Yes, its true

If you don't know already... you did see correctly my new ticker at the top.
I am pregnant! We are due on December 26th. I can't beleive all the changes already in my little baby.

Hot in AZ, Cold in CO

"Good morning here are a couple inches of snow for you on this first day of May, just in case you hadn't had enough of it all winter" Welcome to spirng in Colorado. by the way... did I miss April???

April

-Drew came back from the Grand Canyon refreshed and ready to go back
-I finished up the ski season strong with the athletes
-I did race the Spring Splash again and win $350 but I was a little disgruntled about the fact that the male winner won $800! What is up with that!!
-The ski area closed with a base of over 100 inches! so we decided to get out of town.
-I got a new bike so that I can race fast this summer and beat everyone!
-We went to fruita and spent a couple days biking and then we had to take it easy so I could rest up for my upcoming race. so we went down to Zion and did a hike there and then headed through Sedona AZ and then went down to North of Mesa so I could run my spring kick-off Xterra triathlon.
That went pretty well I knew I wasn't race ready yet and I would get worked some. Well, It was stinking hot on race day!!! I thought I was going to die but I pushed through and made it. I ended up taking 3rd in the age-group and 15th overall. kind of middle of the roadish.

Now it is May and it decided to greet us with snow! Currently unemployed for the off-season and I need to find a summer job... ugh
Lots to catch up!

Spring!

Yay! It has actually gotten warm out this week. It has been crazy this winter it just keeps snowing and then it is still cold when I go to work and I wonder what month it is. But the last two days it has actually been really warm! It is so exciting. It is at the end of the season now when I am kind of fried Junior Olympics are over and I am ready to ride my bike now. The problem is, I know the ski area is going to close and then there will be about a month where I go crazy. Skiing is done but there is still snow everywhere so I won't be able to bike and it will be muddy and gross an it will probably snow!

Anyway, things are good. I have races for the rest of the week and I am just hoping that it stays nice and doesn't rain. Right now I am bachelorettin it (like my made up words) cause Drew is down kayaking the Grand Canyon until April. I hope he is having fun. That makes it a little quiet around the house but I have been so busy I could barely notice until yesterday when I finally had a day off. It was great, I cleaned my house.

Qualified

Well, I just finished a week of hard training and racing with my athletes and I am wiped out. You would think I was the one doing it all.
This weekend we had the J3 Junior Olympic qualifiers here at Winter Park. It turned out to be a great weekend. 5 of my athletes qualified for JO's in two weeks in Vail. All of them did a great job at the races.

Now I am sick because I never rest and I am outside all day coaching so I have this cold that has been barely hanging on for a month and now it has flared again. I am trying to lie low and just get rid of it now. But, you know me and that is very difficult especially since it is getting nice out.

Well, that is all right now sorry it is nothiing too exciting.

February?

Can't believe it is already February! Sorry to my few readers for not posting in so long. winter has been a little crazy.

I got back from India expecting to work this winter with J4's on the weekends and then help my boss, Jeff Burrows, during the week with the ability women. Well, I came back for the first week of the season to find that the head Age-class/J3 coach had been let go and arrested. Well, that put a kink in the whole plan and I became the J3 full-time coach. This was going fine then we had a series of serious circumstances and the other coach, Fred, who was pretty much in charge of the J3's communication and scheduling etc, was taken out of the picture. His wife had a serious stroke. So, now my responsibilities got bumped up and now I am the head J3 coach which pretty much makes me the head age-class coach. I know many of you don't really know what all I am talking about, but basically I have a lot more responsiblity now. I think the hardest part is it is really challenging my decision making skills. If you know me you know I hate to make decisions. Now I am challenged with decisions on training and which races which athletes should go to and all sorts of things. That part is really difficult at times but also I am loving it. It had been a little crazy. Last weekend was the first weekend in a month that I was in town. I had been traveling for races quite a bit. Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone, Aspen, then I got to be home and train and Free ski.
So, the winter is going well. My athletes are doing well and we are getting ready for the junior Olympic qualifiers at Winter Park. It should be exciting to see who
qualifies.

