Me time!!!

It has been years since I have actually lived my life for me, taking care of what is important to me and doing what I want without getting approval or thinking about what others think first. I am ready, for it is way overdue. I have lived many of the last years unhappy and held back. No more. Now I have the time to focus on me! I have no idea how to really do that, since I haven’t had much experience in it! Being in the right relationship should never cause unhappiness or hold you back. I haven’t quite figured that one out yet! I have not been single much since I started dating when I was 15. No more than a couple months at a time. I am not one to search them out, and it seems every time one ends and I am ready to focus on me, I get tied into another one. I have no idea why. I am not a needy person, I do not need to be in a relationship and I have yet to find one that makes me happy! I have felt I have come close a time or two, but it has been a while. Since it seems in a way I am back tracking and not making much progress I have decided to take a break from that scene. I have just started a new job, and have very recently left the person I was dating, what better time to start over! I am incredibly excited and scared at the same time. I have no idea what to expect and I have no idea if I will be able to keep myself off the dating scene. It seems as soon as people find out I am single they start lining guys up for me. Maybe I should become a nun.  just kidding! I feel fortunate, in a way, that this has all happened at the same time. It gives me a fresh start to life almost. A perfect time to decide to focus on me and figure out what the heck I want out of life! I have realized that is a very difficult thing to do when you are constantly with someone. Every decision is based on how they will feel about it, how it will affect both of you etc. I am done with that, at least for now. I feel, in a way, that I have missed out on a lot of things by being in the wrong relationships. Life is too short for that! I have always been the one to give the advice to find yourself first before finding that one to fit your life. I think it is time I start listening to my own advice…

Great Mid-Week Weekend

Matt and I both had Tuesday and Wednesday off this week, and we really took advantage of it! On Monday I finally got to enjoy one of the birthday presents Matt got me by going to the Matt Nathanson show. I will have to say that was one of the best shows I have ever been to! Thanks Matt! On Tuesday we woke up and headed up to Keystone for our first day of boarding! The snow was actually pretty good, and I didn’t kill myself! It took a while for my legs to get into it, but it felt awesome to get on the board again. Since they only had one run open we got fairly bored after 5 or 6 runs, even after switching boards for a couple of them. So around 2:30 we headed to the bottom and went to Parrot Eyes Bar for some wine, Connect Four and good conversation. By then we were getting hungry, so we went into Frisco for some Indian food. Yum! Since it was a first day boarding, we had to relax our bodies so we went to the hot tub at our condo where we continued to spend a couple hours time warping again with wine and good conversation. All of a sudden it was 9pm and we still had to drive home! So we stumbled out of the hot tub and went home to bed.

Wednesday morning we decided to take Seranno out for a good hike, so I took Matt up to my favorite spot: Chief Mountain. About half way up we started to see some spots of blood in the snow. I called Seranno over and we looked at her foot, which was bleeding really good, but not because of the snow, she ended up breaking one of her nails. It was pretty far down and hung at a 90 degree angle. It didn’t seem to affect her, she still ran up and down the trail, so we decided to keep going since I knew she wouldn’t be happy with me if we cut her hike short. She did fine, and we all made it to the top to enjoy the great views. It was very windy out, so we didn’t stay long at the summit. Seranno did decide that she didn’t want her nail anymore, so she proceeded to tear off her whole nail. Rather disgusting, but it seemed to make her happy, so ok. At first on the way down it seemed that the bleeding had slowed down, but then it started up again, in full force. Every time she stopped, even for a short amount of time, she would leave a big puddle of blood. At one point she way laying off of the trail chewing on a stick, and when we came up to her we saw a weird spray of blood next to her. After looking closer we saw that blood was squirting out like liquid out of a syringe. That freaked me out pretty good, so we started walking a bit faster. When we finally made it back to the car I took out my first aid kit and ended up wrapping up her foot and covering it with one of my socks, but not before she bled some large spots in my car. Once we got home we soaked her foot is some warm water and hydrogen peroxide and then wrapped it back up. Up close it looked really nasty and painful, but she is a trooper and handled it very well. She will have to take it easy for a while to heal up good, and hope her nail grows back, but she will be up and running again in no time!

Other than the excitement of Seranno’s foot it was a wonderful weekend spent with the only person I could imagine. There is never a dull moment…

Update…

I have been slacking in the blogging world, but it is not due to the fact that I haven’t had anything to write about, actually the exact opposite is true! I have been keeping busy and having lots of fun. Let me try to recap without making this post ridiculously long…

In October I went to the GABF with Matt and his friends, which we all had a great time with each others company while drinking good beer from all over. The following week we went to see Sean Kelly from the Samples, which actually turned out to be a disappointment, at least for me. In my opinion Sean needs the rest of the Samples to make him the amazing musician I always thought he was.

