Take your 2 weeks

I took my two weeks off, although they can't necessarily be classified as such. A typical day consisted of either being on the first chair up the mountain at 9am or driving out of town at to go back-country skiing. After a late lunch, I could be found visiting my 5th graders or giving a cross-country ski lesson before heading out for a run with friends/dogs or taking advantage of some of the fitness classes offered by the gyms that I work-out at (my current favorite is hot yoga)!

I raced in my first telemark race this past Saturday! Sporting shorts, I made it through all of the gates and skied from 10am-4pm while keeping all of my skin - the day was a success! (click on photos to see them full-sized)

The scene this morning, curb-side, getting ready to hike!

I raced in an event called the Ride, Stride, Glide yesterday. I was part of a team, all sporting figure skating outfits...I did not take any photos but will track a few down and post them in the near future. Chris Mallory, a Sun Valley coach of mine (his back-side shown above) did the ride, a 5k mountain bike on the cross-country trails at Galena, just north of Ketchum, ID. Abi Holt, another SVSEF coach did the 5k running leg (stride) and I completed the glide, which was a 6k freestyle ski. Nothing like ending my two-weeks off with a race!

Abi Holt and Chris Mallory stop to chat on today's hike

Today, we hiked! Mushroom Ridge, just north of Galena. The snow was not ideal, but the company couldn't be beat.

L to R, Abi Holt, Rick Kapala, Chris Mallory, Mikey Sinnott.

Check out the cornice in the back of the picture above. The wind blew it in a different direction every 8 feet or so - the contrast isn't ideal in the photo but dang, it was really cool!

So take your two-weeks! It does not mean sit on the couch and catch up on the latest episodes of Rock of Love II (that is for when the sun goes down)! These two weeks are for living it up and being active. They are so that you can do all of the things that you cannot do while 'in training'. I have worked out more in the past two weeks than I did in my biggest volume weeks this summer, but I did not train even one minute in those hours of working out. My body is tired but happy and my mind is a peace. I have put the season to rest and it is go-time again.

Full-on training will not start until May 1, but I am logging hours and starting specific workouts again. I also start a cleanse in the morning (more to come on this).

Today is not ever coming back, so live it up!