Weekend Recap: Missing the Mountains

Weekend of December 14-15

It was a long week of work, flying back and forth across the country twice, but I was really excited for the weekend I had lined up ahead, where I planned to finally make it up to the mountains to get some skiing in. Unfortunately, my plans went topsy turvy due to a big snowstorm! You’d think that since my plan was to ski, I would have been in the clear, but the roads said otherwise.

Although I was pretty tired from the week, I forced myself to get up at 4:30am so I could join some Peloton Reddit friends for a milestone ride. Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized that “app riders” (like me who don’t have the official bike) can’t interact with the regular riders, so I wasn’t able to high five anyone 🙁 However, I still thought it was pretty cool that all of us were doing the same ride at the same time in different parts of the country, and afterward, it was fun to compare our impressions over on Reddit. Meanwhile, I got really excited when Kendall called out “MyLegsAreTired” for a shoutout, since that was my Reddit friend who was celebrating her 100th ride. For those saying that the Peloton ad is fake, I totally exclaimed out loud “she said her name!!!” at that point in the class 😉 Looking forward to reaching my own 100th ride in a few weeks and hopefully getting a shoutout for myself.

I was originally planning to do a run after the spin class, but when I walked to warmup, my Achilles felt really tight… so I skipped it. I knew I had PT later in the afternoon, anyway, and we usually work my calves pretty hard there! The rest of the day to get there flew by (I was literally in back to back meetings right up until my PT appointment, with one call ending in the PT parking lot), and I was pretty psyched to see Emily.

However, when she told me she was going to dry needle me to see if that eased the tension, I had mixed feelings. It is kind of crazy how much I love dry needling 🙂 But this time, having not had it in a few weeks, I was honestly a little bit scared. It ended up being one of the most painful times I’ve ever had it done, but the relief was immediate and obvious – I gained a full five degrees of flexion in each ankle. Fingers crossed that would do the trick!

I headed home for a few more hours of work, then wrapped it up by 6:30pm to head up to Boulder. I had been invited to Congressman Joe Neguse‘s holiday party, and I was excited to check it out 🙂 I didn’t know anyone there except for Joe, but I had a nice time getting to meet some newly-elected local officials and chatting with a few others about how we can use technology to improve transparency. Meanwhile, my mom knew I was going to the party and had gotten really excited about it. Since retiring, she spends most of her time watching the news, and she told me that Joe is one of her favorite members of Congress! I tried calling her from the party so that Joe could wish her Merry Christmas over the phone, but couldn’t reach her; instead, I settled for a photo.

I went to bed early and also slept late, which meant I was well-rested for my workout the next morning. I headed to Chuze for a long swim, and was dismayed when I got there to find that all the lanes were taken. But, probably a good thing for me to practice swimming alongside others! I covered a solid two miles in 65 minutes, all as one set with no breaks. As I swam, people kept coming and going, and I have to admit that I was proud to outlast them all 🙂 I know I haven’t done any speedwork training in the pool (which I’ll need to tackle if I decide to seriously train for a triathlon), but I’m feeling good about my endurance and how strong I am.

Next, it was home to shower and pack up the car, and then I was on my way down to Denver for a birthday party. My neighbor / good friend Chris has twin boys who were turning 7, and I was really excited to be invited to their party! They were hosting it at Urban Putt, an indoor mini golf course I had been wanting to try since I read about its opening in a magazine. (My recommendation was actually how Chris and her family found out about it.) It did not disappoint!! The setup was awesome, the food was surprisingly delicious, and we all had a blast 🙂

After the party, I headed down the street to my office, so I could leave some holiday gifts in people’s mailboxes, and then I was back out to the car for what I hoped would be a nice drive out to Vail. But, aware that it was snowstorming and the roads were bad, I called my friend Heather as soon as I got in the car, since she was already up there and could tell me the deal. She told me the roads were absolutely awful, and that Vail Pass had actually closed! While of course there was a chance it would reopen by the time I got there, I didn’t want to drive all the way out there just to potentially get turned around… so instead, I headed home and unpacked my car. Skiing would unfortunately have to wait another week or two 🙁

Since I now had a free night at home, I tackled some chores in my basement home gym – setting up a new shelf (which I put next to my bike so it’s easier for me to grab hand weights while doing Peloton classes), and assembling the water rower that I had also bought on Black Friday.

