Hello and welcome to An Altitude Problem, where the blogging has become as sporadic as dry trails and the beginning of summer would make it. There has been mountain biking every spare moment. I stayed off the remote trails while B was gone (he spent ten days away, helping his brother cut wheat in Buffalo, Oklahoma) because I was a bit worried that if I had a crash, nobody would miss me. There has been some work, but we have not been actually busy, at least not by winter's standards, until today, when I finally got on reservations and looked up the arrivals for the coming week- thirty of them for the week of July 4. I inspected eight of them today, an unheard-of amount of work for me lately, but a perfectly maneageable day if it were the middle of March.

B had been bidding on a camper trailer on ebay before he left for Buffalo, and bidding ran out right at his maximum bid, so he got it after we had already decided we were glad to not have gotten it. It was okay, though. It was located a hundred miles from Buffalo, so he picked it up and slept in it while there, then brought it home. We are fairly enthused about it, mostly because of the opportunity for early-season biking out of it in Moab and Fruita. We took it on it's maiden voyage last night to a campground on Twin Lakes, and I must say, it was quite luxurious. We hung out and ate food grilled under it's waterproof awning and ate it under a watertight roof that the rain drummed on, and fell asleep to the patter of raindrops, all dry and warm, and the bathroom was three steps from the bed and there was a warm shower this morning and Andy made himself comfortable in a spot other than on our faces. It really felt only a little like camping. Perhaps in better weather there will be more communing with nature and crickets and sparks floating upwards into the dark sky and camper camping will feel more like camping. Al lthe same, it was a night away, a small vacation that was almost effortless, we just threw our pajamas and toothbrushes into a bag, and some food in the fridge, and that was all the packing our night away required.

We went on a short hike along the Colorado Trail, all towering ponderosas and stands of aspens, white trunks in front of white trunks behind white trunks, under a lacy canopy of green, over a carpet of pink wild rose, purple lupine, yellow daisy, red indian paintbrush. We walked and wondered how we had ever felt so unhappy and antsy and malcontent this winter, and remembered vowing to not feel this way come summer, but to stay in our funk and use the negativity to propell us into a new life, new job, new selves. And once again, came to the conclusion that if we would just take a day or two off every once in a while, do something for ourselves, take some time, we might just see that our life where it is, is exactly what we want. And then remembered how we were not going to sing this song. But it was hard to imagine anywhere, Maui included, that we wanted to be more than exactly where we were. The air was crisp and the dog was grinning from ear to ear and chasing squirrels and we were almost giddy with the beauty and the freedom of being away from the phone and the being together, out where there was nothing to distract us from us.

Summer is a wonderful thing. The days have been perfect for biking, almost too hot, the rain has been staying away. I have found quite a few new biking partners this summer, mostly because of the Divas and racing. The photo is of a bunch of them. It actually should have gone on the last post, because it is the Divas group, before we all split into three categories based on our biking handling skills and took off in different directions.



The second race of the Summit Mountain Challenge was last Wednesday. The Gold Run Rush takes place on half logging roads, half loose, rocky, technical singletrack, with Heinous Hill, a thousand foot climb in one mile smack in the middle of it. I cut a tire sliding into a sharp rock preriding it, and was dreading racing it with every single muscle in my body. I was late getting to the start line, gulped half a powerbar and half a banana on the way to the race becasue I had forgotten to eat that day, tried to open a package of gel chews with my teeth as my wave surged into position but the package refused to tear and I barely got it pushed back into my pack by the time they yelled Go. I hopped onto my bike, clipped into my pedals, and started up the pavement to the point where a logging road started climbing up into the trees. By the time I got to the logging road, less than eighth of a mile, I was breathing hard. I got cut off and had to slam on my brakes and put my foot down and lost my friend-nemesis, the girl who always finishes within a few seconds of me, around the corner ahead of me, and my legs began screaming at me and I was out of breath and my heart was racing. I gave up. I settled into long-climb mode and tried not to picture my name at the very bottom of the list. I rode the downhills slowly, afraid of a repeat of my disasterous pre-ride, when I had slid out of control about five times and either baled at high speeds or left bits of my knees and hips on the trail. And then we hit Heinous Hill, and I made it through the mud at the bottom, but the girl ahead of me stopped, and I hopped off to avoid her, silently thanking her, and started pushing my bike. I had successfully pre-ridden Heinous Hill, but walked a lot of it during the race. When I finally crested the top, the cowbell-ringer complimented me on my smile. I had just enough wind left in my lungs to tell him, "It (gasp) isn't (gasp) a smile, it's(gasp) a grimmace!" Then there was a long blur of downhill, sliding rocks on Prospect Hill, aspens slapping me in the face, surprising, sudden uphills. Just before the finish line was a sharp, off-camber turn, and I slowed a lot for it. The girl behind me yelled at me to not let her catch me, I had earned a finish ahead of her, and I turned the corner and pedalled hard. I crossed the finish line and felt like vomiting, my ankles shaking as I stood on my pedals, my fingers numb from their death grip on the handlebars. It was a bad, bad race for me. I was not feeling in my game at all, let alone at the top of it.

