Sunday, June 24, 2012

Salt City to Central Oregon Cinder Cones

These last days I've spending in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, with one of my new favorite discoveries has been Antelope Island out in the Great Salt Lake. Wide open roads shared with as many buffalo and antelope as vehicles makes for a great long-distance skate workout. If you wake up before the sun starts shining too brightly... This picture was taken out of the window of my recent direct flight to Central Oregon. Most weeknights in the city are filled on the Westminster College campus where I'm working on all forms of business communication. One of the skills I've having to learn is getting some proficiency with the Adobe Software Suite. I recently finished up an intensive class working with Photoshop and Illustrator. To finish off the class we had to brand a new business, then present it Mad Men style. Here's a sketch of the website homepage from my efforts with Delerium Brewing Company. Once upon a time, I called Bend my hometown. In the two year's hence, I hadn't been back. Looking up at another bluebird day atop Mount Bachelor, you can understand a little why it was quite nice to make a return. I got to ski on the trails of Mount Bachelor with Leif Zimmermann and Company for nine days. The junior camp also even asked for a couple cameo coaching appearances on the ski trails. I wish I could have been there longer, but I still have some university learning to do. Until the next time, goodbye.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Inspiration. Drive. Motivation.

Writing a three-part article for Skierpost.com, I came across this from a notebook of Greg Lemond's. Talk about setting some no-hold's barred goals. The man definitely had something going on! It's pretty amazing to get a glimpse like this into America's first Tour de France champ.
Last Memorial Day I rolled out of Salt Lake and headed back to Washington State for a 4,000 person multisport race by the name of Ski2Sea. The race starts on the slopes of Mt. Baker. 93 miles later, it finishes on Bellingham's waterfront. My job was to run up Mt. Baker in my alpine gear, then ski down. My team had two other Olympians, both gold medalists. We won.
This weekend, I also ran in a little 5km. Last year I couldn't run until August. This year, I haven't been running much. So to jog away from the field and comfortably run 16:13 so early in the training year makes me think I'm going in a good way. Next week, it's off to Central Oregon. I stole this picture from my former roommate in Bend, the triathlete Matt Lieto. Yeah, I think they'll have enough snow for me there in the Cascades...