XMAS POWDER

Brian and I met with Monarch Mountain a few weeks ago. Brian is going to put on a Randonee ski clinic prior to the Feb 21st event at Monarch and in return thay graciously supplied us with Season Passes.
I am not a skier, in fact I've attempted to ski 3 x in my life up untill now, the last was in 1999 where I basically did my damnedest to not go down the hill at all.. and that was the beginner slope! Not exactly the point.. eh!

Well that's all changed, we went up to Monarch to pick up our passes yesterday and ski in the POWDER! It was awesome. I loved it.. I didn't get off the kids lift ( according to Brian.. I was like kids? the kids are up the top of the mtn....) yet, but I did make it down a blue slope and I am hooked.

So excited. We used Brians rando equipment, and his new GOODE ski's ( so I'm learning on $2000 carbon ski's and bindings.. the lightest on the market.. Thanks Dave GOODE ...being Brian's wife has benefits sometimes!).

cheers
Jen

Brandyn's cat and pickle drink

Someone gave us this at the pool the other day.

Yes it tastes disgusting.

Crazy Snow

Its positively dumping, while its been snowing just about every day since last Tuesday the intensity upped and today it has been absolutely pouring out of the ski/ sky.

So I donned the Yak Trax and ski goggles and headed out for a tour da neighbourhood. I play outside is always so much better than the torture machines at the gym.

cheers

Jen

Home made goodness

A client Michelle gave us the most amazing chocolate chip cookies today. Yum! One turned into 3 as I got ready to ride the rollers.. wonder if my ride used them up??

I've been right into making things at home lately. In part, its a response to food prices being so expensive. Its also to stay healthy. Largely too .. its just better.

I'm sprouting mung beans and they are delicious. Eating them in pumpkin soup. The soup is last nights soup improved. Roast Pumpkin, onion and garlic with coconut milk, red curry, and coconut curry chicken stock. (My friend Laura suggested a little brown sugar and stock to bring out the flavor.. it has made a huge improvement). Tomorrow I am thinking the soy chorizo in the fridge would be good added too....

Soup in December is the best!

I've got Yoghurt making in the cooler overnight. Take some plain Yoghurt , about 1/5th of the container, and mix it in a Jar with organic milk heated to 115 degrees, Put in our small 'chilli bin' and add hot water... to cover the jar and incubate the 'yoghurt'. Its good and alot cheaper. I'd like to find some organic milk powder and then I could make thicker yummy Yoghurt. Not sure that Gunnison has that though. ( NZ is 15 years ahead of this game, my cooler is a homemade version of Eziyo!)

I'm also making Granola in the oven right now. Its so much more economical and nice to know whats in the cereal mix.

cheers
Jen

So whats new?

Sometimes we experience periods of change, and change can be really good. Its allowing me to be really stimulated and challenged.

My off season is in the past now, it was an off - season, my ear problems really affected me, but a visit to a specialist last week was encouraging, I'd had 2 things going on; an Eustachian tube problem and an initial ear canal infection, which in the end was dry and inflamed, mainly because it was too dried out from treatment. Its really settling now so I am much happier.

Its been interesting however and a learning curve. I've been learning about some Chinese medicine and the relationship between the water element, our kidney's,adrenal glands and ears. I relate to what I am learning and feel much of it is applicable to me. So in the long run I think the whole experience is a healthy one. My mantra for now is nourishment, and not just food, more in the form of some calming activities and balance to my go/go lifestyle.

I've changed coaches too, after 3 very successful years with Ann Trombley (www.trailmastercoaching.com) I approached Dara Marks Marino (http://www.dmmfastcoaching.com/) for coaching. Dara with her cycling and xterra experience is a really good choice for me to continue to develop as an xterra athlete. Its exciting and I am feeling really positive about the change.

I've also ( now I'm letting all my cats out of the bag, but whatever... its no secret that I am not a good swimmer... yet) begun working with Brandyn Roark Gray with Swimming.

