What A Weekend!

I'm still kinda reeling from it all, but I think it went down like this:

Friday night:
I knew the snow was on its way and although the temps were again near freezing, the thought of sitting on a bike trainer all week was all the fuel I needed get my ass out the door for another great 2hr night ride.

Saturday:
9am: I had to give a ten minute talk on the benefits of a proper running shoe. I was to cover how important it is to have a trained eye watch you walk to determine exactly what your feet are doing and what you need to have on them to prevent injury. Anyways, I'd chalk this short presentation up to a learning experience, which is to say I think I sucked ass! I got my point across, and fully explained what I intended to, but I was completely unable to get any personality into it...I though public speaking was gonna get easier!

10am - 2pm I depart Squamish to finally ski The Callahan Nordic Venue, about a 40min drive. This is where the 2010 games will take place and it opened for the first time in December. I truly feel like I am the last person in Squamish to have made it up here! I have Nordic skied twice in the last decade, at least that's all I can seem to remember. 2005 in Whistler with good buddy Shane Robilliard (my only experience on skate skis), and sometime around 1998 in Canmore, AB with good friends Jen Osinga and Lorna Derkach. Outside of that I am at a loss for having attempted this sport since I was a kid in Nfld and we spent one winter breaking trail all over what is now a new housing development. Anyways, I was very excited to be getting out for something completely different, and to top it all off The Callahan has constructed and groomed a Dog Loop!! How cool is that! I brought Roxy and my friend's dog Angus up for a solid 1hr run. The dog loop is somewhere between 2.5 and 3km and it was a struggle but I managed three full laps in just under one hour. I fully intended to ski at least twice that long but my body was letting me know that my piss poor technique and lack of specific conditioning would not allow it.

3pm - 5:30pm Back to Squamish just in time to see all of that forecasted snow hitting the ground. I had illusions of a road bike ride, but instead ended up at the gym for a 2hr spin session. Thank you once again iPod, and my two favorite Podcasts, 'Pod Runner' and 'Groove Cafe'.

7pm - 10pm After our near death kayak experience in Baja almost one year ago, I promised myself that I'd take the time to learn the proper kayak safety techniques, such as how to roll a kayak back upright once you have flipped it. Without exiting of course! Simply referred to as 'a roll'. I am signed up for a one month (4x Sat night) kayak clinic with yesterday being the first. After a one hour class room session we were off to the pool for 2hr of bobbing up and down in the water. I came close, but after a full day, the exhaustion got the better of me and I started 'cheating' and making it harder for myself in the last hour. I jumped in the hot tub for the last twenty minutes!

11pm - 3am As I was pulling into the parking lot for my 3hr kayak training night my cell phone rang.

"Gary, Dom, you coming tonight?"

"Coming where?"

"The party!"

I had totally forgotten that a friend in Squamish was hosting a ridiculous bash complete with DJ's, smoke machines, lights, the whole get up!

"Ohhhhhhhh, yeahhhhh, ummm, been saving my energy all day for it! Can't wait!"

"Sweet see ya in a few hours!"

After the pool session I felt annihilated. I returned home, hit the couch and contemplated going straight to bed. I somehow convinced myself that I could pull off going for just one beer! Yeah right!

I showed up at 11pm and it was readily apparent that this was no normal party. 'Tribal' was the theme and I'll leave the rest up to your imagination. My friend's teenage daughter was on costume duty and within ten minutes I was slamming shooters and hitting the dance floor, in my newly constructed tribal outfit. A few 'tribal(ish)' table mats, some duct tape, and some body paint...yeah, it was quite the night to say the least!!

Sunday:

I managed to drag my ass outta bed on just under 5hr sleep and head to the shop for our beginner walk-run '5km Fun Run'. After pre marking the course I again ran it with the participants for a nice 10k start to the day. The morning was gorgeous and although I fully intended to head back to bed immediately afterwards I simply could not commit such a sin! I grabbed the dogs and went for another 15km of trail running. I intended to go for longer but my body just needed a break. I called it a day, and from head to toe, every single muscle group was thanking me!

Tomorrow I'm taking a day off from training (playing) and then Tuesday morning is our usual 6am ski tour before work. Matt Hart, an incredible athlete from the Seattle area (with a great blog) has been in town for the weekend. Unfortunately because of my Sat morning commitment of a shoe talk, and my Sunday morning commitment of the run clinic, I missed out on Matt and Jen's adventure filled weekend. It sounds like he will join us for our ski tour before heading home though, so should be a good morning, especially with the fresh snow that has been falling!

I finally got my training hours back up to a respectable number at seventeen for the week, and if dancing counted then I would have hit twenty! I still need to keep building, but it was the first week this year that I really felt like I held a concentrated effort at getting in as much as possible. For now however, bring on the sleep!

GR