Talking in your sleep

I just found this notebook where I wrote down a conversation Lars and I had as he was falling asleep one night. He actually started the conversation after the point when he was already snoozing.



Lars: Waiting for them to pack it in?
Emily: Who?
L: Thome
E: Who is Thome?
L: He's on 2nd base- Charles Bartlett.
E: What? The White Sox? We're in bed. You're asleep.
L: No. There is a blackout. Everyone is wearing black and the White Sox are wearing black uniforms.
E: No, we're in bed.
L: No, we're watching the White Sox and Joe Biden riding away on a three-wheel bike up Left Hand.
E: Why is he riding a tricycle?
L: He is riding away from the debate.

At that point I was laughing too hard to keep talking so I had to stop and write it down. I am guessing this happened during the baseball season when the White Sox did, in fact, have a 'blackout' (where all the fans wear black) in their one-game playoff game against the Twins to win their division.

This guy is really cool: Click here

I saw this link on Slowtwitch and my first impression was "WOW! This is one BAMF". If only more professional athletes had the wealth of life experiences to match Svein's, then sporting culture would have more interesting personalities to follow.

commute gone wrong

these past few weeks i've been threatening to make the bike commute from Boulder to our Retül studio in downtown Denver. well, yesterday was finally the day to give it a shot. we've been fortunate here on the front range this past week with day after day of sunshine and warm temps so before another weather change, i put my Elite Joule Pro Carbon to work.

after asking a few cycling friends around town which for a recommended route into Denver, i wasn't left with any good options. i got a bit of a late start and decided to drive out to Superior and eliminate all the familiar riding in Boulder. so with my macbook and clothes packed in my padded Avia backpack, I started up the famous Morgul-Bismarck course from the Kevin Costner movie Breaking Away. on the way into Denver, i stuck to major roads including Hwy 128 past Interlocken golf course, the Rocky Mountain Airport, down Wadsworth Parkway, through Old Town Arvada, down 38th St and Wheat Ridge Cyclery, and finally onto the South Platte River Parkway, past Coors Field and to our studio! the ride down took 1 hr 20 mins. and now for the ride home....

before leaving our studio, i quickly researched the commuter bike routes in the Denver metro area and found what looked like a good route, a path less traveled by cars! with my trustee directions jotted on an old Inside Tri business card secured in my wind vest pocket, i had little trouble navigating through the side streets of Arvada and Wheat Ridge. then, after cruising on the Clear Creek Trail for 5-10 miles, the trail ended and T-d off into a busy highway with no shoulder. stupid me, didn't leave the office until 3:30 and after over an hour of riding, i was still riding around Arvada, easily an hour away from my parked car in Superior! Luckily Arvada has some road shoulders dedicated to cyclists so I was able to ride hard without having to worry about cars. finally, i found a familiar road, Wadsworth Parkway, and linked back up to Hwy 128 and finally McCaslin Blvd and back into Superior. by the time i pulled into the parking lot, it was pitch black outside and it had taken me 2hrs and 25mins to get home.

first things first, i'm investing in a bike light in case future mishaps occur. i'm also researching a better way to navigate through Arvada.

Reunion time

This past weekend Lars and I flew up to Minneapolis to relive my glory days of college swimming. My sophomore year at the U of MN our swim team won the Big 10 championship for the first time in school history. Michigan had been the dominant team for the 12 years prior to our win so it was a pretty big deal.

We flew up on Friday and my friends Terri, Amy and her hubby Brandon picked us up at the airport. We were all staying with our friends Jenny and Chris and their 18-month old Clare who live about 45 minutes from the airport. We didn't want to be late for the big celebration so we went to check out Dinkytown before the swim meet instead of driving out to their house. Dinkytown hasn't changed too much since we left but all the college kids walking around made me feel old.