She and Trever are olympic trial swimmers and coaches of the Four corners aquatic team... I'm hoping a little will rub off. She's a fantastic coach and again I am very excited to be working with someone who also competes in Xterra and triathlon.

2009 is very motivating to me.

Brian and I, along with Brandyn and Trever (Roark) Gray are teaming up to teach an Off road triathlon camp in Farmington, New Mexico Jan 22 - 25, 2009.
Brandyn and Trever will take the swim clinics. They'll video, assess your stroke, teach you drills to correct it, use tools for swimming, show how to integrate into a workout and how to progress your workouts into your season.

Brian and I will teach mountain bike and run clinics focusing on both technical and technique skills, race specific skills and workout planning and progression.

The weather will most likely be dry in Farmington and Aztec. I've just been down to swim and ride. We checked out the trails and they are super fun and appropriate.

The camp costs $295 which includes all clincs. Accomadation and food isn't included. Farmington has plenty of reasonably priced accom. We envisage eating out together Friday night, then on Saturday the ride clinic will be from the Gray's house and end with a pot luck BBQ.

Its an amazing opportunity for athletes of all abilities to start their year off well. Its going to be social, fun, motivating and extremely useful.

Space is limited so please contact me w/ any questions.

cheers

Jen

Brian's blog for two wheel tales

Snowing and 40, B’man blogs
This post was written by Brian Smith on November 30, 2008
Hey all. Brian Smith here in wonderful Gunnison, Colorado. My wife Jenny and I are enjoying our tiny window called ”off-season”. We currently have snow flurries and its 40 degrees. I am trying to get excited to run an hour and head north for some early season skiing. Maui seems like it was years ago already, maybe even another planet. Time to get the snow bike up and running andstart nordic/randonee skiing. Any of you that has access to randonee equipment you should check out the Cosmic race series that Pete Swenson and Monique Merrill put on. www.cosmicski.com They are a lot like mountain bike races on skis. Same race time and elevation gain. Quite a hoot.
The date for the USAT winter triathlon nationals has been pushed ahead 4 weeks as it overlapped with the ITU Winter Triathlon Worlds. These events are a lot of fun as well. Trying to skate ski after running and biking in snow till you see stars. What could be more fun? I have these funnew toys called rollerskis I picked up after Maui. Hopefully I will be ahead of the game once we have some good track. Salomon has been very kind to us this season. We both have complete kits for skate and classic skiing. We have to be sure to make the skis go fast as well!
Our dog Max is helping to keep up our running fitness. He completely trashes the house if he gets left behind. He isn’t all fun and games as his nickname is “nightmare dog”. We have to brush him 3 times a day or we will have a new shag carpet each day.
Sorry I don’t have any pictures. I promise to have some for my next post. Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays.
Brian

The mystery ear infection

I went to another doctor on Friday. I'd been really frustrated as 3 weeks in despite/ rest/antibiotics/medicated ear drops etc.. My ear was still infected and hurting me crazy.
The doctor commented on alot of sand in my ear, embedded, inflammed and infected> We need to get the sand out. So she washed it out. It was alot of sand!
Do you want to know how much better it is already. Amazing, awesome. I feel like a human being again.
Equally amazing is that it took 3 visits to get the sand problem taken care of, both earlier visits commented on the sand but in a oh observation kind of way. Amazing!...
I think I have just changed doctors.

flat batteries

1/2 way around the white rim I remember... didn't I have fresh batteries for the Camera in the glovebox in the van?! Yep.. please check out http://www.urbanassaultride.blogspot.com/ for josh's perspective and more pictures.
The white rim was cool. We had a great group of friends to ride with and the day was spectacular. The pace kept moving along, which was nice as we didn't stop for too long along the way. It was quite Sandy out there during the early part of the ride.
I wore stylie (not so much) 180's ear warmers to protect my ear infection and rode. My newly built single speed. As its my 08 hardtail bike turned (white brothers eno's hub) single speed I felt super comfortable. But I have to say. I'm done with the single speed white rim ride for awhile. 30 miles in I realised.. this ride in dumb on a single its too much of a range of steep climbs to flat riding. Oh well it was a stunning day.

