First Race of 2011

Audrey and I are doing our first official race of the 2011 season this Saturday in Park City, UT. It's a short race (5k) but it's still a race!!! I am excited just to get to go out and compete. It has been quite a while since we've done our last "real" race. The race has 2 categories: snowshoe or regular shoe. We chose the regular shoe since we've yet to run in snowshoes, and we heard from a chiropractor that snowshoes can wreak havoc on your hips since your stride has to be wider apart.
The race starts at 10:00 a.m. which is nice. More time to drive down there and more time for the temps to rise. The weather report right now shows a high of 31 degrees on Saturday for Park City. That's about a 20-30 degree difference from what it has been here in Kemmerer lately. The venue for the race is the Prospector Square Lodge & Conference Center. It looks pretty nice!

Don't Expand Your Influence, Deepen It

I "stole" this from Don Miller. His blog is www.donmilleris.com

A long, long time ago I ran a very small publishing company here in Oregon. Part of my job was to create a database and sales system to chart our orders. I noticed that, while we had about a thousand customers, only a hundred or so of them were supporting our business. Initially, I wanted to expand the business, to grow our customer base even larger. We spent thousands of dollars in this attempt, visiting trade shows and printing expensive catalogs. But sooner or later I realized it wasn’t working. I mean we did see an increase in business, but it brought in about as much profit as our marketing efforts cost. So I changed our strategy.
We began to focus on the one-hundred customers who were already faithful and familiar with our products. I created a monthly newsletter that I printed right off my desktop and sent it to these hundred customers each month. I also made a call list and called as many as twenty or thirty, personally, every month. And I noticed our business increased, while our overhead stayed the same. These customers gave us more prominent positions in their catalogs and in their stores.
I’d say this general principal applies to much more than business. Perhaps those deep relationships you long for are all around you, they’ve just not been deepened yet. Perhaps the fulfilling, romantic amazement you’ve been reading romance novels to experience could actually come from that guy snoring in bed next to you each night.
This year, try focussing on what is already around you, try cultivating the seeds that have been planted, or the plants that are just producing a little bit of fruit. My guess is this will be easier than going out into the rocks to chip away at a brand new garden.

Christmas Came Late This Year

 

 I got one of my Christmas presents in the mail just the other day. A new pair of recovery tights from a company called SLS3. I did quite a bit of research into what I wanted, and these were the ones with the best reviews and a decent price. Since the science behind recovery tights deals with compression I wanted to make sure that I was getting my money's worth. 

The SLS3 Recovery Tights have graduated compression with it being tighter around the ankles and then working it's way up to not as snug. This is to allow the blood in your legs to be pushed along back up towards your heart so that recovery speeds up. Allowing you to run better and sooner after a hard workout. 

I ran 4 miles in the morning. Got the tights in the mail around noon, tried them on for a couple of hours, and went back to the Rec. Center in the evening to do some weight training and a Cardio Spin Class (Cycling). My legs felt good during the spin class, better than they have before after I have already done one workout. I also put them on for a couple hours in the evening when I got home before I went to bed. I haven't had the soreness and general tiredness in my legs since I've worn them. 

I am looking forward to wearing them on a regular basis after I've done my workouts to see how they keep working.

Rec. Is Crowded We Should Go

This winter one of Audrey's goals is to run outside as much as possible. Since running around our Rec. Center track (14 laps = 1 mile) can beat up ankles, knees, joints, hips, etc... pretty badly, and running on the 2 treadmills that are about 3 feet away from the white wall just doesn't make for that exciting of a workout. So we have been venturing out into the cold Wyoming mornings in the pre-dawn hours (average of 5 to -20 degrees).
Needless to say this has gotten a little bit tiresome, and when schedules change or other things occur that are out of our control we visit the Rec. Center to get our workout in. Now, most of the time the Rec. Center isn't too busy. Between 4:00-7:00 p.m. I would say is the busiest time normally and you can usually use the piece of equipment that you want. But this is not the case come January in Kemmerer.
It seems like everyone makes the same New Year's Resolution. "I'm going to go to the Rec. Center and workout!" The other night we were there and I was running on the track. Occasionally there are a few walkers, and by few I mean 2 and by occasionally I mean once a week, when I run up there. On this night you would have thought that the Rec. Center Track was the hottest spot to be in Kemmerer.
It felt like every lap I made there would be two more people waiting to start walking on the track. And walk they did, very widely, and didn't especially want to move for someone who was lapping them twice for every lap they made. That makes for a lot of "Excuse me's" while you are trying to run, and trying to make yourself as skinny as possible to squeeze up next to the wall so you don't have to slow down too much.
At one point during my run there were at least 15 other people on the track. Remember 14 laps = 1 mile, and the track is basically three people wide. It felt like I was running through a L.A. traffic jam, only it was a human jam. I even had to run in the middle of these three ladies because they wouldn't move over. That's a fun experience...
Well that's my rant and rave over people and their New Year's Resolutions. Good thing that I won't have to worry about most of those people come February.

