Happenings as of late.

Two weeks ago this Wednesday, Katie and I went to see Toots and the Maytals at Chautauqua auditorium in Boulder. It was a pretty good show. They seemed really enthusiastic and happy to be performing and the crowd was really into it as well. It was pretty fun though a little pricey. We ended up parking at 27th st and took the free HOP2 up to the venue. Definitely the way to go in my opinion.
I took some time off from training because I was just so tired and feeling it. Yesterday I went to the gym and had a pretty good day for myself finishing a few problems that had previously thwarted me on my first tries! I think I will probably head back tomorrow to resume some training stuffs.
I have a few problems on our wall at home I am working on. Follow the circled holds...
My motorcycle has been doing fine now. I am glad I seem to have all the gremlins scared away. Recently when I got gas, I hit the trip odometer to see how many miles I would be able to go before I had to get gas, and then figure out my mpg based on what it took to fill up. I went exactly 132 miles and put in 1.887 gallons for 70 mpg. Not bad at all! I am really enjoying driving it. I know soon I will probably have to invest in some warmer clothing, so I have been looking around a bit.
Work has been super busy the past two weeks with CU starting up. Lots of people moving in, and the hotel was at 100% capacity for a long time it seemed like. This has been good for my wallet for the most part, yet I hit 80 hours last night around 10 and had to take off so I wouldn't get overtime. I don't think I have ever had a restaurant job where I have worked 40 hours a week.
Because things were so busy, they have been keeping the pm room service and expo to close with the idea that rs would be busy. That wasn't the case on Friday as I was there till midnight and my last order was at 9:45. That was kind of frustrating.
And last but not least, my doggie friend says hi!

Colorado Springs.

I left Saturday to head down to Colorado Springs for the memorial mtb ride for EJ and Jayson. The drive down was ok. I did hit a fair amount of traffic for a Saturday afternoon. I always wonder where that many people are going. Of course, I am out there going somewhere myself.
It took me about an hour and forty five minutes to arrive. Not bad at all. I got to meet Scott's girlfriend Kayla. She's pretty nice. He's pretty nice. They are great people to hang out with. Wish we lived closer.
We went and got dinner and then stopped my Scott's parents house. His mom was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma a bit after I was. I am glad to see she is doing well and feeling good. I know she had a bit of a rough time with it here and there so it was nice to see her healthy. We headed back and got our stuff ready for the ride and got to bed.
I did not sleep too well. I had the windows open at first to let a breeze in, but the cars going by kept waking me up. Then I closed the windows but I was too hot. Then around five I started hearing pop rock music from the 90's from the coffee shop down stairs. I was already awake when my alarm went off at 6.
I got up, ate, and got ready to go. We left Scott's around 7:30 to head to a park where we were meeting up. In all we had 16 people in the group. We started up and I felt ok. The pavement road turns into a dirt road and that is where I started loosing ground. I haven't really ridden in a month or more and expected that I would be sucking on this ride. At least I didn't disappoint myself!
Not that the ride up was hard, but I am not in shape and I was also worried about keeping enough go in my legs to finish the ride. I really didn't have any idea of how far we were going or what the terrain would be like and I didn't want to blow my load in the beginning so to speak.
Alot of the climb up was dirt roads or jeep roads that were in ok shape. We topped out around 11k feet which is the highest I have been and still had my feet on solid ground. I don't think the altitude affected me so much. I didn't feel it anyway aside from generally feeling like I was dragging ass.
I had to stop on the way up to poo. The last time I had to go outside was in the winter at castlewood and I had to wipe with snow and pine cones. This time I found a nice aspen grove. Their fat round leaves were much better.
We began the descent and I felt more at home here. The rocky technical stuff was alot like the trails I ride here and I felt more at home and passed a few people on my way down. It felt good to not be in dfl for a change. But anytime the trail turned up I steadily moved backwards. I had to stop and poo again and found some more aspen trees. I also saw a deer in the woods about ten feet away from me.
One thing that really threw me off on the descent was the soil if you can call it that. It's called scree and it is loose gravel. Really tricky to ride in for someone who is used to dirt. I almost crashed several times but managed to save it. It's like when you turn instead of turning your front wheel cuts in and you almost high side and then slide before regaining traction.
I made it to the bottom intact and was happy to have completed the ride. I felt bad for making everyone wait up for me so much but they were all nice about it.
We headed back into town past the side of the road memorial for EJ and Jayson. It would have been nice to have them along with us, but it was a fitting memorial ride for them. I am not religious but if there is a heaven I bet they were looking down and smiling to see a good bunch of people ride in their honor.
I left the springs around 430 and got back to Longmont around 6. I was going to stop and get Katie on the way, but she said she wouldn't be done until seven. I took Gunner down to her work with me. She loved seeing him there.
I had a really great time on the ride. It was definitely alot different from the trails we have here which I would say are more technical overall and alot shorter and steeper. Walker Ranch does 1700 feet of elevation gain/loss in 7.4 miles and Hall Ranch does about the same in 10 miles. I think the quickest I have done the first two miles of Hall was about 30 minutes. Definitely a different type of riding than we did yesterday.
This should be a good week. Tomorrow we are going to climb and I think when Katie leaves for work I will go for a ride on my motorcycle. Possibly destinations include Winter Park or Vedauwoo in Wyoming. Wednesday Toots and the Maytals are playing in Boulder and we are going to see them. They are one of my favorite reggae bands ever and put on a good live show so I hear.