How was Brian's ride? It was his birthday, he celebrated... Of course. This year he got lucky and rode (demoed for Brian Reipe /Mountain flyer magazine). A 29er belt drive single speed spot titanium bike. ( what alot of words... for a one geared bike) The Spot bike rates in Reipe's top five bikes ever and Brian agreed.cheers
Jen

time to do it again

Are you coming to play?

In threes... fours...

They say that bad luck comes in threes. Don't they also say you make your own luck?

My three of late ie: the past few days have been:

A whopping ear infection. This was a total downer as I went to a doctor on Wednesday, only to go back again to my regular doctor on Friday desperately needing antibiotics. I probably should have been given the option to take antibiotics the first visit. It would have saved me $50 and some pain.

A broken tooth: . Dried pineapple hard as leather is not the right food for me to eat! The dentist saw me today though and I have a temporary tooth and crown on the way. Pricey wee lesson.

The others where minor, but next time I make an awesome pot of vegetable soup I should taste it before putting in cayenne and 2 cans of Mexican hot tomatoes. Hot hot hot... too hot to eat! After trying to tame it with the only yoghurt we had .. vanilla.. I gave up and just ate the yoghurt. Soup anyone.. a whole pot full is in the fridge!

I'd put a container of ear drops on the kitchen bench, that night when I asked Brian if he'd moved them he said he'd put them on top of the oven, so I go to the kitchen and get drops from on top of the fridge next to the toaster oven. It's 11, I'm tired. On Sunday afternoon I see my drops on the microwave oven on the bench. Been using the dogs ear drops for 2 days!!!

B'man joined in the not thinking fun and dropped his cell phone in the dish water this morning.

But we did race a super fun cyclocross race on Saturday. A shout out goes to Western state college's Mike for putting together a super course, w/ snow off camber sections, a 180 degree snow corner and a brutal run straight up the embankment - sledding hill. Then to boot he rounded up amazing prizes and prize money. Brian held off the always fast Brian Reipe for $200, and I won a Smith ski helmet, Smith goggles and $100 voucher to Sugah's restarant... Local races are the best right!!! The weekend weather was awesome for this time of year and we got to ride with Jeff and Laura at Heartmans yesterday. MTBing for fun is my favorite thing to do. Plus the dentist in Montrose meant 'targe't' and a run on grass and trails by the Montrose river. Max has a new target toy and said the run made him very happy!

Two wheel Tales

We are contributing to a site managed by Gregg Stephan. www.twowheeltales.com Its a neat concept. Contributing Authors include 24 hour phenom Rebecca Rusch, Mountain bike, cyclocross extraordinaire Jeremiah Bishop, Creative Genius and endurance cross country racer Kelly Magelky.. So far its a group of diverse athletes... hopefully you read and enjoy.

Not in Hawaii anymore Dorothy

30 degrees and snowing all day. Got a call from Brian.. I'm up in CB full on winter went skiing at lily lakes.. AWESOME..
I'd figured.. pant and shoes on the floor, garage key missing...
Speaking of Brian, I haven't said too much about the crocodile undee costume at Halloween, cool idea for sure.. execution?? decide for yourself...shame he left the plastic knife at home it was an integral part of the costume. Check Conrad Stoltz's website www.conradstoltz.com for the incriminating evidence.
More on Brian:
Its Brian's annual birthday white rim ride Saturday Nov 15th ... 6th year running... wanna come ride?!!

More Hawaii

This picture is beautiful. Lieb took us for a hike from the end of the road on the North side of Kauai. It was amazing.

Swimming behind the waterfall was swimming into a gale force blizzard, I was expecting snow any second. The photo was worth it.
The hike was awesome, our second neat hike that week. We'd joined Michael and Kristin in the bamboo forest in Maui. That hike had gone through bamboo up a creek bed and ended swimming up a river and climbing into a pool at the base of a waterful . The previous day we'd gone to Smugglers bay, Trevor has no fear and Brian is crazy.

