3 things that scare me : 30. Not reaching my potential. Not making a difference.
3 people who make me laugh : Will Ferrell. Dave Chapelle. Vince Vaughn.
3 things i love : Racing in top form. New experiences. Sharing a meal with friends/family.
3 things i hate : Complacency. Closed minds. Giving up.
3 things i don't understand : People. Greed. Complex matrix algebra.
3 things on my desk : Bottle of Naproxen. Medical insurance benefit papers. 'You Better Believe It!' CD.
3 things i'm doing right now : Icing my wrist. Thinking about Boardercross. Cooking pasta.
3 things i want to do before i die : Found HQT. Go to outer space. Get married/Have kids.
3 things i can do : Focus. Compete. Procrastinate.
3 things i can't do : Dance. Laundry. The Dishes.
3 things you should listen to : Your instinct. Your stomach. Your parents.
3 things you should never listen to : The Naysayers. The Patsies. Your parents.
3 things i'd like to learn : How to dance. How to cook. How to take things less seriously?
3 favorite foods : Steak. Catfish. Pancakes.
3 beverages i drink regularly : Milk. Coffee. Various sports drinks.
3 shows i watched as a kid : Robotech. G.I.Joe. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
3 people i'm tagging : Jonathan. Josh. Jason.

well, things are going pretty well with my achilles tendon these days. had one of my last physical therapy sessions today. man, talk about crazy stuff. pt started all nice and easy with various stretches, then add various types of squats and lunges. but then they started adding in this kind of firm, but spongy, foam thing that you stand on with only one leg - just try to keep your balance - and then they throw balls at you. yeah, throwing balls at me while i'm on my bum foot on a foam thing that makes you wiggle every which way. truly ridiculous, folks. i mean, i'm not that good at catches things by itself, and secondly, i'm not the most adept at balancing on one foot. some call agility training - i call it the freak show. it's like i was putting on a show for everyone at the rehab clinic. i think i was the opener for the dancing bears. but doing all that junk wasn't enough - this time they laid out a agility ladder on the floor. that's one of those things where you practice speed footwork for any of those sports that use fancy footwork. did i mention i'm not the most graceful or quick with my feet? yeah, that was awesome. hopping here, hopping there, zigging here, zagging there. wow. but even though i wasn't super great at any of the agility stuff, it was pretty fun to do, and i could appreciate being more agile for my future night job as a ninja. hai!

well, things are going pretty well with my achilles tendon these days.  had one of my last physical therapy sessions today.  man, talk about crazy stuff.  pt started all nice and easy with various stretches, then add various types of squats and lunges.  but then they started adding in this kind of firm, but spongy, foam thing that you stand on with only one leg - just try to keep your balance - and then they throw balls at you.  yeah, throwing balls at me while i'm on my bum foot on a foam thing that makes you wiggle every which way.  truly ridiculous, folks.  i mean, i'm not that good at catches things by itself, and secondly, i'm not the most adept at balancing on one foot.  some call agility training - i call it the freak show.  it's like i was putting on a show for everyone at the rehab clinic.  i think i was the opener for the dancing bears.  but doing all that junk wasn't enough - this time they laid out a agility ladder on the floor.  that's one of those things where you practice speed footwork for any of those sports that use fancy footwork.  did i mention i'm not the most graceful or quick with my feet?  yeah, that was awesome.  hopping here, hopping there, zigging here, zagging there.  wow.  but even though i wasn't super great at any of the agility stuff, it was pretty fun to do, and i could appreciate being more agile for my future night job as a ninja.  hai!

another day at the mountain today, and I actually got up to the blues today.  Very tentative at first, but then started handling them better.  it's nice to learn new things.  making turns smoother and not thinking about them, but then when i get tired i tend to lose the technique and that's when the cataclysmic falls occur.  re-tweaked the right wrist today near the end - that sucked, but it's no worse off now than when it was first sprained.  oh, well.  prolly one more day of snowboarding before i go down to FL for Christmas.

 

rode my bike for a grand total of 72 miles this week, which is an improvement from 26 last week, which was an improvement from 0 the week before.  Next week's target is 127...  By January I should be up to normal miles, but then, of course, the racing begins in february...

wow, today was a marathon session up at Mountain High.  9am to 9pm.  Started good, went bad, turned good, went bad, finished great.

 

good.

Started at 9 on bunny central, and I was still having trouble going from toe to heel.  Just couldn't figure it out.  Group lesson at 11 (part of the package deal) but no one else showed up for lessons, so it turned into a private one - sweet!  received tutelage on shifting my feet weight in the turns, keeping my hips forward, and more bend in the knees.  Sounds simple, but oh, man...  Meesed with the binding adjestments a bit, and suddenly it was a lot easier to control the board - cool.

