May & snowboarding

Arapahoe Basin is open until early June.

Here's the math on that: first day up riding was in November, a few weekends in December, all of January and February (minus a weekend for a fabulous friends' wedding) and multiple days in a row in March. April brought 2 weekends, including my birthday weekend at Vail. Epic. It had been 4 weeks and I was in withdrawal.

The past few weekends flew by and I have no idea what I did in Denver. I remember friends asking me about places to go, things to do. All I knew was the trip from Denver to Breck/Vail/BV Creek took about an hour and half to two hours.

So when Chris asked if I wanted to go A-Basin this weekend I jumped for joy! The first ride down brought me right back to center. The missing element in my life was fulfilled. Even though it is May and I've been running in a tank-top and shorts in Denver, there were 7 newer inches in the past 3 days. In May.



Final bit of math: I'll be on a snowboard 8 months out of 12 this year.

July. Argentina. Let's ride!

Salsa & Summer

Our staff had a BBQ this afternoon. All the teachers, their families and a few more friends spent all Saturday afternoon outside. The crazy Denver rain left in time for the sun to come out for our BBQ party. The theme: Guac-Off. Two of our creative minds came together and planned a salsa & guacamole competition. Who could make the best salsa &/or guac?

No bribing and all present were able to cast their votes. After eating about 1/2 cup of salsa and probably consuming no less than 3 avocados, we cast our votes. A landslide victory for best salsa - ME! I have never made salsa before but I took a recipe from the lovely food network and changed it up a bit.

It was a grilled pineapple mango salsa but I made sure to use a whole serrano pepper as well as 1 whole green pepper, part of a yellow and green pepper. The recipe also would have resulted in chunky salsa but I threw the ingredients in my blender. Long story - my food processor decided not to work today. I have no idea what happened.

All in all, a great BBQ! We've got 4 weeks until summer vacation. Which means....

5 weeks and a few days until I am out of here and on the airplane heading to South America!

Denver Marathon 2010: Update

It is official. I am running the Denver Marathon 2010.

Sunday, October 17, 2010 at 7AM.



Katie and I are signed up and picking out our training program soon. Any suggestions?

New Running Goal: Marathon Dos

Alright, I think I am committing to it because I am publicly sharing my goal. Marathon 2010: Denver's Rock N Roll in October. My friend and colleague Katie and I have been talking about it and she vocalized her idea of running the full; we were going to run the 1/2.

My friend Sarah has run quite a few since she jumped in with me for a few miles in the Chicago. I am definitely inspired by her dedication to training and her focus :)

My previous marathon training experience was exceptional. I joined the AIDS Foundation running group and met the most wonderful, vibrant new friends. We ran together each week over the course of the training program - 6 months. I had SO much fun running that we would run 20 miles and think, wow - did we just run for 2.5 hours? Really? I was the youngest, and one of the only straight people in my group. So these gentlemen were anything but vanilla. Our conversations were one for a comedy skit!



As I start to commit to training, I am thinking of a few things..
waking up really early in the summer and early fall to run for 3 hours
eating a lot of bagels and whole wheat pasta
the running belt
gatorade
new playlists to keep me going!
all the running trails and paths in Denver and Boulder to explore!
The runner's high. Oh, how I love thee

Let's do this! Now - my trip to South America will include lots of early morning runs and I am pretty sure my cross-training will include the tango and playing real football

Denver Marathon 2010.

Ok Go

Wednesday night, 2 blocks away from my lovely house in City Park is the historical Bluebird Theater, and it rocks.

Ok Go was a blast! It felt like we were listening to a rock band out of a garage, I felt like we were friends. The red suit, pink pants - all ironed very neatly, too - and then the lit-up guitars with white feathers around the strap and guitars. Great stuff! They even sang a blues song while playing church hand bells. took me right back to the Lutheran church. So this kid, probably 17, did a drum cover of one of their songs, "This Too Shall Pass," and the kid was at the concert last night. The band brought him up on stage and the kid played the drums for the song! SOOOO COOL. Small venue concerts are the best. Plus, it was a free ticket.

Now, how am I going to get through today's classes with energy? A night out on the town has its repercussions....

Bikram

Went to my first Bikram yoga class last night with my friend Krista. I am a believer and feel transformed. After running and weight lifting I feel strong and healthy but nothing like I felt after the Bikram class. It was my first time, so I was watching the girl in front of me - and she was good - but the poses were easy to attempt because the teachers words were direct and simple. Good teaching is good teaching. I'm definitely going back. Yoga memberships are expensive though! $69/month!!! So worth it in my book. We were at the only certified Bikram studio in Denver; apparently the teachers have to study with Bikram himself and have over 700 hours of practice before opening their own studio.

I loved it. I felt strong, healthy and secure. Such a great workout. The heat wasn't even that big of a deal, considering I lived in Phoenix where temperatures are in the 90s and 100s most of the year.

If you haven't tried Bikram, make it a 2010 goal. I hope you will feel as empowered as I did. Problem is, I couldn't fall asleep because I was so energized from the 90 minute sweat session.

teaching

I don't normally share what happens in our algebra classroom. But today, I will.

We are multiplying binomials - remember FOIL? And my students, who have struggled graphing straight lines and still forget negatives times a negative is a positive are rockin' out multiplying polynomials. It was amazing. They had an 'exit ticket' yesterday which is 6 problems to solve in the last 10 minutes of class. Grades usually follow a pattern but this time, the pattern was transformed. I saw students earning 100%s and over 100% (there was a bonus question). Normally, there are 2-3 100% papers but there were like..20 out of 60 students with 100s. AMAZING. There were another 20 or so with As and just as many with B+ on their exit ticket! I was SO impressed and excited. Multiplying polynomials is no easy task but they rocked it out. I can't wait to see what happens when I introduce the quadratic formula soon.

I am SO proud of my Class of 2013 :)