What a month (or two)

1jeff • 27th Apr 2010 • exercise, random

Since the TIR at the beginning of March, things have been pretty crazy in the Mery household.  The weekend after the TIR, we drove to Vail, Colorado for our our annual family ski trip.

Vail was awesome as usual.  Danny and Gil went with us this year.  Todd and Brittany could make it because of their wedding and honeymoon.  The first two days were pretty good.  Vail had some recent snow so the base held up pretty well as the weather warmed up over a few days.  Tuesday was the worst day at Vail for the week (as if a day in Vail can be bad ).  It finally got so warm that the snow started to break down and get really heavy by mid-afternoon.

We took Wednesday off to rest and then hit Beaver Creek on Thursday.  Gil and I hadn’t skied there before.  Neither had my buddy Jamie that came up from Devner to hang with us.  At Beaver Creek, the snow was horrible.  Actually, calling it snow isn’t even fair.  That mountain was one giant ice cube that was borderline ski-able.  I’d set my edges on an average black and they wouldn’t even hold.  I’d just keep sliding down the mountain.  Don’t get me started on trying to turn at speed; ridiculous.  It was really disappointing because the mountain itself was pretty awesome.  I really want to go back when there’s some snow ’cause it seems like it would be sweet!

Our last day in Vail was epic.  We got 10 inches of snow over night and into the day on Friday.  10″ of official snow means it’s going to be deeper in a lot of places around the mountain.  One of our first runs was down a double-black called Prima.  The snow was up to my knees in places going down that thing.  It was unbelievable.  I hadn’t skied in snow that deep before and it’s one of the coolest feelings.  You skis don’t feel like they’re on the mountain, but floating above it.  It’s pretty dang hard on the legs because you have to lean back to keep your ski tips from digging in, but it was awesome.

I think the best part of this trip was finally getting to see Cooper on skis.  That kid was a champ.  He’s not even 3 1/2 years old but he skid in ski school for 5 days straight.  After the first day, he was completely wiped out.  The other 4 days though, he’d get out of school, rest for about 20 minutes and then he’d be literally jumping on the bed and off the couches and up and down the stairs.  He had a total blast!

The next two weekends were spent at bachelor parties for Todd, Wendy’s younger brother.  What happens on those stays on the road so….moving along .

Between the parties and the wedding, I got the chance to run the Cap 10k for the first time.  It seems like every year there’s something that comes up at the last minute that prevents me from running it.  This year the stars aligned and I’m glad they did.

I signed up late, but trained really hard for it.  Most of my training runs were in the 5 – 6 mile range and I trained for speed and hills.  On the morning of the run, things were iffy with the weather.  It was warm with a lot of mist and fog.  I was worried that part way through the run the sun would come out and I’d e hard-boiled by the end.  Lucky for me, that didn’t happen.  The clouds actually got thicker and a steady mist started to fall which was great.  It stayed cool and kept me cool through the entire run.

The first 3 miles of that route are pretty hilly.  I have a tendency to go out too fast so I was sure to go out easy.  Having never run this course before, I wasn’t sure of quite what to expect here.  Luckily, the first three miles include the last 2 of the Austin Half marathon that I ran in February of this year.  The course turned South after crossing under Mopac and it was downhill from there.  I actually felt really good for the whole run up until about the last half mile or so.  I was pretty much going all out and had to dig pretty deep to stay strong through the finish.

My finish time was 53:33 which was a new personal record for me at the 10k distance by over 2 1/2 minutes.  Considering I started training late, I was really happy with that time.  I think my next goal is going to be breaking 50:00.  Of course, that won’t be until after next year’s marathon(s).

Todd and Brittany’s wedding was the weekend after the Cap 10k.  We went up for the rehearsal and all that.  They had a really good wedding that came off without a hitch, well, except theirs of course.  This past weekend was a baby shower for Wendy and a diaper party for the guys at our place.  We had family over, grilled out, threw some washers and had a generally great time.

Now we’re hoping for a few calm weekends before Skyler gets here.  The official due date is 5/23 so we’re definitely in the home stretch here.  Training wise, I start doing CrossFit on Monday at 6:30 AM.  I’m not going into what it is in this post so Google it.  Rest assured I’ll update with more details later on.

Until next time….