Just Bragging...

 

This post is dedicated to my wife. I realized that I have written posts on just about everything else in life, and I have left out one of the most important things in my life, Audrey Joy Ross. So I'm going to take a little time and brag on her, just to let everyone out there know how amazing she really is. 

First on the list is that Audrey is hilarious. Some of the things that she comes up with catch me so off guard that I am laughing for a long time after she says it. I think one of the funniest things that she does is when she makes analogies. Just the other day she said that our dog's breath smelled like a concession stand. I thought it was pretty funny. 

Second on the list is that Audrey has deep convictions. When there is something that she either believes in or she thinks is important it is rooted in her core. She doesn't just haphazardly come by her convictions either. They are born out of her life experience and they hold such deep meaning that it sometimes astounds me. There are times when I wonder if I could ever be as passionate about anything as she is about her core values. 

Third on the list is that Audrey is an athlete. Let me show you a little picture montage to prove my point. 

Enough said on that point.
Fourth on the list is that Audrey is famous in her own right...
Check out these links:
http://www.theaudreyrossway.blogspot.com/
http://www.kemmerergazette.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=72&story_id=2074
Fifth on the list and definitely not last, but all that I have time for right now is that Audrey is a wonderful wife who takes incredible care of her husband. She is a personal trainer and has helped people realize that their healthy lifestyle goals are totally within reach (with her help of course!). She is beautiful. She has wonderful blue eyes that pierce in a good way (unless you are on her badside of course!).
So cheers to you Audrey, I'm so glad that we have been married for 5 years and I look forward to running numerous more with you. Best running partner ever (she got me started running).

The Locals

Just took these today, right outside our living room window.



Defended My Title

The 2nd Annual Kemmerer Winter Triathlon took place on Friday morning at 11:00 a.m. The temperatures started out that morning at -17 degrees, but by the time the Triathlon started it had warmed up to a whopping -10 degrees. The Triathlon was sponsored by the Kemmerer Main Street Program. Their goals include helping the downtown area of Kemmerer prosper.

Needless to say there weren't very many particpants just because of the frigid weather. There was one team that signed up and 4 individuals. The course was a 1.25 mile cross country ski around the golf course, a 2.5 mile modified bike route do to excessive amounts of snow and drifting that left us riding on the road, and a modified running route that was a little over 1.5 miles finishing at the main street area of Kemmerer.

During the cross country section I only had a few mishaps... The first one being that my boot came disconnected from my ski, so I had to stop and put it back on, and the second one was that towards the end I got my skis crossed and had to stop and untangle them before moving on.

The bike ride portion was by far the coldest. My lungs were starting to burn at this point and I had a chest cold that I had been trying to fight off for the past few days which didn't help at all. I was in third place when the bike section was over. The runner from the team and one other individual were ahead of me. I rode my bike into the transition area and launched it into the snow, threw off my helmet, and took off running to catch the only guy who was ahead of me that counted.

I got first place last year, and I wasn't about to let my title get snatched away from me. When I first started running it felt like my feet were blocks of cement that I was just pounding away on, but after a few minutes they started to warm up.
As it turns out I ended up passing the guy who was in front of me and cruised in to first place for the individuals. So I did defend my title for the 2nd year in a row. If the race gets any bigger though I'm guessing that I won't come in first.


heading to the race... 4 layers on top & 2 layers on the bottom.