Tuesday, April 3, 2018

A few more reflections on 2017, and looking ahead...

   Well dang, that went by in a hurry! Another year went whooshing past in spectacular fashion and it's already April 2018. Somebody stop the train and let me off!! Although 2016 had its better moments, 2017 thankfully finally felt more up to speed in athletic endeavors of all kinds. Despite the resurfacing of the 2013 neck injury that likes to come back and haunt me, my body has remained amazingly cooperative in all other ways, coaxed along by copious amounts of stretching, foam rolling and physical therapy. The Tahoe Forest Hospital has some excellent PTs, and they have gotten my neck feeling mostly back to normal although it has been a long process; with numerous setbacks it had been almost 7 months before they deemed me healed enough to stop coming in!

   It also feels great to have started up a yoga practice again in the fall after finding an inspiring teacher at a local studio: Deborah at the Yoga Room teaches an alignment-based Iyengar class that leaves me feeling like no other class I've been to before. There's just no substitute for having someone fix your alignment and hold you in poses for longer than you thought possible (even the easier ones start getting more and more difficult) and in the months I've been going to class, it has NEVER gotten any easier, holy cow!! Definitely giving yoga some of the credit for neck rehab and correcting my posture!

   In addition, I can't forget the life-changing experience of having laser surgery to fix my horribly nearsighted eyes, freeing me from wearing awkwardly thick glasses or dry, falling-out contact lenses day in and day out, and through every ridiculous adventure. That has been something that I give thanks for every time I think about it!!

Kit skis down Basin Mountain
   Last year we managed to ski every month of the year (a first for both of us), figuring it was the year to do so following "Snowmageddon." Up through August was relatively easy, including a day of riding lifts at Mammoth, then September and October got a little bit silly hunting for patches of snow in Mt. Rose Wilderness and Carson Pass. We did our first longer ski descents since Shasta in 2011: Basin Mountain in early May, and Mt. Lassen in July. Both have been on our tick list for a while, and besides being great ski trips, it just plain felt awesome to get out and climb to the top of something big. Lassen was especially ridiculous because we somehow forgot to pack ski poles: marginally sketchy for descending, and skinning up a mountain without poles is awkward at best. We ended up each using one stick found along the approach and then switching to ice axe and crampons when terrain steepened enough. Had lovely weather for a snack and nap on the summit, and then had some nice snow to ski down, just little gloppy at the top.

Taking a break on the northeast side of Mt. Lassen

   We even bought a new climbing rope, after an animated discussion about safety with a good climbing friend, and went rock climbing more than twice for the first time in several years. Then, we made a climbing trip out of Thanksgiving weekend and got re-inspired to explore more in the high Sierra in the summer. I don't know if we'll be able to climb enough to get really strong again, but it would be great to be able to get out on some more moderate high alpine routes this year.

   In addition to getting back to some of my old favorite outdoor pursuits I tried a few new things, including downhill fat biking on the snow. Click here to see how that went! Yes, I'd do it again, but definitely would be more wary of holes hiding behind trees... Also, about a year ago, I entered my first ever desert motorcycle race, which has an entire post dedicated to that adventure. I managed to finish my second race, and although I didn't race again for the rest of the season for various reasons, I'm ready to give it another few tries this year and see what happens.

   Wanting to motivate Kit to do some of his own sports, we joined a local pond hockey group of all ages and abilities and it was awesome! My skating got so much better (although I still can't actually hockey stop) and I really enjoyed watching Kit play one on one with some of the better guys out there. Looking forward to next winter already to get back out on the ice and work on my balance and coordination some more. And in the spirit of having way too many hobbies/sports to juggle, I decided to try a biathlon this spring after watching the Olympics and thinking that I could probably do that... I wasn't dead last, and it was a good time with awesome people! Now, do I want to add yet another thing to the already ridiculous list of sports I'm involved in to some degree? I've got some time to ponder, but it's toward the top of the list. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy skate skiing???

   As for what's on the agenda in 2018? A few changes. Some bike racing, but only a select handful of events that have been on my list for a while. A new job; while commercial sewing has been a great learning experience with decent pay, it seemed to be a major contributor to the return of my neck problems last summer. I don't need to do that kind of work full time ever again, but I've got some useful new skills in case I want to start a side business doing gear repairs or making fancy bags.

   This summer I've gotten a seasonal position as a field survey technician for wildlife habitat with the Nevada Department of Wildlife: a first step back into the science field--which I quite enjoyed in college--but went off on a tangent trying to become a ski instructor/bike racer/ski bum. As it turns out, that is a rather poor living especially when winter comes only once or twice every 5 years in Tahoe. I'll be mostly out in the field exploring random parts of outback Nevada, and it's going to be a radical change from the usual routine, but I've been feeling a bit stuck in a rut for several years and needing to do something like this. Hopefully it will lead to more challenging, interesting employment where I can do something useful for the environment as well... or at least have some benefits so that I'm not paying for my dentist's Hawaii vacation every time something falls apart...

   As for bike racing, first up is Fears, Tears, and Beers in Ely, NV, a grassroots enduro race and quite possibly the first race of its kind held here in the US. It's long, with a ton of climbing, and so early in the season that I'm not usually feeling fit enough to tackle the long course (where's the fun in racing less than 30 miles?) but things seem to be coming together to make it happen this year. Then I got a highly coveted registration in the Downieville Classic All-Mountain, which requires riders to complete a long, burly cross country race the day before the downhill--which is still only MOSTLY downhill. I didn't really know much about it back when I raced XC and was super fit, and then when I turned into a lazy downhiller they changed the rules so you couldn't race the DH without doing the XC. Now I'm coming back around and wanting to try some events with a little more of an endurance aspect to them again. For the rest of the summer I may add in another enduro race or two if CES events line up with my work schedule, but I am most definitely looking forward to late October when the Single Speed World Championship is taking place in Bend, OR. This event travels around the world every year, so having it within a day's drive makes it something I've got to try! I have a decent single speed mountain bike and rode it quite a bit last year; it's a real torture machine but I'm feeling ready to spend more time in suffer mode than in the past several years. Another one of those ideas that seems great until I'm halfway through the race... haha...

   When not on a bicycle, I'm making plans to climb/ski a a few more mountains on the eastern Sierra, and hopefully make a trip up to ski Shasta or another Cascade volcano as well. Also on the list is another trip for us up to Montana to visit the family cabin and fish, mountain bike, perhaps even dirt bike to explore some new trails up there. So much to do, and so little time, as usual!