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.