Training day one.

We went to The Spot yesterday before work. Katie had to leave at two, so after that I did a few burns on the tread wall, and then headed up stairs to do some campus and systems training.
A campus board looks something like this...
The idea is to ladder up and back down the wooden slats to improve finger strength. The one they have starts about 2.5 feet off the ground, so it is a bit hard to really get going without feet. I kept my feet on the wall tucked way under and went up and down on all the rungs they have, down to the smallest ones they have. I am sure doing this a few times a week for several weeks will give me some gains.
My skin got a little hurty though the rungs are wood and supposed to be gentle on the fingers. Next I moved to the systems board. This is to train certain hand positions and postures. You select a certain hold to use, and pull on. Using different holds and body positions will benefit that hold and or position and or muscle group used to attain said position will help you in your climbing. I used a few different hold types and held myself statically in position for a count of five before moving to the other side of my body and performing the same exercise. You can see a short video of what it looks like here. That might explain it better.
I can feel it today. My shoulders feel a little sore, but my skin feels really sore! Oh well. It will all be worth it in the end.

So Ill trip.

Katie and I have been talking about taking a vacation this fall since we have not done so... ever. We have decided to head back to Southern Illinois for a climbing trip. I am pretty excited already, though we will not be going until sometime in November. We were talking about taking a week, which with two days of driving would give us five days of climbing or so. But since it has been so long since we have been out that way, we are already talking about taking a week and a half. I hope I can get the time off from work.
My plan is to say the trip will not coincide with Thanksgiving, so I will be able to work then and hopefully use that to ask for time off around Christmas to get back and visit family and friends in Philly.
I am already working on a training plan so I can get a bit stronger before we go out there and hopefully easily finish problems that I couldn't do two years ago and work on some harder stuff. There is also a new bouldering guide written by Matt Bliss that I have ordered. We are planning on taking Gunner with us and having one of Katie's former coworkers house/pet sit for us.
Here are a few pics from last time...
Myself on Cold Fusion, V3. Didn't finish this one..
Katie on a V1 warmup.
Louis on Fusion, V6. Cold Fusion starts on the lip, Fusion starts under, both follow the same line. Hypoglycemia, V6 also starts under and simply mantles on the the slab once you gain the lip. I like Louis' name of Con-Fusion better though.
Aaron on Body Karate, V9.
Myself near the top of Jimmy's Chicken Shack a 5.6 route which was my first outdoor lead.
In other news, my motorcycle is up and running again. I was very impressed with High Country Harley. Their service was professional, friendly, well priced, and quick. I took my bike in on Wednesday and they said it would be done on Friday. Friday morning I got a call saying the battery was dead and needed replacing but it still wouldn't start. I called back and authorized them to continue work, thinking it would be another day or two before I heard from them. I got a call at 3 pm saying it was all done.
Katie took me down Saturday morning to pick it up. The worst thing was seeing all the nice and new Buells and Harleys there. Drool. Anyway, it turned out it was bad gas and they had to empty the tank and clean the lines and everything. A quick fix I guess. I had been using regular unleaded but have now switched to premium on the advice of several people and the owners manual. It costs a bit more, but if it will help avoid these problems in the future it is well worth it. Plus as my tank capacity is 2.8 gallons, that will be like 60 cents more to fill up which isn't so bad.
I will definitely be going back there for my service needs in the future. And if I ever do have the money to buy something new, I will be going to them as well.
The weather has been strange recently. On July 30th we set a record for lowest high temperature at 62 degrees. Some of the higher elevations had snow! Today things seem to be more in line as I went to the bank and saw 91 on their display. However, we still have yet to turn on the air conditioner and it is August. I think last year it was out in March. The house never really gets too warm at all. The temps at night are always cool, so we have a box fan in the window to pull the air in and cool the house down. Some nights it gets so cold we have to shut the window.
September is coming up already and with that my 29th birthday. Also my fifth anniversary of my cancer diagnosis, and our third wedding anniversary. Lots of stuff!