3 Sisters 7 Days

Juliann and I have been on a mission to figure out this whole running thing.  How little can we actually train and still cross the marathon finish line in good spirits?  Well, as it turns out, there are some shortcuts you can take in the beginning of the training process especially if you have run a marathon before.  Now that we have done our homework and have done the full 16 week training program in the past, we are ready to focus on the important long runs beginning 8 weeks leading up to the event.

June 6th is the San Diego Rock ‘n Roll Marathon so this past weekend made it 8 weeks out.  At 8 weeks, we start the really long runs and we must do 3 long runs between week 8 and week 3.  I missed the 3 hour run this past weekend due to a 1/2 marathon and since I opted out of adding an additional hour to the 1/2 marathon, I need to run for 3 hours this weekend.  Since this weekend is full I set time aside this morning for the long run before heading to work. I was ready to go, I had my pasta last night, the alarm was set for early this morning and I had already planned out my before run meal (peanut butter toast with a banana and a cup of coffee).  Though it was storming last night with hail/wind/snow and rain, I didn’t think the storm would continue through the night- I had to run in the morning, there is no way the storm was going to stick around.

Well, I was wrong! It’s brutal out there.  I swear we are in January not April!

So, on to Plan B. Before this morning there was no plan B.  Looks like I will be squeezing 3 hours of running early tomorrow morning or Sunday morning…I am tired just thinking about it.

Californians to the core, my perennially shorts and tee clad children woke me this morning – at 4:30 AM! – to tell me it snowed. Imagine, snow in late winter in a place surrounded by 60 Wasatch Mountain peaks. What they found most remarkable is that our Yakima Skybox was also covered in snow.

I always wondered how often people fall out of chair lifts. In fact, this question entered my mind practically every time I rode past a “Sit Back, Hold On, Be Safe” sign on my way up to snowboard. Now I know that chair lift falls are statistically  "rare" events … that, unfortunately, include my own eight-year-old son Parker.

When the chair lift I was riding yesterday afternoon stopped, I assumed someone had fallen disembarking from the lift. Then I heard people on the ground below say that someone – maybe even two people – had fallen out of a chair near the top of the lift. The woman in front of me said that someone two chairs of ahead of her saw a child fall. Just about then, I watched two of my children ride across the crest of the mountain from the lift to a moderate run. Although I knew that Parker was riding behind them, and ahead of me, it still didn’t occur to me that my child was the one who had purportedly fallen out of his chair.

We started moving again and I, along with just about everyone else on the lift, looked down. Within seconds, I could see who had fallen – Parker! He’d fallen over 10 feet – maybe 12-15 feet – into an un-groomed patch of snow just as a doctor on his day off boarded by, and stopped to help him up. I watched the EMTs assist Parker onto a snowmobile for a ride to meet me at the top of the lift. Parker was understandably shaken up, but appeared okay otherwise. We opted against an ambulance ride to the hospital in favor of a visit to our own urgent care; in addition to a headache and a sore shoulder, he fractured his clavical.

That makes him really lucky. The last person to fall of that lift in the same location broke both arms and fractured his skull! More generally, despite a recent spate of chair lift falls involving children, it’s typically young men who sustain serious injuries – from major fractures to pulmonary embolisms – but do not die. According to experts, the best way to avoid adding your own experience to these statistics is to position your buttocks ALL THE WAY BACK in the chair.

In case you’re wondering, Parker’s sweet cheeks were nowhere near the back of the chair when he fell; he had positioned himself to disembark early in an effort to beat his friend off the lift, lost his balance, and the rest is now Snow Valley lore.

Perhaps you really never are "too young to ski" but most ski instructors disagree, according to my recent research in preparation for Olivia’s first day on the slopes. Newspaper, magazine, and e-zine articles, as well as many winter sports resorts, and parent-oriented blogs converge on three years old as about the soonest you should expect the average child to ski with any success. By then, most children who want to ski are able to adjust to a ski school or other winter sports learning environment, and sustain interest for a at least a couple of hours – long enough to practice the basics and take a run down the bunny slope.

