Good to know

I finally got enough energy to get out the door at 3pm today. Being my Friday off I had all kinds of plans for hiking or skiing all day in order to wear out my misbehaving dog, but when I woke up I was still feeling sick. So I hung around the house and read some books, took a few naps and cooked some soup.

At 3:30 I arrived at Upper Huffman trail head with the intention of riding my bike up the powerline trail. I didn't get very far before I had to push. It was just a bit too steep and a bit too soft for my little 2.3 tires to make it. But I knew the ride down would be fun so I continued to push my bike.

Niko kept disappearing into the bushes every few minutes every time racing out back to me to make sure I was there. By 4:45 the sun had started to set over the inlet so I decided I had pushed far enough. I stopped to take some pictures of the sunset and was crouching down behind my bike when Niko came tip-toeing out of the bushes next to me. He then pranced slowly down the trail with his ears back and tail between his legs.

That's odd I thought and continued to snap one more photo. At that moment I heard a loud roar coming from the bushes where Niko came out. He had pissed something off in there and he knew it. It was an unmistakable roar of a bear. I grabbed my bike and tried to slowly walk away while facing the bushes where the noise came from. I just wanted to get out of the immediate area without pissing it off further.

As soon as I was a safe distance from the area, I got on my bike and hauled ass down the Powerline Trail. I have never ridden my bike so fast, not even in a race. I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure I was not being chased. Niko was very obediently running in front of my bike and kept looking back to make sure I was there.

So I guess it is safe to say that the bears are not yet sleeping or whatever it is that they do at this time of year. I have heard rumors of a few black bears up on Hillside eating garbage, but this one really sounded like a brown bear. I can also say that I never want to hear that sound again.

Thinking back it was funny how Niko quietly exited the area. I suppose that is the best reaction he could have had.

You know what to do...

oops this comic changed and I can't find the new image...

Happy Halloween.

Nothing like a scavenger hunt in the dark on bikes in 5 degrees Farenheit. Leave it to Alaskans to party outside on Halloween. Brian, Laura and I tug along with the "Valley Trash" team and put in a win on the first annual Frigid Bits Halloween Scavenger Hunt. It's kind of hard to look slutty when it's 5 degrees out, so I'm not sure you can tell that the theme was white trash. I did my best. Oh yeah, and it's really hard to ride a bike when carrying twins. Lucky for me this was only a costume.

My 15 seconds of fame

Living in a red state is definitely a new challenge for me. So it's nice to get out every once in awhile and spend some time with like minded people. Just to remind me that they are around. Last Saturday, we met for an Alaska Women for Obama rally on the park strip. And guess what?

I was on the news. You would never know it was me because it was about 10 degrees and I had a ski jacket on with my hood up. But at the very end of this video you will see two women spinning and dancing off the screen. That's me and Laura.

Alaska Woman for Obama Rally

So I've pretty much taken the entire month of October off. I got burnt out on running and biking, so I haven't been doing either of those.

I have managed to start to get strong for climbing though. Monday nights are the infamous Core climbing classes that pretty much cripple anyone attending for the rest of the week. Thursday's I've been getting into the rock gym with a bunch of coworkers for a long lunch climb.

It's really amazing how fast I am getting my strength back. I pretty much picked up where I left off as far as what grade I can climb, but I am working on getting my endurance back. After 2 hours of climbing I'm pretty much sufficiently pumped and even have trouble typing on my keyboard when back at work in the afternoon.

Looks like I'll be back to blogging to. I took a little break from blogging as well because I figured you probably didn't want to hear about the way I organized my bathroom closet or the book on Agile Programming that I read or about how I cleaned up all the dog poop in my back yard or about the fabulous Beef Stew that I made. I'm getting a little too comfortable around the house and am figuring it is time to get back out into the mountains. Soon.

I know I'm not getting out enough when...