The boy's resurfaced and our hostess with the mostess introduced us to the game of Sit. The game of sit is when you sit in the waves breaking on the shore and stay put. As it was stormy the waves on the shore where decent. The game of sit was very similar to toss the cork. I found the others dying laughing being tossed around the shore and joined in, still have sand in my scalp and water in my left ear from the game of Sit.

Our friends Dan and Cathie had told us to seek out Puka dog, so we did... so not dissapopinted!!! With likola mustard, and relishs: pineapple/ coconut/ mango... these where not your average hotdogs!

As we where leaving Honolulu last night Brian with a mouthful of icecream said 'being fat Brenda and getting fat is fun!' Well yeah...

Max was super excited to see us home and I'm a little envious of Lisa still being in Kauai.. what day is it tomorrow??

World championship Xterra race

Kristi and I : Cool calm and collected

Okay maybe a little nervous! don't drown hugs.
Krisit and I come out of the water together... classic!

Brian raced great. His time was within a minute of the previous year. Given the run course being about a minute longer and harder this year, you could say his race was very equivalent. The men's field was STACKED with talent and the bar was definitely raised. Brian was 9th this year and 50 seconds behind the first American Josiah Middaugh. He had a great swim 22 minutes!! solid bike and as always one of the fastest runs. I think he was was happy.. He should be! The mens race was won by the Spanish mountain bike champion, 2nd was Michael Weiss a former under 23 World Mountain bike champion. 5th was Eneko Ylanos 2x World Xterra Champion and 3x ITU Olympian. I think you get the idea. Brian was less than 4 minutes back from the fastest bike time, truly not bad! 4Min's off World cup MTB pace?!!!

Me? I had a good swim, 24 Min's 15... was so psyched! This was a big goal for me, so I was really happy. My bike was solid and I rode up to 4th coming off the bike with Renata Bucher of Switzerland and 2 mins back on 2nd place at the time who was Shonny V. My run was crap. I'm sorry but its true. To my credit I hung in there and re passed 6th place then held off a hard charging Jenny Tobin to finish 6th.
All in all I'm just so psyched that the season is over. I got tired at the end this year, in a counting down the days of training kind of way, So the finish line was sweet, That's it I'm done for a little while no intervals and structure. I need a break.

Its been a good year though and I'm very grateful for all my good races, for my Achilles being healed and solid, for my 5th at USA Championships and 6th at Worlds as I realise they are very decent results, for Ann Trombley my coach for putting up w/ me, for my swim getting better, for my sponsors Trek bikes/Volkswagen MTB team, Salomon mountain company, JBL,Shimano,Rockshox,Bontrager,Xterra wetsuits. And a bunch of other stuff.. I mean...

We have it really rather good!!!! and now we're in Hawaii!!!! Wheres the ocean??

Kaua'i Time

The 2008 season's over!! YEASSS!!!!

Hanalei Bay... Puff the magic dragon lives by the sea... in a land called Hanalei... In the Cliffs Coming soon...You saw it here first!

Weekend before

Brian has been working at noon this weekend, so we've been braving the morning's and heading out at 9. Me cause I think its worth it to get the intensity of training w/ Brian, or maybe I'm just lazy and like drafting. It seems like one of those roles you slip into like who does the majority of the dishes or takes the token 'pull at the front' - that would be me. Out the door and I sit on Brian's wheel alternately appreciative, annoyed, angry or scared depending on whats going on.
Man: I'm excited for Maui and in that phase where I know its just one more week in the season. As I'm riding at Hartmans today.. I'm thinking how nice it would be to be hiking or trail running out there. I toyed with the off season and even sat on a rock for a bit! Mainly as I foofed up a rock on 'Josies' and then noticed my surroundings.. Its nice, its sunny, I should sit!
We seemed a bit dogged by bike issues today. Brian had seat issues, then when I was packing up my bike my rear derailleur broke. Oh well - not ideal but at least - it wasn't while riding and I have tomorrow to get sorted.

Counting down,getting excited,Trek/South Maui cycles and what a PB?!