So there isn't really much else going on right now. I am back though and will try to keep up on this again. For my three faithful reader. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yes we are back now. Sorry to any readers for taking so long to let you know.
We came back on a Tuesday with jet lag and I started working Friday and didn't have a real day off until this week.
It has been a little tiring. So now we are back and we are right into the swing of things for this winter. The problem is that there is hardly any snow around here and it has been so warm they have been having a hard time even making snow! So now it is past Thanksgiving and there are still only 2 runs open at Winter Park. It has been so weird. Let me tell you my athletes love doing drills on the same run for 2 weeks...
Anyway, I updated the posts from our trip with the photos pertaining to that post so make sure you scroll back through to see some pics and here is a little slideshow of the whole thing.

There"s a place in India.....

where you can't see anyone! I know it sounds crazy but it is true. We went for another short trek the last four days it was to a place called Dodital (trout lake).
It was a beautiful hike and there was hardly anyone and long periods where we would not see a soul. This was much more my idea of trekking than what we experienced in Nepal. If you want to look on a map Go north of Delhi till you find DehraDun then go further north to Utterkashi then a little further from there is where we began the trek. We only had limited time so we made our first day a long one with a 23k hike to the lake. then we went up to the Darwa pass, a little over 13,000 ft. It felt like home!







Right now our trip is winding down. Tomorrow morning we will leave the Himalayas and head to Agra via Delhi on the train. We will spend our last two nights there and see the Taj Mahal, something have have wanted to do for a very long time. I hope it lives up to its name. Then Monday it will be back to Delhi to begin the long flight home. When we get home I will give the Bhutan portion and also add some pictures!

Stop the bus already!

We made it back to India to Moosurie but only after a long journey.
I had been thankful so far. Almost all the roads that we have been traveling on in this part of the world are very windy and I always see throw up on the sides of share jeeps and stuff like that but, thankfully, I had remained relatively naive to the experience being part of my journey. Well, that has changed. We left Pokhara on a bus bound for the border town of Sunauli. This is a 6 hour journey and we started with a very comfortable load of passengers, but....we are in Asia so along the way we continuously stop to pick up more and more and even more. So the bus is very packed which is fine but then all these Nepali people are getting sick! First the lady right across the aisle from Drew is throwing up into a little plastic bag, then some kid in the front is throwing up out the window and they are passing out bags. I could handle it for awhile and it even seemed like we got through the worst of it. There were no really bad smells because most of it made it out of the bus it was the sounds that were bad. Well, we weren't done. People continued to vomit later on. I can't even count how many people vomited during this trip but now it is strewn all down the sides of the bus and you can smell it when the bus stops and you don't have the breeze.
Apparently the bus driver is very used to this sort of thing because he just continues on the way. This was the most difficult bus ride to date. At least 20 pukers.

Nepal and other things....

So other than the part when I decided to head but a rock we have been having a really great time in Nepal. First, we went to The Last Resort and went bungy jumping on the second highest bungy jump in the world. Yes, I finally got to go bungy jumping. It was soo crazy. Wow that is quite the feeling!

Anyway, we were really interested in checking out this particular resort to see how they had done things for our ideas in Bhutan. The place was great. The next day we went rafting on the Bhote Kosi. Drew kayaked that one and I rafted and yes, I made it through the whole trip. After that we spent another day in Kathmandu and then made our way to Pokhara. Then, as you know (if you read this at all) about our trip on the Kali Gandaki. The last 4 days we went trekking in the Annapurnas. We did a trek called Poon Hill. It was very fun. I was actually surprised by how nice the tea houses were. You could order all kinds of food, they had hot showers... Not quite how I picture trekking but maybe that is because I think more backpacking. We have another day to rest here in Pokhara and then we are heading back to India. The Last Resort Poon Hill with our guide Fish Tail I am glad to know that the Broncos finally had a better game this weekend. I was beginning to think I might be glad I was missing all those games. The Rockies....wow what is going on there? They finally are good and we are missing the whole thing! My mom has been keeping me up. My uncle has the connections so he got tickets for them. So my parents get to go and enjoy the World Series with my aunt and uncle in Denver. Ane the snow! I am missing the snow. Apparently it has snowed a couple of times now. I know it is going to be a shocker anyway coming from India and start skiing the next couple of days. Okay, I will try to tell all about Bhutan soon. Stay tuned.