... my house is clean. Cleaning is generally my lowest priority. If I have the opportunity for some outdoor adventure you can be sure that I will be there. If I'm not outside I'm usually in the kitchen cooking or baking something. If I'm not doing that I'm reading or relaxing on the couch. Then, if I have any free time left after all of this, I clean.

Lately the house has been pretty clean. We had Laura living with us for a few weeks, so that motivated me to get it together. Also, every quarter I try to go through all my stuff and give away or sell what I don't use in order to keep the clutter down. I don't like owning a ton of stuff. So I have been working on that.

I started noticing last night how organized the house was. I also noticed how soft I am getting around the middle. It's amazing how fast this can happen. Since last November I have been training continuously for different races and had been working out up to 6 days a week. Sometimes twice a day. So I have been in pretty good shape. I told myself I would take it easy in September, but now it's October and my motivation to get back into a regular workout routine has not arrived yet.

This week I'm forcing myself back into it. After not being able to climb an overhang at the Ice Festival last weekend that my students were getting up and then huffing and puffing on my bike ride last Wednesday, I've decided it's time to get my strength back. And although this is probably boring for all of you to read, I'm writing it down in here to keep myself accountable.

Here is my early winter plan (up until Christmas time when I invariably take another break). I actually have a gym membership that I haven't used in a month, so let's start with that. Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 5:45am there is a spinning class that I want to go to. Yikes that is early, but I would like to try it. Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings I will jog and/or hike with Niko and as soon as the snow flies (we actually had some last night but it didn't stick) that will turn into cross country skiing with Niko.

Add to that Yoga and the Rock Gym for strength during lunch breaks and I have a well rounded routine. This will leave most of my evenings free to do whatever I feel like. If I feel like skiing or going for a bike ride I will, or if I just feeling like watching a movie and cooking a hot meal, I won't have to feel guilty.

As soon as possible I will be doing a lot of ice climbing on the weekends. I'm hoping to get out of the Anchorage area this year and doing some exploring. I have every other Friday off which I plan on using for some sort of adventure. This Friday I'm heading back out to the Matanuska Glacier in search of a bottomless moulin that people have lowering into and climbing out of.

We are smarter than this

Were these people watching the same debate that I was last night? This just proves that most people don't really listen. They are just waiting for their turn to talk. This is a nightmare. Once again the American Presidential Election has become a circus. We are smarter than this people, or are we?

I never win anything

This weekend I planned on getting out my winter clothes and swapping them out with my summer clothes. I usually do this twice a year, while going through and selling or giving away what I don't wear, and figuring out if I'm missing any key pieces for the season.

I also planned on figuring out my winter bike commuting outfit since most mornings this week started out below freezing and I was not prepared. I realized that I don't really have any good winter bike clothes. Last year I always ended up wearing my ice climbing clothes but biking really wears away at them.

Sooo, last night my friend who just moved here, Laura, convinced me to go to an REI Women's Clinic, "Dressing for the outdoors". I figured I could always learn a little bit more about this AND she said you get a free goody bag so I decided to go.

And guess what? It was really lame. It was basically a two hour long Gore-Tex plug. I learned nothing about layering in the winter. I love Gore-Tex and I think Arc-Teryx makes great products but I will never pay $475 for a jacket. I leaned over to Laura and said, "Does she realize the only way we will end up with one of those jackets is if she gives us one tonight?"

And then she started to give stuff away. So we stuck around. Two women won 500 dollar jackets. "They just handed that women $500 and she said, 'Oh, thanks'." The prizes got smaller and smaller, but then she called my name. I won something. It was one of their new winter bike jackets. Perfect! So here is my plug because this jacket is awesome.

Gor-Tex has a new line of products out specifically designed for cold weather biking called Gore Wear. They all have either Windstopper fabric or Gore-Tex in them. Mine is a windproof jacket/jersey and the sleeves zip off (don't think I'll be using this feature until next summer). Pretty sweet!