Matt and I spent a weekend down in La Veta with Mel, Scott, Ayshia and Mel’s friend Carrie, which was a nice relaxing time. We didn’t do anything too exciting, went hiking and had lots of ice cream…

The weekend of the 25^th Matt and I headed out to Fruita for Adventure Cycles “After the Harvest Before the Snow” biking event, where we met up with Scott, Brett, Erik, Chris and Marni. We had a blast there trying out the Yeti demo bikes and getting in some good riding around Mary’s Loop and out at the Bookcliffs. Congratulations to Matt for winning the bike toss and to Chris for being runner-up in the barrel races. One of the best memories I will have of this trip though had nothing to do with biking, but a seesaw and swings…

At the end of the month we went to the KBCO concert that featured Newton Faulkner, G-Love and Special Sauce and Alanis Morrisette. These tickets were only available by winning them through KBCO, and it turned out that a couple of my co-workers won tickets as well, so we all got together before the show to hang out for a drink. It was a great time, especially seeing Newton Faulkner!

The first weekend of November was spent bike riding, chilling at Avery, bottomless glasses of wine, dancing in the streets of Boulder while getting cheers from a bus full of people (as well as blasting Sweet Caroline for us), somewhat seeing Gregory Allan Isakov and napping in the parking garage till 2 in the morning…. Yeah, good times. J

Beginnings and Ends…

 

My first “official” mountain biking season has come to an end. It has definitely had its ups and downs, with many challenges along the way, one of which finally forced me to end the season earlier than I wanted. I have found out that it is called “cycling palsy” and affects less than ¼ of cyclists. Unfortunately I let it get to a more advanced stage, making it more difficult to heal. Fortunately, though, I finally gave in and quite before it got bad enough to require surgery. It has been tough to admit to and let go of all I had planned for the fall.

With the constant issues I had throughout the season, I wasn’t overall happy with how I raced at the Winter Park series. Every race I felt I could do better, and even though it seemed I improved with every race I still never felt right on. I wanted to redeem myself this fall, having planned and trained to solo the 12 Hours of Snowmass, completing the Tour de Front Range and possibly the 24 hours of Moab, so this setback has been quite a blow to me. Anyone who knows me well knows I have rarely in my life focused on one thing. I have tried to do so many different things, for instance last summer I was on 3 hockey teams, completed a Tri, 10K and mountain bike race, went rock climbing and hiking, did some kayaking and got into yoga. I was never good at any of the above, but I enjoyed them all. I finally decided that I wanted to focus on just one thing and work on getting good at that. Out of all of those activities, mountain biking was the one that really stuck out for me. I was excited and once I really started riding this year, I knew that was where I belonged. There were so many times that being on my bike was the only place I wanted to be. Not being able to have that has been hard, but I have forced myself to view the season as overall a success, and start to focus on other things…

 

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk

 

I started out this season both excited and nervous. I have been looking forward to racing for quite a while, but the fact that I was going to start in Sport class really intimidated me. I really thought I belonged in beginner, but Melissa and I (and Scott) didn’t think it was a great idea for us to have to compete against each other. So I ended up in Sport, where I had to then compete against Marni… Although it went a lot better than it would have if Mel and I competed, it was still difficult. It was really nice to have someone there to warm up with, and take off together at the start, but knowing that she was my competition was rough to deal with in my head sometimes. It was hard since I wanted both of us to do our best, and when I knocked her out of being on the podium the first couple of races, and only by a few minutes, I wasn’t sure what to think or do… Fortunately she kicked butt in the last few races so we were able to be on the podium together a couple of times. I never felt that I was able to relax out there, and my Zen moments of being “one with the mountain” were few and far between, especially in the earlier races. I knew I could do better, I knew I could ride better than I did. Somehow, though, I was still able to get on the podium in every race, pulling out two third places, one second and two first, which was also good enough to get first overall. I still didn’t feel quite right; it didn’t feel right when I would have a really bad race, on the verge of passing out and/or quitting several times, but still pull in a third place, or when I took it super easy on the top mountain circuit because of my wrist, and still somehow got first. I didn’t feel like I deserved it… The races were definitely challenging for me, no doubt about that. There just aren’t enough girls that race to make both the good and the bad races really count. I plan on doing a lot of changes for next year, and the first will be to race in a different category. If Marni for some odd reason decides to stay in Sport, then I will probably race in Expert. If she decides to do Expert, then I will really change it up and do Single Speed. This decision is in no way offense to Marni, I just don’t think I can hold her off my tail for another season, and I don’t want to kill myself trying! I also think it would be fun to cheer each other on in all the different categories.