Bogus Basin ski school director Jamie Zolber also advises:

• Get your kids excited. Tell them what they’re going to be doing so they will be prepared for the snow and excitement of a ski area.
• Have them wear their snow and ski gear in advance. Let them play in the clothes, including mittens and hat or helmet, so it feels familiar.
• Make sure children are well rested and fed a good breakfast. If children start their day tired and hungry, their mood probably isn’t going to improve later.
• Dress them in ski clothes that are as warm as your own, if not warmer; avoid cotton to ensure they stay dry and choose mittens over gloves, preferably ones that attach to jacket sleeves or wrists.
• Buy a helmet that fits the child’s head (NOT big enough to grow into), and rent equipment until you’re sure he/she likes skiing and slows growing.
• Enroll your children in a lesson. Even if you don’t, keep ski trips short; take breaks; and focus on basic techniques.
• Remember, it’s not all about skiing. If a young child would rather eat snow, roll in it, or just play around, let them. The point is for them to have fun in the snow. The skiing can come later, don’t force it.

My day yesterday confirme the theory of the busier you are the more you get done (because you have to), opposed to having a completely free day to “catch up.”  Those free days usually end up being spent on the couch catching up on the latest “Real Housewives of ANY CITY,” and nothing gets done.

I started the day off at 5:30 am as usual, and got Maz out the door for work at 6am. Then I got myself ready for work and off I went to drop Sammy at the groomers.  I worked until a little after 1pm, then went to Sunflower Market to get stuff for dinner- a roast- yes, a roast…I think my second roast of all time.  Then I went back to get Sammy and was off to Starbucks to meet with a friend and some much needed caffeine.  I think I ended up at home around 3:15 pm and rushed to get the roast in the oven so I could get Sammy out for a quick walk because it was starting to snow.  Got the roast, potatoes, and carrots in the oven and out the door I went.  Sammy’s 45 minute walk turned out to be wet, I didn’t beat the snow! I’m just tired by the time we returned.  I still had to clean up the kitchen and do laundry.  I think I actually sat down at 6:30 pm.

Okay, I know I may sound like a baby her,e but seriously I did so much yesterday- for me anyway.

Today’s agenda: Run, lunch with friends, and finish cleaning the house.  Okay, now I sound like a baby.

This picture was taken of Maz learning how to snowboard. It was his second time using a board in almost FOUR years.  He actually didn’t do too bad; we just need to keep him out of the powder.  He’s 6′3″ and I have no idea how he got out of this mess or in it.   I guess I need to rephrase the term “weight on your back foot” because someone didn’t get it!

He’ll get it one day OR he’ll welcome back his long lost friends, the ski. 

Side-note: I don’t think I would be as pleasant as he looks- what a sport!

Today’s snowboarding trip nearly ended early – and potentially expensively – when I lost my car key … in the snow. I didn’t wear the fleece top I usually do, the one with the little iPod pocket where I always stash my key, so I just put it in my jacket pocket, and failed to zip it up completely. None of this would have been a problem, if I hadn’t chosen today to master turns. I must have fallen half a dozen times before I realized the key was gone.

In a moment of almost Buddha-like clarity that almost never obtains in such circumstances, I did not worry. According to the Dala Lama, “if there is a solution to a problem, there is no need to worry. And if there is no solution, there is no need to worry.” Instead,  I quickly assessed the situation and realized that although finding my key in the snow was highly unlikely, the alternative would be finding a phone with reception and calling my loving spouse to bring the spare key to me. I really wasn’t sure if his fury or the time-consuming process of replacing the key would be worse. I decided to, at least, try to find the key.

Of course, this mission would require reinforcements, so I parked myself at the bottom of the slopes where my “big kids” were riding. After locating, and stopping, my eldest son, Quentin, and instructing him to rally his sibs, I headed up the bunny slope where I had been practicing – on foot. The kids had just passed over me on the chairlift up (to ride down, slowly, in search of the missing key), when a woman skied past and asked if I was looking for a key?! She’d just seen one of the instructors pick a key up out of the snow. I headed straight for the ski school.