The water rower was a lot easier to assemble than I expected, and I am pretty thrilled with it! It looks and feels pretty luxurious, and I’m looking forward to Peloton coming out with rowing classes in 2020. To make room for it, I also cleaned out the bookshelf that has gotten filled with random tools / parts over the years, and moved that under the TV to hold my DVD collection. Between the bike shelf, the DVD shelf, and the rower, my home gym now felt a lot more complete and put together! I knew I was going to love working out in it the next morning – and hopefully trying the water rower for a full workout.

I wrapped up by my night by heading out for drinks at Four Noses with a friend who had just gotten down the mountain from an avalanche certification course. After my intro class last weekend, I know I need to take one of these! It was cool to hear his point of view on it, and I had a great night. 

The next morning, while I had originally skipped running on Saturday in order to perhaps run the Superior Stocking Run, temps were in the teens – and it wasn’t appealing to pay to run 5K outside in that when I could run on the treadmill instead. Instead, I decided to do my first live Peloton tread class – Matt’s 45 minute interval run.

Peloton recently came out with a version of their app for the Fire Stick, so I tried playing the workout on my TV instead of my iPad, and it worked really well! After the work I did the day before, it really felt like my home gym was coming together, and this was a nice touch 🙂

Meanwhile, Matt’s class was pretty good – though definitely a challenge! I was very dismayed to find out that while it was billed as an “interval” class, it was mostly hill work and only a few sprints; I was thinking intervals would mean more speedwork. The hills were actually very good for me, but I hate hills on the treadmill (much prefer tackling vert on the trails) so I prob wouldn’t have picked it if I had known 🙂 Good way to push myself by being surprised!

After the tread class, I decided to check out my first Peloton bootcamp, using the water rower as a sub for the running, since I had already run. Definite thumbs up for that! I think I’ll be doing more of these bootcamps in the future. And as I mentioned before, I’m pretty psyched for Peloton to introduce their rower and launch rowing-specific classes (or better yet, bootcamps that are specifically designed for the rower).

While I worked out at home rather than at Chuze Fitness, I still invited my Chuze buddy Heather over for coffee after her workout. As expected, she finished a little earlier than me, but our timing was perfect – I left the door unlocked and told her to find me in the basement, and she walked in just as I was doing a cooldown stretch. I headed upstairs and made coffee for both of us, and we had a nice time catching up and trading consulting war stories, as usual.

Then, I turned my attention to my email – and discovered that a Craigslist seller who was selling a wetsuit in my size also had a bunch of (cute) tri-suits, which I also needed for my race. I headed up to Boulder to meet her, and discovered we had more in common than just an interest in triathlons – she grew up about 20 minutes away from me! She gave me some good tips for my race, and I left thinking maybe in addition to the gear I might also have a new friend.

Picking up the gear made me start thinking about my upcoming triathlon, which is fast approaching (January 6). As I’ve written before, I’m not doing this expecting any kind of good time; I just want to see if I enjoy triathlons enough to seriously train for one. But with the race just a few weeks away, I do need to start thinking about the transitions between sports, as well as all the gear I’ll need to schlep down to Florida. I may end up checking a bag in order to haul it all (especially since I’ll be heading from there directly to some work meetings in Atlanta), but I hope not. Over the holiday break I’ll need to put together a checklist and start figuring this all out, for sure.

So, in all, a pretty low-key weekend with some very different activities than I first planned! But I was happy with everything I got done and the friends I got to see. I definitely made the right call in not driving to Vail (multiple people told me later that it was impossible to even drive between Vail and Beaver Creek and traffic was at a standstill), and I kept reminding myself that since I’ll be skiing for a week at Christmastime, not skiing now is only really an issue for my patience; I’ll be out there soon enough.

I still can’t believe Christmas is only ten days away though… this month (and this year) have gone fast! Hope all of you are feeling the crunch a little bit less than I am 🙂