Amy and Brandon got married 3 years ago and after that Terri came up with the name for our travel club. It had something to do with the initials of all of our names and we made a deal that we would all meet up at least once a year. We haven't all been together since that wedding. This weekend would have been perfect but our friend Beth, one of the captains from the 1999 team, had to move to France about 10 days before we arrived in MPLS.


After the meet we were all pretty tired from all the excitement so we crashed as soon as we got back to Jenny and Chris' house. We woke up super early on Saturday to make it to swim practice in St. Paul. It was just like the old days except that I am a lot slower now. After practice we went to meet some college friends of Lars, Erik and Bo, for some coffee.


The rest of the weekend was spent telling old stories, bowling, getting to know Clare and playing games like Family Feud and Celebrity. I'm happy to say that Lars, Chris and Brandon got the top score on Family Feud with the name of Da Boyz. The best that the girls team could come up with was the 4th best score.

It was great to see everyone and I am looking forward to the next travel club meeting. We definitely missed Beth and hope next meeting we will all make it.

Special thanks to Mat and Kelly for watching our two pooches this past weekend. Here's a pic of Mat tossing the ball for Thorskie. I'd be willing to bet he woke up with a sore arm the next day! And another one making Kelly look much smarter than her boyfriend!

You pick the winner

Shawarmas and night running

Today started out every bit as dreary as the past two have been, but then around noon time our famous Colorado sun came out to and allowed us to play. Chris Lieto flew into town for a 3D bike fit with Todd Carver today at our Retül studio in Boulder and after three hours of fitting with his Trek TTX and Madone 5.5, it was time to show him Flatiron's outdoor heated pool. By chance, Dave Scott was catching some rays and hitting the laps hard, and assigned he and Chris a 20x100 set. I did my thing, which usually consists of a mixture of 100 and 200 IM's. We were budgeting our time as Chris needed to get out to the airport to catch his afternoon flight but once they had completed their set, Franko showed up with video camera and me, Laura Tingle, Dennis Meeker and Lieto all raced a 50 freestyle to cap it off. I'll let the suspense build as to who won this hotly contested race, but to find out the winner, check over at the new Retül blog later this week (http://retul.blogspot.com).

The days continue to get lighter but I was on grocery duty tonight, so after Emily and Thor got back from a short run, I took off for an out and back on the Wonderland trail. I truly love doing this one in pitch black and letting my eyes adjust to the dark. Once that happens, it's like running in the middle of the day. Well, except all other senses are also on high alert. We've had a few mountain lion spottings in North Boulder lately so I made sure to run on the crunchy part of the trails and not the packed down snow, but if a hungry cat was out there preying I'm sure that wouldn't have stop it from striking. Running at night usually also motivates me to work in a series of harder intervals too (pretending to run away from mountain critters, etc).

We capped the night off with our most recent favorite meal, shawarmas! Growing up in Saudi Arabia, my parents would always treat us to chicken shawarmas in Khobar on the weekends after baseball games or even during the week in the neighboring town of Rahyimah. In fact, Em and I are looking into a reunion trip of sorts back to Saudi early in March so I can try to explain to her a bit more in depth as to why I am the way I am:) All kidding aside, my best friends from childhood, the Benchich brother's will be going back as well, so we are looking to take a trip down memory lane!

more snow

lots of running this weekend since we've been getting a nice dumping of snow and i couldn't get myself to hop onto the trainer. instead ran a 4-mile XC race, 1 hr afternoon recovery run, and a long run today.

i've been sitting on the downstairs couch watching cycling and flipping through a few movies on the boob tube since my day started early. Em is upstairs doing a yoga program on the tv (it's hard...i tried it yesterday).

a 1.5 hour run this morning over in south Boulder, on the trails i ran at lunchtimes when i worked for Inside Tri, and then Em & i swam at Jane Scott's 10AM sunday master's class at Flatirons. it's always surreal swimming outdoors while getting snowed on with only a few feet visibility. the main reason i'm motivated to get through these 1.5 hour sunday swims is our habitual stop to boulder's best eatery, Big Daddy's Bagels!