Skiing Again

Yes that's right I'm skiing again. February 27th was the forth annual Jive Software Company Ski Trip. I hurt myself on the second annual trip. I saw my attending doctor in January and got permission to ski as long as I used my supper fancy athletic running sling.

I went to the annual ski trip last year and sat in the lodge. It was one of the worst decisions I made. It was really depressing to sit in the lodge and watch everyone else ski. I ended up drinking a lot.
This year however I skied!!! I was a little worried about the balance but it all came back right away. The first Run was a nice green cruiser but I quickly upgraded to blues and headed up Cascade lift. At the top we took this picture of me.

My buddy fell in the Cascade Lift house and landed on his elbow. He chipped the bone (Ouch). Apparently I'm bad luck. I took a few pictures of him. I learned from experience that having pictures of you accidents is pretty cool.

Here is Chae with the Ski Patrol dude and Brandon next to him.




And another one of me with him in the Meadows medical center. Its pretty nice. They've moved to a new building since I last saw them.

After seeing Chae safely through the medical center process (x-rays, forms, etc) me and Brandon headed out back out. We made it up cascade and were going to head to shooting star but I saw the drop into heather was open. I was feeling really good and convinced Brandon to drop in with me.

Skiing the steep stuff was much harder. Relearning to turn without the balance of a second arm was tricky but I figured it out. We made it down and then headed back up. I wanted to ski the run where I hit the tree.

Here's me at the top of Moon Bowl, the run of the accident.

Here's the tree I hit.

Here's me giving it a good beating.

Afterwards we hung out in the lodge with all the Jive peeps a little bit.

Of course no company outing would be complete without a big time customer escalation. One of my clients had a big problem that were were trying to fix on the bus and rushed back to the office to work on it. Luckily we were able to get it all resolved for them.

Triathlon Season is Almost Here

So Triathlon season is almost here. I've been road racing since February 15th and that will continue out into the summer but its time to start doing a little more triathlon specific workouts.
Saturday me and Coach went to the pool where we worked on my swim stroke some. We're trying to find the most efficient stroke for me to do and work on my one arm freestyle.
Afterward we got on the bike for 3 hours of work the main set was 5x10min threshold intervals with 5 min rest between. It was quite a workout and I wasn't quite recovered from my sickness the week before. I get to do that same workout (swim then bike) tomorrow so that one should be even better.
Yesterday I got my first real hard threshold run work since before the Marathon back in October. It was a lot of fun. 15 min warm up, 12 x 1min Z4-Z5 pickups with 2 min Z2 in between. I ran the pickups at a sub 6:45 min/mile pace which is pretty good. Can't wait to do that again.
Sunday is my first Bike-Run brick workout. I'm racing Banana Belt #3, 15 mins of bike cool down then 3 miles of running. T2 (the bike to run transition) has historically been the hardest for me. I hope that all the running focus that I've put in over the last year will pay off some. I guess we'll see.

Finally my first triathlon post skiing accident is April 11th!! I'm super stoked for it.

P.S. I really need to work on my race schedule for the year. More on that later.

Jack Frost Race Report

I'm a week and a half late with my Jack Frost report so I'll keep it nice and short. I left my Garmin 405 at home. The garmin serves as my heart rate monitor as well as speed, time and distance meters. So I was out there flying blind.

I got a good warm up in, felt nice and spun up. I made it to the line 28 seconds before my start time which was cutting it a bit close. The TT start is a little different. One of the starters holds your bike so you can clip in. The second starter counts down for you giving you 20,15,10 and 5 second checks. Once he gets to 5 he holds his fingers in front of you ticking off the last 5 seconds. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO! and off I went!

I managed not to get pasted for a while but I heard this woosh, woosh of a disk wheel behind me and I got passed. The course was out and back. I got passed twice on the way out and passed someone else on the way back.

I thought I still had a few miles left when I saw the one kilometer to go marker. I realized that I still had tons of energy left so I started to empty the tank. Let me tell you one kilometer in cycling is not nearly as far as one kilometer in rowing. I ended up not going hard enough in the final kilometer and still finished with too much energy left. Oh well next time I'll go harder and probably end up dying at the end.

Two Year Anniversary!!!

Today is the two year anniversary of my skiing accident. You remember the one that happened on the 2nd annual Jive Ski Trip. Caused me to start this blog. Put me in the hospital for a week with broken ribs, scapula, a punctured lung and arm paralysis. Totally screwed up my life for months. Sent me to St. Louis for surgery (second operation). Forced me to give up my car for a year. Left me in a sling for 13 months. Kept me from running for over a year. Took me off my brand new bike for 18 months. Kept me from skiing for just under two years.

Wow it’s been a long two years but I’ve really made so much progress. I haven’t blogged about it yet but last Friday I went up skiing for the first time after my crash. Even found the spot where it happened.

I’ve had a lot of ups and downs, good times and bad ones but today, on this anniversary, I’m stoked. The first year anniversary was rough, I felt depressed and stagnated and like nothing was getting better. I ended up out at a dive bar alone drinking myself stupid. This year I’ve grown so much I have a great outlook on life and am looking forward to this year. This year the anniversary is a celebration. If you look at the blog entries you can tell how much things have changed for me. Over the last year I rarely talk about my disability and am not fixated on it like I was. Now I fixated on healthy things, like living life.

I’ve got a bunch more thoughts to talk about regarding my physical and mental recovery and maybe I’ll get round to writing those down some time. I want to close today's blog with two things.

First, thank you so much for all your thoughts and prayers over the last two years. Especially: Drew, who always wants to know how I’m doing and what he can do to make things better. Joe, who like Drew is always there to help out and encourage me. Matt, you make me laugh and always cheer me up. Mom, you always love me no matter what. Dad, you always want to help me out. Brother John, living with you that first year was truly a blessing. Brett, you are an awesome housemate for a dude with one and a half arms. Todd, talking with you about things is always easy and you’ve got great insight. All the doctors, PT’s, OT’s, Nurses, Massage Therapists and Counselors, without whom I’d never be where I am today. Jive Peeps, who have put up with countless out of the office hours for doctor appointments and who shouldered the load when I was in the hospital and having surgery (Kevin and Nate especially). Coach Shawn, who’s going to help me make the national team. My awesome Portland Velo teammates, you guys are an inspiration and tons of fun. I’m sure that there are more people out there whom I’m forgetting

Final thought: I Ski again!!!!!!! This picture is taken from the top of the Run where I wrecked two years ago. I found the tree I hit and You'll see that in a future blog post.