thought of moving to California kept crossing my mind during the ride, especially when I couldn't feel my all too numb fingers and toes. Miserable!

All this to say that I have been in a major funk the past few weeks and I am having a hard time getting past it. Today though I finally had enough and decided that since this mood wasn't going anywhere on it's on, I was going to help it move on to it's next victim. And I have a plan that I am going to post here and hope that by doing so it will help me stick with it.

Starting Monday I am going to get back to my morning workout schedule. I've been sleeping in and saying I would workout in the evenings, but it never happens. I just prefer to do it in the mornings, so I plan on working out every morning 6 days a week. Monday and Wednesday will be spinning class; Tuesday, Thursday and Friday will be running; I'll do 2 days of weight training and take a yoga class somewhere in there; and that leaves one day to do whatever I want, most likely bike or snowshoe or rock climb or whatever else might catch my fancy or work with the weather.

Along those same lines, I'm going to work on getting my asthma under control. Running is the main culprit, even with my medicine I have a hard time breathing when I run. But I really miss running and once my insurance kicks in (DECEMBER!!) I'll be working with my Dr. to get it under better control. I think this will help me all around - part of my slowness is the fear of having an attack if I push too hard. Need to work on that.

I also need to get back to eating much better. I've been letting old habits creep back into my life and I can tell a difference in how I feel. So, I'm going to start to log what I eat every day and make sure I eat good foods each day. The big thing... CUT BACK ON SUGAR!! This is a big problem area for me and I really need to watch this more than anything else. I'm really striving to have more balance in my life and this area is a particularly difficult one to maintain.

So, there it is... my plan. Not exactly life shatteringly original but if it works then that's all that matters. Here's to 6 months of a 'regular schedule.'

Quote of the Month

"You man eating son of a … There was seven democrats in Hinsdale County and you ate 5 of them!"

Quote attributed to saloon keeper Larry Dolan after Alfred Packers first trial.

This quote was the highlight of the trip to Lake City last weekend - the infamous cannibal from the 1800's, Alfred Packer, is quite well known here in Colorado and when I read this quote on the placard near where his "meals" took place, I just had to share it. Seemed appropriate given the political climate!