April 24, 2021

Weekend Recap: Copper Mountain Skiing

We got a big snowstorm Thursday night, which meant my Friday morning started out taking Sadie on a five mile run through the snow drifts. I was so glad I did! Honestly, my days are always so much better when I start them with a run.

Around midday, I headed up to the mountains for what would end up being my last ski weekend of the year. On my drive to Minturn, I stopped at Vail to squeeze a few runs in, but when I headed up over the top of the mountain to Sun Up Bowl, I was really dismayed by how bad the conditions were. That snow in the Front Range really hadn’t hit the ski resorts!

High_Noon_Chair_No_Snow
Admittedly, this is an area that is normally roped off anyway… BUT STILL.

There were so many rocks and obstacles to avoid, and I honestly wasn’t having that much fun, so I called it a day after skiing for an hour. I then headed to my mountain house to catch up on some of the work I had skipped during this little hiatus, and then J met me there for a weekend of fun.

For dinner, we headed to Vin48 in Avon, where we met my friends Heather and Kirk. We had a lot of fun! I absolutely loved my squid ink pasta with crab, and we also kept it a reasonably early night – J and I were back to my place by 9pm, and able to enjoy a glass of wine on the couch before heading to bed nice and early, in preparation for skiing the next day.

Vin48_Pasta
So delicious! And so much fun with friends.

Unfortunately, it seems I may have gone to bed a bit too early – I woke up at 4:30am wide awake, so ended up reading until a more reasonable hour. When J woke up, we took our time get ready; while I had originally planned to make baked oatmeal, I realized I was out of oatmeal (um, kind of a key ingredient), so instead, we went down the street to get breakfast burritos at Sunrise Cafe.

We finally got ourselves packed up and ready to go at 9:30am, and started making the drive east back over Vail Pass to Copper – where J had gotten his pass this year, but where I hadn’t skied for years. I was looking forward to trying it with him!

The day seemed warm initially, and I dressed in really light spring skiing gear, but as soon as we got on the mountain, the clouds rolled in and it was actually pretty chilly. The close Colorado sun makes a big difference! We did two runs down beginner trails, and then started trying intermediate trails, with J doing great – I was really impressed by how far he’d come in learning to ski this season. However, I was freezing! When J took a bathroom break, I decided to head back to the car to get warmer stuff. It took forever to get out to the satellite lot where we had each parked, but I was so glad that I had gone out there, as I was so much warmer after!

When I came back, J had gotten a table on the deck of the lodge and ordered what turned out to be the best burger and fries I’ve had in a long time. YUM! Lunch was absolutely delicious, and so sunny and nice.

After lunch, we headed back out on the mountain, and did a ton of intermediate trails. I cannot say enough how impressed I was with how well J was doing on the intermediate trails; I didn’t even need to wait for him very much at all. I contemplated going down one black diamond mogul run that seemed to shortcut the intermediate run J was doing, but at the top, I realized it was really steep and cliff-y… it kind of freaked me out, especially with the possibility of rocks due to the spring conditions. While I’m sure I would have been fine, I really didn’t want to advertently get hurt on my last day of skiing for the season, so I stuck to the blues. First time I’ve passed up a trail in a long time because I was worried it was too difficult, but… better to trust my intuition and play it safe.

We finally called it a day around 3pm, and hopped in our cars to head back to the Front Range. We both headed to my house, and while he took a shower, I snuck in a quick Peloton ride. One of the downsides of becoming a better skier is that I can get lazy on runs, not really engaging my legs / glutes, so skiing is not very much of a workout. I really wanted to do something… especially with what we had planned next!

After I took a quick shower, J and my mom and I made a charcuterie and cheese board for dinner – which was a great way to close out the day! Mom got to sip a glass of sparkling cider, J and I had wine, and a lovely time was had by all 🙂

Saturday_Night_Spread (1)
This is my kind of night!

The next morning, though, was kind of a grumpy day. I woke up planning to go for a trail run, but all the trails I wanted to run were closed due to mud. I put on my workout gear, intending to instead take Sadie for a sidewalk run… but then I went downstairs and glued myself to my computer. Oops!

While I normally work out before I eat, I finally gave up and made steel cut oatmeal for breakfast, telling myself I’d go for a run before lunch. (I made my steel cut oats with almond extract, butter extract, and vanilla protein powder, trying to mimic the taste of the Trader Joe’s almond shortbread cookies I was craving – and it worked – delicious and healthy!) But then I still didn’t go for my run before lunch… and I got lazier and lazier, losing myself in a Reddit rabbit hole about the Peloton Tread+ recall debacle, which made zero sense when I don’t even have a Peloton treadmill.

Lunch came and went (I made farro, mushrooms, and kale, which was tasty), but at least I finally got off my butt and headed out to get something done. I drove up to Boulder to pick up the strawberry watermelon hard seltzer I had won at this week’s Avery Brewing Run Club, and then stopped at Trader Joe’s on the way home. Unfortunately, they didn’t have too much exciting new stuff. I am getting to be quite the Trader Joe’s addict, browsing the TJ’s Reddit and constantly keeping an eye out for new products.

As my mom prepares to go back to Albany, there’s quite a bit of family drama around it. The gist of it is that my mom’s sister moved into my mom’s house a few weeks ago, after her previous living situation became untenable. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a temporary situation started to look permanent, as no plans were being made for my aunt to go elsewhere. My mom’s house is not at all set up for someone with limited mobility (my aunt fell down the stairs a few days after she was left there!), which made me really nervous for my aunt’s health, and I was also really stressed about my mom going home and needing to take care of someone else when she still has a few more months of cancer treatment to get through. Plus, she is already the primary caregiver for one of her other siblings! (She has six in total.) I ended up going for a walk with my best friend Chris and telling her the whole story, and that made me feel slightly better, even though there still aren’t any solutions.

At 6:30pm, I finally took Sadie out for a quick three mile run, which cheered me up immensely. We kept up a pretty fast 8 minute pace for 5K of hills, so that was stellar! That really turned my mood around, and I was sorry I hadn’t gone for a run sooner. I pretty much always feel that way when I have these days of not getting my workout in until late in the day!

Mom and I closed out the weekend with some time curled up on the couch together watching our new fav show, Grace and Frankie. It was a pleasant end to a bit of a blah day, and I was happy to go to bed early… Monday would be a new day!

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