My life is now OFICIALLY a country song

You heard it. First my dog died, then today, I went to shift my car into first gear and it wouldn't go. Four hours later and I had it towed to indian peaks automotive to get a replacement clutch. If only I had a banjo handy, I would write you guys a song!

Pendulum

American culture has pendulum syndrome. A study on carb intake and weight gain caused a no carb frenzy. A scandal with left wing politics causes everyone to move tot the right. A study on organics and health suddenly puts a halo around all organic food, whether it is an organic twinkie or chip. A middle ground is what America needs.

I have POTS, a severe salt deficiency. As an athlete I have been getting nutritional advice all my life. Probably because of an exploited study juxtaposing salt intake with heart disease, none of that advise included salt as an electrolyte. Dr Timchack, who is successfully helping me with the deficiency confirmed the exaggeration that salt is the problem. She said that it is the food volume that comes with most high salt meals. Imagine that! Too much of anything is bad. Maybe the pendulum could just stay in the middle now?

Life goes on :(

Last week, my family had the unpleasant surprise of seeing our dog, Sandy have a siezure. We brought her to the vet and he put her on medication, but the medication made her so lethargic that she wouldn't even eat. We took her off the medication, thinking that we could try another one a few days later. She seemed to be bouncing back and on friday even wagged her tail but saturday 4am we found her surrounded by her own pee, obviously after suffering another siezure. She fell back asleep after we petted and cleaned her but was obviously in a lot of discomfort and by morning was all but gone. She wouldn't even open her eyes, so Saturday night at 11 years old, we had to put her down.



I never expect to know a more fun, loving and crazy golden as Sandy. May she eat as many retainers, phones, glasses and turkeys in doggie heaven.

From camping to the club

My mom’s best friend’s son (mouthful) had his 21^st birthday at a swank catering hub in the meat packing district of NYC, so I washed away deet and got all fancied up. The spot is called the glass house for good reason. All the walls were glass, so from my white leather couch (I know), I could see both the Hudson and the New Yorker. From the balcony, the skyline park (an elevated train rail turned green) was illuminated below. After three late nights from an Outdoor Nation event, I was more than exhausted, but the views and food were well worth another late night.

My park

As a member of what people are calling youth these days, I don’t think parks are trying too hard to target us et. Last weekend, I just found out that there are some really good bouldering lines in Central Park! Are they advertised? NO Signage? No Anything? No My park would have all opportunities marked on a map from hiking to wildlife AND sports. Good hike/walk routes that stop at map ‘spots’ would be highlighted. One field would be named ultimate field and the next soccer playground. Neither would be exclusive to a sport, but putting the options on a map get people thinking and excited. Marketing is king and getting youth into the outdoors is no different.

We need more subways!

During a few hours of free time, a few delegates and I hopped on a subway to Chinatown. We walked down Canal Street, absorbing the culture and wild atmosphere. After several hundred “Prada, Guchi, Oakley, Rolex?!” remarks and a delicious lychee nut, we headed through little italy to catch the next subway.

Who knew that you could travel from Bejing to Sicily in one block?

Camping in central park

You heard me right! For the Outdoor Nation national congress, we had the chance to camp in Central Park with the park rangers. Normally, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the park at night, especially where we were in ‘the rambles,’ but with our range posse, it was a pretty cool adventure. Of course after one whole night of camping, everyone needed to charge their phones!

Since a normal hike through the New York mist wasn’t exciting enough, the rangers took us places where only their magical keys would let us go. We watched Shakespeare in the Park’s Much Ado about Nothing from the roof of Beldvere’d castle, explored the nature reserve and not so natural water features (all ‘ponds’ and waterfalls have on/off switches!), and learned the corrupt history of the park along the way (everybody and their mother wanted a finger in the design). Probably one of the coolest things I’ve done, I will never be able to look at the park the same way again.

Outdoor Nation

I have always been an advocate of the outdoors. I love introducing people to new sports and letting them see how vast their potential is. Over the past two years, I have been working with and volunteering for Outdoor Nation, a non-profit to recconect youth with the outdoors. By myself, I can only affect as many people as I can personally touch, but through their programs and funding, I along with other ambassadors can have a bigger impact.


This weekend in central park, 50 of us gathered to create a youth Bill of Rights and Responsibilities for the outdoors. The bill that we created will be the basis for regional summits throughout the summer. Along with the document, we were given the opportunity to create funded programs to start the outdoor revolution. My group came up with two plans. One was to integrate outdoor activities like mtn. biking and paddleboarding as full school sports such as football. The other is to create an “Outsider Cronicles” newsletter for teachers and students, raising awareness about outdoor opportunities in the region both in and out of the classroom. I can’t wait to get started and if you want to integrate your region or school into either of these programs, don’t hesitate to send me an email!

