Last Week's Recap

I've not been keeping up with my current events here lately and I apologize.

"Naughty Bunny! No carrot for you!"

I know, I know...

But here's a quick rundown:

After the whirlwind trip to Bend, OR over the weekend of April 12th/13th, I returned to the polar Teton Valley where we've been stuck in winter since November. (It's snowing right now in fact. We still have only seen maybe two days above 50 so far this year? And it continues to snow...) The next few days were recovery days for me and my bewildered legs who were still reeling from the sudden 34 miles I put them through on Sunday. By Thursday, I was feeling up for a light bike ride, so I rode up and over Pine Creek Pass on the road bike to get my body's systems working again. It was a nice, mellow ride with two gentle climbs, one on the way out, and one on the way back. I was out riding for about an hour and fifteen minutes. Perfect.

Friday after work, I blasted out of the frozen tundra on my way to Missoula for the GrizzlyMan Adventure Race on Saturday. I didn't really know what to expect having never done an adventure race before, but I knew this was the inaugural event and I became acutely aware of more than a few organizational hiccups as the morning went on and racetime drew nearer. You can read a full report of the race from my teammate's perspective here. (I know, I'm taking the cheap and easy road on this one, but I'm trying to make this post short and quick and Ali did such a good job reporting on our race, that I'm simply going to redirect you to her. Thanks Ali! Hope you don't mind!)

In short, I'm happy with how we worked and we absolutely blitzed the course. We were one of the top teams to finish. But how heartbreaking and disappointing it was to discover we had an incorrect checkpoint on our orienteering section of the course which threw us waaaaaaaaaaay down in the standings. 'sigh...' Oh well. I know what to do better next time.

I returned to the Arctic Teton region on Saturday night after seeing the weather deteriorate that afternoon in Missoula. I didn't feel like sticking around and having a treacherous, snowy drive home on Sunday. So instead, I did what any person with common sense would do when a snowstorm blows into the area in mid-April... I went for a five hour bike ride. And I'm going to forego the details on this one. Let's just say the first 2 hours went pretty well. And the next three? Well, if 25 degrees and a 30mph+ headwind with blowing, drifting snow sounds like a good time, I can assure you, it's not. I don't know the last time I've been that miserable. Probably last summer...

So this week, I began by recovering from the ride through frozen hell. Didn't do much on Monday. On Tuesday, I drove over to Jackson for the group ride that meets at the high school every week at 6pm. Three of us showed up. And it was a beautiful evening! I didn't even wear my booties, balaclava, thick gloves, or windproof tights! The first time this season! So that was nice getting out there with Dale and Dan. On Wednesday, the weather was crap again so into the gym at lunch I went. On Thursday, more wind and snow and another rushed lunchtime gym workout. I've been visiting the local gym on my lunch hour to get a light workout in while it continues to be winter. Which brings us to today, Friday. And more wind. More snow. More winter. Seeing the pattern yet?

I drove out to Horseshoe Canyon to do a little recon and check out the trails out there to see if anything was clear yet and sadly, they're not. Not even close, really. Snowfields three to four feet deep in places and hundreds of yards across. Maybe by June? 'shaking head in dismay' I ran hill repeats on one of the only clear sections of trail I could find, but even then, the ground was a consistency of spongy mud and was covered in a light layer of slick snow. After an hour and a half, I packed it in. Tomorrow? I'm moving to Hawaii.