I am content with what has taken place this season, I never expected at the beginning of the year that I would go from thinking I should be racing Beginner to having to move up to Expert next year. That’s a big accomplishment in itself, and I need to look at that and be excited, and not bummed that I cannot compete in the fall races. It also makes me realize that if I get the rest I need, and train like I should, I could have a very successful season next year in either Expert or SS, as well as be able to do more endurance races without the constant pain that I had to experience throughout this whole season. It was a learning experience to say the least, and I really look forward to having a pain free (hopefully), successful and fun season next year.

This is where I let the thoughts of biking go, at least for a few months, and focus on other things…

I have though about doing a marathon in the past, but since I have never really focused on one thing before, I never had enough time to train for one. Since I am out of activities that involve my hand for a while, I thought this is the best time. So I looked for one that was far enough away that I could train enough just to survive, and came across the perfect one: The Napa Valley Marathon. I think there is nothing better than a nice glass of wine after a suffer fest, and since I will be suffering tremendously, I will need all the vineyards in the Napa Valley to make me feel better. That and Mr. Matt to carry my sore bum to all the wine…

I also plan on doing a few more 14ers this year. My ultimate goal is to do all of them by my 30^th birthday. It’s possible, but I gotta get moving on that if I want to complete it! I did just purchase the Epic Season Pass; my first season pass in about 4 years… I am getting really excited to get back on my board, especially since we have unlimited to Vail and Beaver Creek! Heavenly is also thrown in there, so we will have to plan a trip out that way…

So the more I realized I had going for me, the easier it has been to take the news of not being able to ride my bike for a while. I think I will be so busy I wont even realize it until I can get on my bike again, and my then I will be ready to go!

 

Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it…

Great Music

Joe Purdy…. Jay Nash….Chris from LowStars….Amazing night at Soiled Dove Underground….thanks Matt!

 

If you haven’t heard of them, check them out. You will fall in love from the start…

 

 

 

Tagged

So I am finally getting around to answering the questions from being “tagged”. Here goes.

If you could have any one — and only one — bike in the world, what would it be?

A Jamis Exile 29er Single Speed.

Do you already have that coveted dream bike? If so, is it everything you hoped it would be? If not, are you working toward getting it? If you’re not working toward getting it, why not?

I do have it, and I guess that is why it was my answer. I love this bike, although there are some things I would change about it. Overall, talk about a bikegasm…
If you had to choose one — and only one — bike route to do every day for the rest of your life, what would it be, and why?

Hmmm. I would say Kokopelli trail, it is long, has all sorts of terrain and beautiful views.
What kind of sick person would force another person to ride one and only one bike ride to do for the rest of her / his life?

I have no idea, but it is wrong. Who would want to do just one trail when there are so many amazing trails out there??
Do you ride both road and mountain bikes? If both, which do you prefer and why? If only one or the other, why are you so narrow minded?

I ride both, but definately prefer mountain. I think road biking is rather boring, and gives me too much time to think. I love mountain biking, because when I am out there, it is nothing but me and the mountain. Can’t beat that.
Have you ever ridden a recumbent? If so, why? If not, describe the circumstances under which you would ride a recumbent.

No, and there is nothing that would make me want to ride one. Ever.
Have you ever raced a triathlon? If so, have you also ever tried strangling yourself with dental floss?

Yes, for a couple of years. And then I realized how much I hated to train for it. I hate swimming, and it made me so miserable whenever I had to go. I hated having a schedule to go off of, it almost felt like a job. I never think of mountain biking as training. I love every minute of it. Realizing that is why I stopped tri’s. I have never tried strangling myself with dental floss, although I will admit if I stuck with Tri’s I might have at one point…
Suppose you were forced to either give up ice cream or bicycles for the rest of your life. Which would you give up, and why?

Ice cream. Hands down. There isn’t much out there that could compete against bikes.
What is a question you think this questionnaire should have asked, but has not? Also, answer it.

Why did you actully take the time to answer these questions?

I have no idea…
You’re riding your bike in the wilderness (if you’re a roadie, you’re on a road, but otherwise the surroundings are quite wilderness-like) and you see a bear. The bear sees you. What do you do?

Sing to it, and pray it runs away from my horrible voice.
Now, tag three biking bloggers. List them below.

:(

:(

Nothing hurts more than realizing he meant everything to you, but you meant nothing to him…

Come Home

And right now there’s a war between the vanities
But all i see is you and me
The fight for you is all I’ve ever known 

Everything i can’t be
Is everything you should be
And that’s why i need you here 

Huh…

“Think about this: A street must be 12 lanes wide to accommodate 40,000 car commuters per hour, but only one lane wide to handle the same number of cyclists.” (Bicycling Magazine)

 

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I have tried to let go into what is…. you cannot force what isn’t though.