Just some photos

Life has been busy lately, but in a good way.  Thesis is clicking along, I'm forging ahead in hopefully the right direction, and have kept the panic attacks to a minimum.  We've managed to not travel on the weekends for pretty much all of August, which is a rare thing, but it's sort of nice to take a Sunday walk and have Saturday night at home.  One orienteering race last weekend, and the achilles held up well for the two sprints.  I was third in both, behind the same two guys in each sprint.  Results.  That felt good, and I've been training while coaching with the juniors, and that feels good too.  I went riding at Earl's Trails yesterday, since I'm in Amherst for the week, and the predominant thought in my head for two hours was "man, I love my life".  It's true.

Less racing, but more time for friends.  Ian looks guilty about finishing off his chocolate soufflé.

Coaching involves a strength workout on a jungle gym.  Everyone seems to enjoy this one!

We went down to the harbor to watch the Redbull cliff diving competition.  It was pretty nuts, those guys were diving off a 95ft platform, and doing all the twists and flips they do in the olympics.  But from three times higher.  You can see the guy standing on the platform up there on top of the ICA...

They had a jumbotron.

Lots of people - the announcer said 60,000 spectators.  Tons of people on boats out in the water.

We had a weeknight corn maze festival, in Sunderland.  It was super fun, huge thanks to Peter for organizing.  The theme was plaid.  Or just goofy.  Barb and Izzy had a good thing going.

The Italians (Giovanni, Giacomo, and Camilla) went with the straw hat approach.

Team giggles just giggled.  This is Ali's last week in the east before moving to Ohio, so it was a bittersweet party.

Mass start.  I had an unfortunate head-on run-in with Ian near one of the controls.  He won.  I bounced off into the corn, and his path was unperturbed.  But the orienteering was much fun!  

The back of the mass start.

Hey Ed! I beat you =)

Transition to skier

After a brief training "break" after WOC, where I managed to keep myself from doing any intensity for about two weeks, my focus has shifted to skiing.  This is made easier in part thanks to my achilles tendon, which has proclaimed itself to be fully in tendinitis mode, thus making running pretty painful.  So, it's back to rollerskiing and *gasp* BIKING!  I haven't ridden my bikes this much in a looooong time.  It took nearly a weekend to assess all the things that were not working with my various bicycles, but now two of three bikes are in good working order, the third just needs a new chain, and I've discovered that I thankfully haven't lost ALL my skills on the trails.  That makes things more enjoyable!  I am rediscovering the joy of training while being an injured skier.  Seems I never really had a full injury-free season... I'm hoping to kick this tendinitis stuff soon, and not pick up any other nagging overuse injuries!  woo.

The achilles thing is annoying.  Like all overuse injuries, you never really know which session is going to push you over the edge.  For me, I think it was an unfortunate sprint through the Amsterdam airport on my way to WOC; my calf never calmed down after that, and I wasn't doing myself any favors racing hard with tight calves and a nagging ache in my achilles.  I'm doing my best to rest the damn calf, keep things iced and kinesio-taped and massaged, and yesterday I actually managed to make it through a running intensity workout with no pain.  Hopefully this is a sign of better times to come.  I do feel terribly out of skiing shape, but the base is there, so I'm trying not to freak out.

In exciting news, I'm going to be part of Team Madshus this year!  Peter Hale and I started the conversation last winter, and I think Madshus will be a great company to be a part of.  Peter totally gets ski-o, and as well as some top-o'-the-line race skis, I'm also picking up a bunch of last year's demo skis to trash in ski-o races this winter.  Wahoo!  

Now back to the thesis...

Other home

Christophe and I descended upon the parental units for a weekend.  We had a great visit, filled with all the things we love to do.  My dog is 16 and doing awesome, though she did manage to eat something dead that gave her worms, so we had to take an emergency trip to the vet to get some de-worming medication.   That was gross.  

We played boggle.

I won.

Inspired by the olympics.  Come on, Tira, do handstands!

We played pounce.  Endlessly.

We walked the dog.  It was hot.

We climbed trees.

We made a totem pole.

We found a river, and looked for fish.

It was hot.  

That was a fun weekend.  now back to the grind...