Talk talk talk

So Heather and I are seriously talking about moving back to St. Louis. For some, this isn't a surprise and for those that I haven't talked to in a while, it may be. Strangely, for the first time, I actually discussed it and do not feel bummed about it in the least. Don't get me wrong...I LOVE Colorado and the things I can do here in my free time. I'm supposed to race in Moab in 2 weeks. I'm backpacking/fly fishing in Rocky Mountain National Park for 4 days in about 4 weeks. I'm going backpacking/fly fishing in remote places for 2 long weekends in October. I always have been and always will be fascinated by the mountains and all of their history. However, I really want to see my wife be able to pursue more of her career goals and it's just difficult to see that happening here in Colorado as the mental health profession is not high on the list here unless you wanna work in a prison. The other thing that's been eating me lately is that I'm tired of us not making any money. I have some fantastic connections back home and know I wouldn't have any trouble getting into a good school. I could also make about 10 grand more back home and that's decent cash when the cost of living is lower to boot. Right now we're thinking about St. Charles so we can live close to our friends Adam, Mary and their 2 girls. It feels good to be looking at it in a different way.

Whole Enchilada

There's a ride in Moab each year called the Whole Enchilada. From what I can gather it uses a portion of a popular shuttle ride there that has a REALLY LONG downhill. Don't quote me but I wanna say it's like 15 miles. Anyway people get shuttled to the top and then ride the trail down. Now some endurance guy or guys got the idea to make a nasty loop that includes this downhill portion. So every year a bunch of people get together and do a spirited ride on this loop. This year I'll be going thanks to an invite I got the other day from Marshal Bird. I think the loop is just under 70 miles long and right at 15,000' of gain. It's really important for me to get my nutrition more dialed in for this so I can enjoy it and set some thing straight in my head.

I did ride last night but today I did a longer ride. I'm going to keep some data on my rides for maybe a month and then see what it looks like. The stats from today are:

Distance: 30.7

Time: 2:49

Avg. HR: 158 bpm

Calories burned: 2262

Weight pre-ride: 163.4

Weight post-ride: 159.8 (I lost 3.6lbs.)

Now I guess I'm primarily interested in the caloric information and the weight loss which should be mostly from water loss due to sweat. According to this info I burned about 750 calories each hour and I lost an average of 1.2lbs. of water weight each hour. A small bottle of water weighs right at 1.3lbs. I only drank a bit over 2 bottles today (I never drink enough water). Today I ate 1100 calories for breakfast. I did not eat the first hour on the bike. The second hour I ate 350 calories. The last 49 minutes I ate 160 calories. Now I don't know anything about nutrition but I'm wanting to see if there's anything to be gained from all this or am I wasting time here? I guess in the last week or so I've come to wonder about the fact that I'm NOT cut out for longer endurance stuff. I've spoken to some guys who are darn near as scrawny as me and they make it work. The only difference I can conclude after talking to them is with their intake of food and water.

Here's some pics from the ride today:

Pics from Cheesman Reservoir the other day. Went up there to fish for smallies but got NO LOVE. Water levels were really down.

Last time I fished here the water was almost halfway up this boulder.

Look how big he is.

How 'bout these???????

Yesterday Heather and I went back to school shopping. We both needed to get some new clothes and we both wanted to get new eyeglasses. Shopping for frames with Heather is a lot like shopping for house paint with Heather. She has trouble making a decision. I nail something down within the hour. I lost count of how many different eyeglass places we went into. The number of frames that she tried on is easily in the hundreds and they all look pretty damn similar to me. So for hours, the only question I was asked was, "How about these?" This question isn't as bad as, "Do these make my butt look big?" But it is close. I can't tell the difference between the 10th frame and the 297th one. After an 8 hour shopping marathon, we headed home. With no eyeglasses for Heather. I decided to not get any myself but only because I'm a cheap bastard unless it's cool gear.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to take her to 8 hours worth of bike shops to help me pick out a set of black grips. How about these? How about these? Are these too thick? Do you like these better than the ones we saw at the other shop? How about these?

I love my wife to death but she is blind as a bat without her glasses. I will say that I was afforded a bit of humor when I began thinking about what? Seinfeld of course. The episode where George lost his glasses at the gym came to mind. Heather has trouble trying on new frames (without her contacts) b/c she can't see herself in the mirror. At one point I began to giggle when I thought about George picking out ladies glasses from the Gloria Vanderbilt collection. While eating pretzels in Jerry's apartment, Kramer said, "May I have some of those pretzels madam?" I was in tears as I saw her squinting in the mirror. At one point, Jerry even said, "George can squint his way down to like 20/30 version.

I rode my bike for the first time tonight since getting back home. It wasn't anything crazy. I went up and did 10 miles on Lovell Gulch but man was it fun. I haven't even cleaned my bike up from the CTR and I don't even care.

This is a picture I snapped on day one of the race as I headed up Georgia Pass in the evening. It was a beautiful evening. I stopped on top to eat a bit and then put on the warm clothes for the cold descent down to Swan River.

Takin' a break

I was considering doing the Crested Butte 100 on September 26th but my good buddy Scott recently informed that he has pulled a backcountry permit for Rocky Mountain National Park. There's room for me and I haven't been backpacking in the high country in too long so I'm going. Looks like most of the boys will head in on Thursday morning and I'll cruise up after work and hike in as far as I can by headlamp and then either meet them late or meet up the next morning. We're going to be hammering any one of 4 alpine lakes that are crammed full of Greenback Cutts. Did I mention that the elk will be in full rut during that time. They'll be bugling ALL NIGHT LONG. I'm giddy as a school girl.