New Singletrack

Okay so I have to admit, at the time the Singletrack Advocates and the rest of the mountain biking community in Anchorage were raising money for a new system of trails in Far North Bicentennial Park I was a little bitter. You see, it's not that I oppose building new trails, quite the contrary. But I heard that they had raised $64,000 and was appalled that so much money was going to be spent on them.

At about the same time I was trying to raise money for Team In Training. I guess it was just shocking to know that people were more willing to put their money towards building trails than to cancer research. Maybe it's the whole tangibility issue. You never know exactly where your money is going when you give to charity.

Don't get me wrong, I think building new trails systems in Anchorage and beyond is a great idea. And it turns out the new singletrack is really nice. Brian and I rode out there today. Although only one trail is open, there is a whole network of trails that make a sort of playground for mountain bikers. It would be nice if there was a cheaper way to accomplish it though.

Here's Brian taking his bike off of a sweet jump.

Three days of September Sun

In my last post I think I forgot to mention that the three days I spent out on the Matanuska Glacier this past weekend were the most beautiful and sunny days of the summer. I actually had to search for my sunglasses on Friday when finishing up packing because I really hadn't put them on ALL summer. I eventually found them in my ice climbing bag. Seriously, the last time I had a need for sunglasses was in April.

So I thought I'd share a few more pictures from the weekend.








Happy sun burned face.

Feeling refreshed

The last time I was out climbing on the Matanuska Glacier was not a good day. It was rainy, cold and windy. My gloves were soaking wet and my fingers were freezing. I remember feeling burnt out on it. It was hard for me to muster up the motivation to get up even the easiest climb. I thought maybe I didn't want to climb anymore.

I climbed waterfall ice a lot last winter so in the spring I decided to take some time off to focus on trail running and biking. I kept turning down invitations to climb rock in the spring because I couldn't fit it into my schedule. I made a conscious decision to not climb at all until September and let people know that so that I would not have keep telling them, "Well, maybe next week."



Friday was my first day back to climbing since April. I helped teach a beginner course in the MCA Ice Climbing Festival making this my 4th festival. The first year I was a novice student. Then after climbing all winter and summer I moved up to advanced student. Last year I was an assistant instructor and this year I was a co-instructor for beginners.



The festival is always a good time, but after not climbing all summer I was anxious about how it would turn out. Would I go to teach the students how to swing a tool and completely forget all technique? Would we be able to find good ice, and if so would we be able to lead it in order to set up a good top rope? Would I be able to keep all of my students safe on the glacier?



As we pulled up early Friday afternoon I knew immediately that my burnout had passed. I went out with Carlene and Pat to scope out the scene and get some laps in. The permanent smile I always used to have when hiking out onto the Matanuska Glacier had returned. The first thunk of my tools into the ice and I was hooked again.

The students were tentative first thing Saturday morning. I really love to teach. I always get a bit nervous before attempting to teach something that I have only been doing for three years, but when I start talking I remember that I do have a lot of knowledge to pass on to them and that it's okay that I don't know everything. I'm still learning too.



Each student made some sort of impression on me by the end of the weekend. From the gifted athlete who already has amazing strength and picks up on technique really quickly to the guy who just moved here from Texas and is in total amazement by the beauty of the glacier and that we actually get to climb on it to the tenacious novice who struggles all weekend finally getting to the top of a difficult climb just minutes before we were to pull the ropes and pack up for the weekend.

We learned the basics the first day, and then we put them on some hard overhangs the second day. We kinda skipped the intermediate stuff. They were up for the challenge. It's really cool to see the students get better as the weekend progresses. It's fantastic to see them meet the goals they set out to achieve. I hope that I could provide them some guidance in doing that.



Sunday afternoon we pulled the ropes at 3:30pm, packed up our stuff and started to head out. I felt a twinge of sadness to end such a fantastic weekend and to have to leave the glacier behind. I felt that excitement in my stomach that I felt after my first Ice Festival. I think it was a good decision to take a break from climbing this summer. I feel so refreshed and ready to go that I can hardly think about anything else right now.