I was rafting in Nepal

Yep, that is the answer... When people ask about the new scar I will have on my forehead, that is the answer.
On the 15th we bagan a 3-day rafting trip on the Kali Gandaki river near Pokhara. I got to raft about 10 minutes when we came to a Class 4 rapid. Right before the guide told us about the rapid and what we needed to do not to get stuck in the hole where there was a big rock on the left. As we were floating into the rapid we watched the raftin front of us flip and then proceeded to do exactly what the guide had said we should not do. A very large reactionary wave on river right sent the boat straight down into a big rock on the laft effectively splattering all the people on the left side of the boat right into the rock. I, apparently took the brunt and got a large gash on the forehead just above my eye. Not as much blood as the last time and thankfully not the force of impact. I had to get out and we hiked up the small town that was nearby. There was a small clinic right there on the main road.
I got about 4 sutures for a cut that is about and inch.
Quite the experience. We hiked back down to the camp and stayed that night but the next day I had to head back to Pokhara, being that you are not supposed to raft with stitches. So, I am fine we got an extra day to relax here in Pokhara before we go on a short trek and then head back to Inida.



Stitches

After Stitches

"Get the heck out of Delhi"

Okay, I know I am back tracking. since I didn't have a chance to blog early on I am catching up now. This should have been the first one of our trip.

We arrived in Delhi after our plane out of Denver was delayed over and hour and we only had a half hour layover in chicago to begin with. We barely made our flight to Delhi so needless to say our bags had no chance. we decided it would be easiest to just wait for our bags and then go on from there. Well that laft us in Delhi for three days rather that overnight. Traveling in Delhi is very difficult and we thought somewhat miserable. Anywhere we went people saw the white skin and it was attack time! How much money could they get from us. So, we decided our new phrase was "Let's get the heck out of Delhi". We went to see a couple of the sights but would get so sick of peopl all over us we were tempted to hide in our hotel.
We did, however find a very great guest house that was a reasonable price. The Wongden House in the Tibetan colony... very nice people it was a refuge.
And then we got the heck out of Delhi and escaped to the mountains of Darjeeling. What a contrast traveling here was ten times better!

Indian Idol

Okay, I know it has been awhile since I blogged but it has been really hard to do so through India. The internet is a little slow by the time I get through my email there is no time. So, I might try to do a few catch up blogs.

I begin with Indian Idol.
I just had to tell you about Prashant Tamang who invaded my life for weeks. Well, Indian Idol is a very big deal here. Especially when you are in the hills of Darjeeling district and one of the finalists is a lowly Nepali from Darjeeling. Everywhere we went there were "Vote for Prashant" signs. On our way in they even would stop all the share jeeps on the road to collect money to send in more votes. "This is unprecedented" people would tell me as they frantically sent SMS votes in during the final hours of voting. It came down the the final show starting at 9pm 3 hours after the voting closed. Everyone was wathcing waiting for the verdict, Prashant or Amit. Just after midnight it finally came Prashant you could hear all the screaming and cheering all over the city of Kalimpong. Fireworks were going off everywhere! Prashant Tamang the Nepali Gorkha is the new Indian Idol!
Well the following day consisted of all the school kids parading through the streets and dancing and celebrating in the middle of town. The bad part was the following day we were going to try to go to the river to raft but everyone took a holiday! The were no taxis to go anywhere and no restaraunts to get any food. Thankfully we were able to find a small little shop to get bicuits and juice and the equivelant of Raman noodles to make it through the day.
If you want to see more you should definately go and google Prashant. He's a big deal!
Posters everywhere!



The party the next day

3 Days!

We leave in three days for our trip! Where has the summer gone? I cannot believe that it is September already and then when we get back I will be skiing almost the next day.
In case you don't know, we are on our way to Asia for two months. We will be traveling in the southern himalayas beginning in India. We are going up into Sikkim and then we will travel across Bhutan (so excited) and then back into India and make our way back towrads Nepal. We are going to go up into Nepal for a few days so we can see Kathmandu, bungy jump and go rafting on the Bhote Kosi river. Then we will go up north of Delhi, to the Taj Mahal and then home in November. We will probably be doing some more rafting on some of the rivers. Drew really wants to get on the rivers up there. So that is our tentative itenerary in brief. We are really excited to go and we leave on Tuesday (we're not scared to fly on 9/11 and it was cheaper).
I don't know how many opportunities I will have to give any readers an update on here but I will try at some point.