Humbled

Today was the Downriver stand up paddleboard race at the Fibark river festival. Last weekend was my first race of 3 miles and I was ready to drink the river by the end... today's was 10miles. I can say that it thoroughly humbled me. To start off, let me compare it to tele. In a tele race, the only place you can really talk yourself out of the race is in the start. During this race, I had an hour to play tug of war in my head. A whole new challenge, but one that I am looking forward to tackling in the future.
Second, as compared to the other racers, I definitely had the least river experience. I would fight the river and expend more energy. Next time I need to just go with the flow. I am currently working on my zen, calm, go with the flow state of mind (I know, just my type of mental state).

This lesson, I should know from skiing, but I keep learning it over and over (in climbing too): look more than one move ahead. At the start, I took the fastest line through a rapids, right down the middle, but didn't think about what would happen if I fell (below) and was set up going straight toward a bridge pylon. Thankfully, I was able to get to one side with my board, but if I had been caught by my leash with my board on one side and me on the other, it wouldn't have been a good situation. Regardless, the close call freaked me out a bit.


Overall, I did pretty good despite my learning curve and ended up third in the race!!

Serious festival

Look at the crowds lining the banks at the Fibark river festival!!

New career?

A coworker asked me what I thought about firefighting as a career option. I hadn't given it much thought, so I looked into it. To really be guaranteed to get the post you need emt and paramedic training. then it is a hands on, all consuming job for 48hrs that may include jumping off of a bridge to save rafters (above), free for four days. At the end of it all, you get pension when you retire. I know that standing at a desk is certainly not for me, so it doesn't sound bad. I'll definitely be getting emt while I complete my engineering degree, and who knows? Maybe I can do both engineering and fire fighting? Sounds fun to me!

The most compliments

For my new panier!

Well, new might be an exaggeration. I needed a panier that would be waterproof, and flat bottomed and an old detergent bucket happened to be the perfect fit. Instead of installing a bunch of hardware, I drilled three holes on the lip of the bucket and use three bungees to attach it to my Bike. It took minutes and now I don't need to break my back with a heavy pack during my commutes. It definitely makes my bike less stealable too!

Upcycling

I'm not a big recycler. Maybe someday I will get into it, but I just haven't yet. What I do a ton is reuse. That, is definitely in my nature. I hate throwing things out, and if something has another use, I will give it that other use. Just ask my aunt, with whom I lived with in Broomfield during a part of my internship. I used my Fage yogurt containers as my lunch containers.


For a while, I have been collecting paper that is printed on only one side in a pile and since I'm a note scribbler, I decided to make some one sided scrap notebooks. Now I have a few conversation pieces, if nothing else.

No rest for the wicked

I don't think I have ever, ever, ever been this tired. I've done triple trainings, 40mile mountain bike rides and nothing like this. I don't think there is any tiredness like a new sport that you were in the moment with. Anyhow, since I was in Steamboat, I of course, wanted to do a million things like crossfit and going to the water ramps. Luckily, the water ramps aren't open, but I just couldn't bring myself to do 500 kipping pullups at crossfit with my super sore forearms. Instead, I got the honey-do list from my dad for our ranch. Not a bad idea, as it was a beautiful day, so I seeded around the pond where we had done a bit of digging. Paddleboarding to ranchwork in a day. Gotta love it.

Why I'm addicted to travel

Right now, my eyes are so heavy that I'm pounding yerba mate just to try to write this blog. Going to Glenwood, doing countless runs down the river and having a blast hanging out with newly made friends has left me drained physically. Mentally, I'm charged. Maybe that is why I am so quick to go to new, unfamiliar places with a sleeping pad and bag. I love to learn. the moments that you meet a new person, place or sport is when you learn the most. Yeah they are stressful and tiring, but like any good vacation, it is the best when you come back more tired and full of memories than when you left. Today, I raced the Sprint and Cross SUP events, did backflips on a trampoline during a beautiful sunset, has some great grilled food, and plan on crashing at another new friend's house. I wish everyday would be as cool as that.

The Race(ish)

You know how last year, at my first world Cup race of the year in Norway, I fell on my face on the third gate? Well, I think that I just have a knack with first races. When the horn went off, I wasn't even thinking about getting my feet in the water yet. Usually there is a five minute till start announcement, but I guess that paddleboarding is more spontaneous than that. It was actually pretty funny. The horn went off and the girls in the water looked around thinking it was practice then one girl noticed that it didn't seem to be, so everyone kind of peeled out.

After the exciting start, (one girl actually ran and dove because she too was late) the race went a lot better that I thought it would. I was on a bit larger of a board with more stability and with every stroke got more confident, and more hot! I expected to swim, so I was fully suited. I only ended up swimming once, so I was about ready to drink the water at the finish. Fourth place wasn't bad for my first race and now that I got out, I definitely have the bug! Now I just need to go practice my eddy turns and wave rides.

