Home again

Well after a whirlwind of a weekend we are back home and back to work. As you might know or could have figured out we impulsively went out to Colorado for the weekend. Some things we didn't know until we got to Denver:

1) Some big boat show was going on
2) The 100 annual Rodeo was happening
3) Two football teams were playing...I overheard something about AFC championships.

So needless to say Denver was pretty busy.

That didn't bother us much though, we spent most of the time in the mountains. It was so incredible pictures don't do it justice. On Saturday we headed up I-70 to the Loveland pass. It had been closed the day before because of snow but today it was open. Right away we seen a bunch of hitch-hiker snowboarders. Turns out they would catch a ride to the top and then ski down in the back woods. I quickly realized that is something that I would have to do next time we are out there!! On Sunday we headed over to Estes park just out side of Boulder. We picked up some snowshoes and again started heading up to the trailhead. Right as we got into the park we seen an elk stampede...well maybe not a stampede but they were moving pretty good and I don't think I would have wanted to be in front of them. Once at the trailhead we strapped on the snowshoes and headed out. I think we started our hike at about 8,000 ft. and hiked up to almost the tree line. That was probably one of the coolest hikes I have been on. My leg was feeling ok going up but hurt a little going down so I just took it easy.
Getting home was kinda a pain, we missed our flight out of Denver and had to catch the next flight 3 hours later. That took us to Cleveland were we started with a 2 hour lay-over but the plane was running an hour late! We finally got home after 14 hours of traveling. It would be great to get our there again, there is so much to see that we could spend a month and still not see everything.

Guess were we are

We took a little trip this weekend. Where did we go?
Any guesses?

Maybe this wil help.

More pictures to follow with more clues. Out for now, have to deal with football traffic...oh did I give it away!?!

Finally some pictures

I know all of you have been patiently waiting to see some pictures of the foot carnage. I snapped some this weekend, actually I think I have some more color on Monday or Tuesday but it looks like in general it is going down at this point. Things are really feeling better. I am able to get around the house now without the aid of my air cast.

Wow these look better than I thought!!

I bet the color would stand out even more with shaved legs!!

Last night I hit the pool again. Got in 35 laps (1750 yrds.) in 44 minutes. Not all that fast but I was impressed considering that was arms only, my feet were just dragging. I climbed out of the pool quickly got dressed and made it over to Cathy's Volleyball game just in time. She is a lot of fun to watch! She isn't the tallest girl on their team but is by far the hardest hitter. The sweetest thing I seen though was the other teams big hitter guy went up for a spike and Cathy totally denied him...OUCH DUDE THATS GOT TO HURT!!! Despite that they were only able to pull off one win but it is only the first game.

Making the best of it

Well since I broke my ankle I decided to throw in the towel on training!! I just wanted to sit around and read about how good I could have been and look at expensive bike parts...ok that lasted for 2 days then I ran out of magazines.

It is still slow going with the leg but everyday it is feeling better than before. I got into the pool on friday and re-learned how to swim. I think I am a pretty good swimmer the only problem is I sink like a brick! I would like to think it is because my extremely low body fat index, but I think it is because there was just too much iron in the water when I was growing up. Either way I managed to get a few laps in with my feet hanging on to a piece of styrofoam to keep them from dragging like two anchors.

Saturday we headed up to Madison to watch the state skiing sprints. We missed the races but it was cool seeing all the snow on the street. The sweetest thing was they had piled up about 10 feet of snow and snowboarders were hitting some rails. The thing was it was only about 10 feet of snow and they were going sooooooo slow they hardly made it across the rail. Then they would walk over to the side slam a red bull and do it again. Seriously is the red bull going to help them be any more extreme on the lamest hill possible!?! Anyway I digress.

Sunday was back in the pool for another hour and some 31 laps. I just learned that 36 laps = 1 mile so that is the goal for tonight.

This was not part of the plan!!!!

Needless to say the events this weekend weren’t in my training plan for a successful season! Because of the incredibly warm weather we have been having I took the NRS out for what was supposed to be a 2 hour easy ride. I hit the trails and everything inside was telling me to open it up and enjoy tearing through the open trails in January. I kept an eye on my HR monitor and wanted to keep everything in check. The first lap was pretty slow going with lots of trees down I realized that we were in for some major trail maintenance this spring. On the second lap right as I got going my front tire slipped on some wet leaves and washed out. I knew the drill all to well; tuck and roll. Problem was when I tried to unclip the bike was already laid down pretty good and my foot on the ground, keeping me from twisting it out of the pedal. As I was hitting the ground I heard a series of about 10 LOUD cracks. I laid there for a second thinking “that didn’t sound good!” I have some very profound thoughts while riding!!!
Anyway I got up slowly and my ankle was killing me. I made it back to the parking lot and then called Cathy to pick me up and told her to stand on it. While I was waiting the pain just got worse then ever, I felt queasy and thought if I closed my eyes long enough to blink I was pass out. I must have looked funny hobbling around the parking lot bug eyed, and spitting to keep my breakfast down!
Cathy got the bike loaded up and after making a quick stop at home to put on some clean underwear, you know what they say: don’t go to the hospital with dirty underwear! This is where the magic happened. When we finally got to see a doctor, he took a look at the X-ray and then poked around a little, and then after 8 years of medical school he profoundly said, “I think it’s broken”. What!?! I could have told you that, the fact that I now had a grapefruit in my ankle would have been a pretty good indication that I had more than an ingrown toe nail!! He followed that up with come back on Monday and a different doctor will look at it. I wonder if I would have broke my neck if they would have sent me home and said, “come back Monday or Tuesday and we will take a look at it then”? Anyway, Tuesday I got in and they put an Aircast on. That gives me enough support that I can hobble around. Sounds like I will be wearing this for about 6 weeks. After that I have another 6 weeks before we are back in business.
I asked the doctor when I would be able to get back on the bike and after a long pause he said, “welllll as soon as the pain goes down you should be able to start riding again, as long as you don’t crash.” More deep and meaningful words from some of the highest paid workers in America!
All right enough roasting doctors. I am glad to hear that I don’t have to stay completely off it for the entire 6 weeks. I am going to give the trainer a shot this weekend and see how that feels. Otherwise looks like I will be wearing out the rowing machine at the Y.
We'll see how healing goes, but looks like I am going to be a little weak early on and then come on strong mid season. Hopefully I can use this to my advantage.

Winter Hibernation

It is winter and like bears this blog has pretty much gone into hibernation. Two reasons really. I have been super busy with training and there isn't much to write about. I could talk about saturating a towel with sweat every day, or talk about how we got a ton of snow early then got to watch it all melt during the holiday break...when I would have had time to actually enjoy it. So not much going.
We are working on sponsorship stuff for the 2006 season. I didn't realize how much work this would be! It paying off though, we are getting some good hookups, and as soon as everything gets finalized I will post all the new sponsors links here.
With all the time on the trainer I have spent a lot of time pouring over product catalogs and dreaming of what to build the NRS with for this summer. I don't really NEED anything but it is always fun to have new parts for a new season.
I have said this before and I will say it again. I will try to keep this more updated even if it is just talking about exciting trainer rides or daily trips to the gym.