It took a few minutes to find the right instructor, but he had indeed found my keys, and my Burt’s Bees chapstick.

Considering the key is a symbol of power and wealth that represents openings to knowledge and understanding as well as the much more mundane car door, I’m feeling pretty good.  I not only saved my spouse from an unwelcome trip to the mountains during evening rush hour, but also moved just one step closer to my goal. Which? I’m not sure; however, if snow also holds some meaning, I may have found a key to avoiding trouble and hardship.

This is Tiffany & Co.'stack for achieving economic and social rebirth on a global scale. After all, “What better way to symbolize the opening of doors and new potential than with a key?”

I guess my joy at holding onto my snowboarding edge vis-à-vis my children must have gone to my head. Monday, at the very end of my final run, I came to a perfect stop just before the big, orange “SLOW” sign, paused, and pitched forward right onto my face! Although I wasn’t in pain – the upside of cold weather injuries? – I did feel something dripping off  the end of my nose. I assumed it was melting snow, or maybe a runny nose.

Then I went to the bathroom.  As I entered, a woman gasped. “Huh?” I thought, “Maybe it’s worse than I thought.”

I looked in the mirror and it did appear pretty bad: a gash just above my right eye with blood running down that side of my face – its volume increased substantially by all of the melted snow on my face. Once I’d cleaned up, I could see it was just a tiny cut where my sunglasses had slammed into my forehead on impact. Nothing a quick trip to First Aid and a butterfly band aid couldn’t fix .

This is 48 hours and 5 New Skin liquid bandage treatments later.

For those of us who battle the winter months, we have to hold on for another six weeks.  For some reason, I am okay with it.  I think maybe because this winter has not been as bad to us in Colorado Springs as in other parts of the country.  I mean, today I got to enjoy a 45 degree day with the sun!  I do think we got our “real” winter in November and December when we hit a solid week without getting out of the teens…that was brutal.  With my luck, since I just aknowledged the mild winter, we will get a huge snow storm tomorrow…Man, I hope not.

So if the last six weeks of winter is anything like the first six weeks of winter then I am good to go…Thanks Punxsutawney Phil for the 124 years of service

Yesterday I had a fantastic time snowboarding at Monarch Mountain, CO.  It is  a great mountain to ski or snowboard on, especially since it’s the most ffordable lift ticket in CO.  Some resorts are reaching the $100 mark for one all day lift ticket in CO…I just can’t imagine or justify paying that price for a few hours on the slopes, not to mention the crowds. One of the perks for working at REI this winter is that I get free lift tickets to Monarch Mountain and yesterday was the first day I took advantage of the deal.

Okay, I realized yesterday (thanks to the 21 year old fellow snowboarder) that I am a little dated in the sport.  I didn’t know the key word for a snowboard, boots, and bindings is “deck”. Umm, there is a “lift” I can get to extend my board to accommodate my new boots. I guess the boots have gotten bigger, and since I have an older, “vintage” board, the new boots and older board don’t match.

And this is just the equipment, don’t let me get started on the new lingo…Pow-Pow (powder), shredding the Gnar, and my favorite of the day. “word.” Seriously, every time someone said something/anything, this “kid” would respond with “word.” I guess it’s a gesture of acknowledgement and agreement.  And then there are the infamous “pot shacks.” I had such a blank stare when I first heard that word: “pot shack” To my knowledge, these “riders” find abandoned cabins on the slopes and smoke pot, and they are on almost every mountain.  That doesn’t even cross my mind, I mean it’s all I can do to get off the chair lift in one piece, let alone put any type of substance in my body.

Check this website out http://www.abc-of-snowboarding.com/snowboarddictionary.asp so the next time you grab your deck to shred the gnar you will fit in like a wallflower…word.

Side-note: I did push myself yesterday. I hiked with board in hand for about 20 minutes up a mountain, only to ride down a huge drop…it was close to a 90 degree angle and all powder…it was great!