 

bad.

Lesson over and lunchtime.  Had a chicken burrito and hot dog.  Something went awry here, cause that lunch absolutely demolished me until about 4:30.  Yeah, I tried working on snowboarding, but that was difficult between the GI distress head calls.  Yuck.  Considered going home, cause I was just in torture.  Finally that all worked itself out, and I could get back to focusing on the task at hand - toe to heel.  Stuff just wasn't working - was wondering where the enlightenment from my lesson had gone - pretty much evaporated.

 

good.

And then I decided to just take a step back, glaze my eyes over, and let the body 'go with the flow'.  Put my headphones on for the first time and just started going down the trails a-okay.  That was at 5:29 pm.  Also known as 'AWESOMETIME'.  Kept working it - toe to heel was working fine now.  All was looking peachy.  Was doing so well, that I decided to stay for the night session to reinforce the good boarding.  Also didn't feel like city in rush hour traffic again (sat in that in the morning).

 

bad.

At 7:01pm, I was prolly going just a little too fast for my own good and taking a - you guessed it - toe to heel turn, but I overcompensated on my toe lifts and I busted bad.  WOMP!  Took a time out and just lied in the snow for a couple minutes (with my butt elevated).  Was wondering if I'd ever be able to sit in a seat ever again.  Was amazed there wasn't a blood trail coming straight out of my butt.

 

great.

But I eventually got up, and started doing my turns down the hill again.  Took a Mountain Dew break, was conscious of how I screwed up, didn't do it again.  Went a lot slower, but rode with better technique so that was nice.  Eyes were glazed and I realized that I really just needed to practice the fundamentals - the speed will gradually increase without me even knowing it.

 

Got home at 11:45 and I've got to get up at 4:30 to attend a VTC at work at 5:30am (because of f-in 8:30 eastern time).  Definitely'll need a good cup of joe for that one.  Glad I was able to work out that toe-heel thing, though.  :-)

 

Oh yeah, didn't even have to stop by the ER on the way home this time.

This battle station is fully operational.

 

 

 

footnote :

So I'm sitting here in my living room just visualizing the carving technique - and my intellectual mind mostly envisions crashing nearly every time, even though I know I'm fully capable of linking the turns.  It's really pretty surreal.  Definitely need to put my mind into power saver mode when I'm carving the turns and just feel the board and snow.  wow.

For the tailbone - 'nuff said.

another PT session today, and it was a real barnburner.  one leged this, one legged that.  one legged this/that with some mini dumbells raising your arms in every which way on a squishy but firm foam pad that keeps you off balance.  wow.  target bike mileage for the week is 80-100.  that would be awesome.  miles on tues, thurs, fri, and sun.  but no miles wednesday.  but since wednesday would normally be a high mileage day, i normally don't go to work that day.  so i guess i could go to work...  yeah, right.  i'll go snowboarding instead.  with all the essential padding, no doubt.

party people in the house - can ya feel me?

yes yes, ya'll, and ya don't quit.

Mucha-licious is back on the blog.

 

 

so i've been having PT for my achilles tendon injury for the past couple weeks, and it's been going pretty well, i guess.  just a lot of stretching, box steps, massage, etc.  no time on the bike until just this last week, and i was able to ride for an hour without any major pain, so that was actually really great improvement.  i'll ride a bit more this week and start to up the mileage gradually to get back on track.  yeh.

 

but what have i been doing in the interim?  staring longingly at my bikes wishing i could ride them?  well, sometimes, yeah.

 

but i decided to take the plunge and learn how to snowboard.

 

snowboard?  huh?  mucha on a snowboard?  actually having to use balance, agility, etc?  is that the bizarro mucha?

 

no, in fact my buddy jaan planned this great ski/snowboard trip to his dad's place in idaho over new years, and in the depth of my depression of non-bike-riding, i decided what the hell - this looks cool - i've got to give it a shot.  snowboarding doesn't stress the achilles, so it would be something nice to focus on for a while.  but you know, it's just never that easy with me.  i came to the resolution that i can't just show up to idaho with zero board time on my hands.  i've got to show up as a seasoned pro - or at least as someone who knows how to get on and off the lift.  yeah, getting off the lift without always falling - that would be sweet.  did i mention i only skied once back in high school on a church trip and that while i did own a skateboard as a teenager, i was absolutely no good at it, and really only succeeded in learning about road rash - something that i still learn about in cycling - funny how that is...  still haven't surfed in cali yet, either.