Bucket List

This is a shout out to Shane and the gang with Shiboomee, who took me on the river SUPping for the fist time. Now, I can cross SUP down a river off of my bucket list. I'm pretty sure the next one is freeclimbing El Cap... just kidding!

Holy Crap!

Last weekend I left the Teva games, thinking that Standup Paddleboarding was my next sport. At one in the afternoon today, I discovered that sport and lets just say, it might be a bit before I kill it the way I'm used to. I hooked up with Shiboomee adventures and they took me down (after some truth slanting about river knowledge on my part :/) the racecourse that I plan on racing in Glenwood Springs. It starts at the wave, though 'the wave' is the easiest part. The rest of the course is a bubbly, frothy, swirly mess of wave trains that peak under a bridge crossing that has huge pylons! I made it through the course, most of it swimming and was ready to try swim the race, when my new paddling gang told me to join them on a less gnarly (as Noah, who won at the Teva games described the course) piece of river.

During the second bit, I got a little more comfortable. I have a whole new level of respect for anyone that deals with rivers. You can't turn on a dime, or control your speeds, you just go with it and stay upright. So tomorrow I'm going to go with the current, even if that means swimming the whole Colorado River.

Heroics

Staying with C4 in Vail was a definite athlete experience. We packed more than capacity in the house, so the first night I slept in the pool room on a lounge chair mattress. One of the other ambassadors, Ryan Levinson was next to me, so we got chatting and I asked him whether he was charging to win. He answered with a deadly conviction that no, he had muscular distrophy and definitely would not be coming near the podium, but in a lighter tone that he would still enjoy it. We went on to talk about how it sucks to have your body break down, to feel like you are always holding your buddies up. Having been able to only ski for an hour or so at a time for the past two years, I knew where he was coming from.

Having my knees deteriorate on me this year felt worse than a let down, it was that feeling that you get when you find out that Santa isn't real, or dad doesn't actually know everything. It is a feeling that you are and have always been fallible and everything that you did early on is catching up to you, quick.

We talked about how sometimes the guilt and anger boils up and agreed that staying busy was key. He talked about how he switched from shortboards to longboards and now can only catch a wave with a palleboard. I admire him on how he has adapted and not given up. I know that my knees might not want to telemark race for the rest of my life, but am determined to mix things up and stay busy. Maybe I will take on yoga or climbing or paddleboarding. Maybe I will tackle the river at Teva Games next year. There is one thing for sure, I will continue to bring others into the outdoors and share my passion. Standing in water all weekend and teaching paddleboarding has left my heels cracked and me exhausted, but it is a fulfilling exhaustion that I could live on.

Live on

Partay!

Complete with a sponsorship by korbel (classy!), we spent a majority of the time throwing gifts to the crowd from our hydrant pool. The C4 tem had captured a first in the women's downriver race and a second and third in the guys, so we definitely got our luau on!

Brr!

This weekend I am helping C4 waterman with their booth at the Teva Games, which means standing in 3 feet of hydrant water telling thousands of people how to paddleboard. It is pretty cool to see doubt replaced with fulfillment as each person completes a lap without dunking.

Along with teaching, I get the chance to learn a ton as well, and from the best. C4 brought down their team from Hawaii to compete in the downriver races, so I'm watching and learning so that next year, I can come out and charge the river too!

Watch out!

First climbing...

Now Yoga

I know. I know. I have been an antiyogi for many years, but the tides have changed. Since I started yoga, I have become better at controlling where my body is in space and of course, more flexible. I finally got the standing splits into handstand and now am struggling to jump into a handstand from downward dog. Onto the the next challenge!

Boulder Boulder

Holy cow can people run a 10K fast! I worked the Ultimate Direction booth this weekend at the Boulder Boulder and it was amazing to see the sheer numbers who came out to the run. The halfway kegger and slip and slide help make it the most fun race, but it is the elites that make it unforgettable! The men started the first mile at 4.30 and ended the last at 4.10. It would be nice if I could keep up that pace for more than a few hundred meters. There is one thing for sure, the Sore No More that I gave to a few of the competitors are definitely happy with their feet off the pavement!

Race Time

Eventually, I find a competition for every hobby I do. This weekend, it was SUP. It was the water festival in Steamboat this weekend and there were plenty of characters and crazy events. The river race was one of my favorites with the teams starting on dry land then running and launching into the raging yampa.



I couldn't help but compete in the flat water SUP race. The turns were sharp and the water cold, but as always, it was a blast! By the end of the event there were more than 20 people vying for some time on a C4 board.