Okay so the first one is really only exciting to me as I just took 5 seconds off my previous personal best 100 swim time. Do you know how encouraging that is. 1.22 ... Yeah!

Its been really cold in the mornings and so I've been grumbling a bit. (26 ( snow), 10, 33 (snow) and 15 have been the past four mornings.) But: today was absolutely gorgeous, sunny a high of about 60, so no more I had an amazing ride, cleaned the house and turned on the heat.
Warm is good!

Things are good, I've recovered from Tahoe.. I was really tired last week, am tapering (from recovering which is weird) and truly am feeling good. Its a mind game to taper... as an athlete I'm not used to it, I have been somewhat waiting all year to appropriately back off and peak for Worlds and now that its time there is a degree of insecurity surrounding the process.
Its really nice though to go through the process of feeling more energetic each day. Can't do much now.... just final touches in the next 10 days.

I started to pull out shorts and summer clothes in preperation for Maui today. Its pretty great that World championships is in Hawaii. The venue doesn't get better than that! Thanks Xterra!
Its deserved though.. as the race is and will be brutal. I keep thinking about details that put a nervous shot in my stomach.

Trek bikes are teaming up with South Maui cycles at Xterra World's. They'll have a booth at the Maui Prince next to regristration. Showcasing the 2009 fuel. These are the bikes Brian and I are riding there. They are great bikes, we've been raving about the performance and its deserved. If you're in Maui and at the event come over and say hello. Michael Browne Trek brand manager will be there Friday and Saturday, ask him all your questions, he knows the bikes. Brian and I will be there with our bikes also on Friday mid morning and Saturday mid morning.
enjoy
Jen

Uugh

26 this morning and trace snow, Crested Butte w/ 2 inches. This is not Hawaii training weather. I have a little wee poor attitude. The wind chill factor cut right though my cycling clothes and I cut the workout to the core and quickly got home. Of course I feel guilty but guilt sits easier than ill, Thank god I'm not hunting. Hope tomorrow is warmer.

Rooibos espresso

I am love love loving my new to me espresso machine. The coffee is the best! Yesterday though I decided its all heading in the way too caffeinated Jenny direction. I knew this would happen. Just because I want to joyously pull and drink shots all day long, that doesn't make a serene healthy me! ha ha.
So I decided to pull the plug on the pm habit developing from Wed and Thursday. Morning only coffee is the right amount for me.
Today I remembered the Rooibos espresso Laura bought us in Capetown. It was good. I have some rooibos still and even though its not finely ground, thought I'd give it a try. Worked awesome, tasted awesome. I made it flat white style with some frothy soy milk. How good is life! Thought about Sue H while I drank it! Now where to get more Rooibos when my bag runs out?

Elk

Brian is going Elk hunting on Friday. He's super excited. I think its a man thing. My vegetarian mother is appalled. She'd be more appalled at the Zip saw I purchased from bowhunters.com in case he 'catches' an Elk.
Anyway.. the bikes are still in their cases in the car and after masters swim this evening I went shopping for huntin food. Brian was working. I was kinda hungry so don't know if I really bought practical hunting food, but I did spend $168 so hope there's something useful. If not we are going to be eating allot of beans rice and variations of for a while!
I then made a batch of super cookies ( http://www.dirtbean.com/) and cooked up some Boulder sausage and rice for ... bean/rice/ sausage /veges burritos I'll make up tomorrow, Because I said I would..
Brian isn't really like the rest of us, for him this is perfect Xterra World championship preparation. relaxation. I wouldn't exactly say he's like a hunter either as how many do you know who ride their cyclocross bikes into camp and take running shoes with?
me.. The annual W mtn run is on Saturday. the house to myself and maxwell will be kinda nice. most likely I'll miss Brian, life is funny like that.
Jen

Rich Cruse Pic

Pics

Overlooking Incline Village Pre race interview

Good shot Julie...what exactly am I doing? I'll skip this pre race step in Maui... and swim faster!Tunnel Creek$25 all you can eat Sushi. We ate there twice... Of course.