 

bottom line - it's gonna take a little work.

 

anyhoo, today was my very first day on the slopes.  and as crappy as the conditions were, it was pretty awesome.  crappy conditions defined:  SoCal hasn't gotten any real snow at the mountains yet.  But they're open - how can that be?  fake snowmakers, of course.  i don't know anything about snow, but apparently the fake stuff is just not as desirable as the real flakes.  But the crappy conditions continue!  Today was blue skies and pretty warm on the mountain - mid to upper 40's?  that means the snow kind of gets melty midday, but then periodically freezes over in ice patches.  now one thing i *do* know is that boarding on ice is pretty no good.  yeah, turning doesn't work as well.  the marging to falling is greatly decreased.  did i mention i really need as much margin as possible?  :-(

 

day started off at 5:10 AM wakeup and on the road by 5:30.  a couple wrong turns later, and i ended up at Mountain High resort (google it) at 7:45 AM.  got my lift ticket, rentals and had a lesson from 9-11.  practiced going down the bunny slope toe-side a couple times, then heel-side a couple times, then got the special nod from the instructor and learned how to link the turns.  total sweetness.  starting to do some real snowsport activity here.  felt like a real dude.  although, remember, this is still just the bunny slope, and i still was just falling over now and then just for the sake of it.

 

#1 rule of snowboard club : you don't land on your wrists.

 

#2 rule of snowboard club : YOU DON'T LAND ON YOUR WRISTS!

 

Was going down bunny central feeling like the king of the world when i caught a particularly nasty edge on my toe to heel transfer.  ka-blammo.  tailbone was heading straight for the ground at high velocity, so what does my mind think?  dude, put out your hands to break your fall.  wow - bad mistake.  right wrist really took a beating on that one.  had to walk it off and rub some snow on it.  ouch.  got back up and fell back down again.  on the same wrist.  holy ka-ka-kabinki.  time to take a lunch break.

 

eating lunch and the wrist is slightly pained.  must have hyperextended it - hopefully just that.  think - hey, why not go to the first aid hut - maybe they have a doc that could just look at it just in case?  no doc, and the ski patrollers are like - yeah, you should leave and get it x-rayed just in case.  the wheels are turning in my head, and i say, oh, thanks for the advice.  go straight to the pro shop and buy a pair of wrist guards (which i really should have simply gotten in the first place).  problem solved.  wrists are immobile and protected and i can go on to injuring other parts of my body.

 

was going down another 'green' slope, but this one had all the ridiculous jumps and crap in it and i was avoiding that stuff like the plague, cause please - i may be a little reckless, but i'm not stupid.  avoiding a rail or something, and i catch an edge - did i mention i was actually going a little faster here - and i just walloped my tailbone (better than the wrists, right?).  that's the kind of hit where you just lie there on your back for a cool minute and kind of arch your back to raise your butt off the ground it hurts so much.

 

at this point, confidence = negative 50.  (even less than the beginning of the day [zero] because at least at the beginning of the day i didn't have a clue what the tailbone pummeling felt like (and i was still worrying in the back of my mind about the wrist).  just had visions of breaking my ass.  going to work and sittting on pillows, etc "yeah, i broke my ass."

 

had to take it easy to the bottom of the hill and take a mountain dew break.  was kind of thinking of calling it quits, but was like - huh?  who?  me?  no.  i'll just go up the bunny side and take a falling leaf toe-side down the hill.  just one run.  see how it goes.  went fine, but i was very timid.  did another.  then another with just heely.  then i got back to linking the turns and i caught a couple edges (usually on the toe to heel switch) but did plenty where i went down the run just fine.  it all comes down to your body knowing how to ride the board quite well, thank you very much, but my mind tries to butt in and mess things up "oh, you're going to fast - you should scrub some speed - oh, but you need to transition too - crash"  silence the mind and the board follows the body and things go way better.  kind of like that zen stuff again.

 

finish the day at 4PM - a full day on the fake slopes.  driving home to SD and my bum wrist is slightly swolen, which makes it a bit painful to move around.  having broken a couple bones, i have a decent idea of what it feels like for me to break a bone, and this didn't feel like that, so I'm thinking it's prolly just sprained or hyper-extended.  but what if it's a hairline fracture or something like that?  so i get back to san diego and stop by the hospital er before i go home just for a quick look see.  went to a less busy (but really good) hospital and got prompt service.  x-rays passed - just a sprain.  ice - compress - yes!  only 1 hr 20 min for the total hospital time, which i thought was a-okay for the er.

 

 

in summary :

against all odds, mucha has a brilliant day at the slopes.

wheaties, breakfast of champions.