"Glutton for punishment"

Yes, that is what he called me! One of my old coaches from ski racing and former Pike's peaker called me a gluttton for punishment after seeing me at the bike race on Saturday. I know, I know it is possibly partly true. Most people do rest after doing the Pikes Peak Marathon rather than going out to do a bike race six days later. I had to do it though! I couldn't hold myself back. I was in second in the series and if I didn't do the race I would have been taken out so I had to hold off the girl behind me. I didn't go out to win or anything I figured I wouldn't do very well, it was the King of the Rockies: Tipperary classic race, which is almost 26 miles of mostly great single track riding. However, I started up tipperary I started slow and continued to feel surprisingly well! I ended up 3rd in my division and held onto my second place overall for the series. Also, I won the "road rash award" and got a $50 gift certificate to the Wild Creek/Untamed. Yes, that does mean that I crashed again. Don't worry I have not bumped my head at all. Now to add to my skinned knee from Pike's I have a skinned elbow and side, I am a little bit of a mess.
Here are my pics.

I Did It!!

Yep, that's right I successfully completed the Pike's Peak Marathon! I took 3rd for my age-group! I had one crash on the way down but I took Matt Carpenter's advice and got right up and ran really fast on the drenaline before the pain set in.
I was surprised the whole time that my head didn't hurt any worse than it had in the last two weeks and probably even felt better (or maybe I just had too many other things to worry about) Well, I made it to the top in 3:50 which was 5 minutes ahead of my goal time and I finished in 6:05. I wanted to break 6 hours but considering that I didn't even know if I was going to be able to do it a week ago I was very pleased. I ended up 24th overall. Here are some pics of the day.


This is me climbing right near the top...


And now we get to run down! Feels so much better!


This is my third-place award.

Yes

Well, the doc said I could run! Under one condition, that I am very prudent and if I experience any vision/balance problems or headaches I must call it and not push. I just really hope that I don't have any problems and I feel great by Sunday.
I just am so darn competitive that it is my downfall sometimes.
So, up up and away I will go...only 2 Days 12 hours and 55 minutes to Pikes Peak.

Oh, today was my first day back on the river as well!

Pike's

Yes, I suffered some other sort of brain disfunction back in March (other than concussion) and I signed up for the Pike's Peak Marathon. Yes, that is right...in less than 4 days I am going to run up Pike's peak and not only that I am going for the round trip and running back down to make it a full marathon.
I don't really think I have trained enough but I am still excited and nervous and wondering about my sanity all at the same time. Also, now, there is this whole concussion thing. I think I should be okay to run but I am getting so many different opinions from people. Some think I should not try to do it 2 1/2 weeks after my concussion and others think I will be okay. I am going to the Doc tomorrow for my follow up so we will see what he says. I can't not do it!! I have to do Pike's and it has to be this year!
I know I may be crazy....please don't tell.

Only in Colorado

So I had to post this because Drew and I found so much amusement in it. When I was in the hospital they give you all these papers...you know so you know what happened to you and how to take care of yourself and all that stuff. Well, they gave us this sheet on concussions. What is a concussion and what you need to know and all that.



Yeah, sorry it is a little blurry... If you can't read that it says
--Avoid any activity (including skiing) that could cause a blow or jolt to your head for at least one week.

Yes that is right they had to include in perenthesis skiing. We laughed and thought only in a Colorado ski town like Vail would they have to clarifly that in the things not to do.

Ambulance!

Wow it has been awhile since I have written in here sorry I have been so busy working. Well, I have some time now because I have a few days forced off of work.
Yep, Thursday when we were throwing boats onto the trailer at the end of our trip apparentlly I didn't duck enough and it took off my head. Well... at least it slammed my head into the trailer and then to the ground maybe. I don't really know I don't remember any of it. They had me on a backboard and an ambulance almost there by the time I remember anything. Apparently I didn't blackout but I was only A&O x 1 which means I was only alert and oriented to who I was. I didn't even remember the last 20 minutes of the raft trip or the fact that it was August until about the time we got to Vail Medical clinic. Well, there was a lot of blood for a very small cut of course, I only have two stitches in my head but it is very bruised and hurts. So, because of secondary concussion possibilities I am not allowed to do much for a few days, which meant I couldn't do the bike race today and I have missed a couple days of running for Pike's.
I am okay if anyone was concerned. My head hurts!

Aunt!

My sister had her baby! I am an aunt for the fourth time. It took me awhile to get this post up. She had another beautiful baby girl on Monday June 25th. She beat out her brother and sisters weighing in at 8lbs 3oz and 20 inches long. I have had the privelage of being present for all but one of the births and that was due to a winter storm and we didn't make it till the next day. I am going to post some pics soon.