I was a dejected child, and wondered why I had ever thought I could be a racer, and called Bobby to tell him that I had finished, but I was pretty sure I would not be any better than ninth or tenth. At the after party, I ordered my free beer and sipped it, feeling it sit heavy on my stomach, empty and trying to settle itself after having ridden so hard. They posted the results, and I made my way through the crowd, and had to squint at the paper to make sure I was reading right. I was fourth place. One under podium. How on earth...?

I got bumped down to fifth after they realized a typo had left off the second place finisher. The girl I compete with the most finished three minutes ahead of me. I am still not sure how I came in fifth, because I do not remember passing anyone, and my speed check at the beginning of the race had caused most of the pack to pass me. But hey. I'll take it. I do not think it will be possible for me to podium this year, because the girls who consistantly take first, second and third are finishing about ten minutes ahead of the rest of us. I guess there are sandbaggers in every class. So fifth is like second loser. If I can just keep it in the top three losers this season, I will consider it a success. Watch a video of the race here.

Okay, faithful few, your blogger needs to go do something useful. If nothing else, I need to go to bed so I can be worth something tomorrow. This whole having work and making money thing is somewhat of an exciting new concept, and halfway agreeing with me, at least for a few days. I have spent so much money on my bike lately, I am feeling the pinch. I am also feeling a bit blue because yet another cousin got married yesterday and I wasnt there to see it happen. I tried, I did, but things just did not align. But I wish the newlyweds every bliss. And now, off I go. Goodnight.

Hello and welcome to An altitude Problem, where the "w" key was victim to an Andy-style spaz out, and flailing doggy toenails raked across the keyboard. "W" has to be hit twice as hard as the rest of the keys. It's frusterating. I am tempted to not backspace to fill in all the missing "w"s. But then no one ould kno hat I as riting and I ould sound an idiot. I am used to typing on my own computer, but I am stuck using B's old one until my power cord arrives in the mail. I left it in Kansas on my last trip back, and this one is small and compact, and I tend to overshoot keys. So we will see how long this lasts.

So, what has happened since I last posted?

Nancy and the kids (who are not such kids) came through, stopping for night. We spent the evening out at Green Mountain Reservoir, hiking around Lower Cataract Lake, then cooking out on the shore of Green Mountain. B and Marci met us out there and had the charcoal heated by the time we got down from our hike. It was a late evening by the time we dragged our smoky selves back to the house and tried to stay awake long enough to all take showers and wash off the black smudges.

I went to Kansas on Sunday to see all of my mom's family, the entire family was represented except three of the Idaho cousins and, of course, Grandpa, Grandma, and Allen. Got to hang with old friends, and it was good. The drive home was the worst part, fighting sleep through the flatness between Goodland and Denver.

The drive out there was one of the highights, because I left here late enough to hit the lonely highway between Goodland and my parent's place about sunset. It's strange, but after I turn south off the interstate, I always feel the strangest transformation taking place. I begin to shed who I have become over the last seven years in Colorado, and I begin to feel...well, it sounds stupid. But I feel almost one with sunbaked earth and wide open expanses and jackrabbits. I think it's all the native shortgrass pasture ground out there. I feel a sense of place and timelessness and respect, and that night, the usually obnoxious local country station, the only station I could pick up, was playing the classics, so I turned up Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Dolly Parton, and it all fit, and the sun dipped low and bathed the high plains in a warm glow that worked itself into my soul. Then the glow faded and it was dark and I stepped on the gas pedal and flew through the flat, black night. Going to Western Kansas does that to me. It is what I know, it is who I am, and that does not mean that I need to move back, but always, when I drive out there and the mountains fall away in my rearview mirror and the land gets that particular shade of gray-green and the sky just above the horizen looks brown and dusty, I can't help it. We all need roots, no matter how far we branch, and mine are dug firmly into the shortgrass prairie and gyp-rock bluffs of Ladder Creek. It matters not how much I enjoy living far away from it, I will always be just a little bit barefoot farmgirl.

I came home and scaled back my plans for my greenhouse, cutting out my planned 24" deep hole under it, filled with compost for heat. I was getting nowhere with all the rocks buried in the ground. I finally quit when the blisters got too big to ignore and I began to rue the dy that I ever thought a greenhouse would be a good idea. So I lay down the wire mesh required to keep out the voles, little garden-wrecking vermin, and now the project requires some materials I cannot get in Summit County, so I am awaiting a trip to Denver to load up.

Last night was the first Diva's ride, a good evening. I got stopped by my nemesis mud-hole again. Here is the story of me and this mudhole and the Divas.

Two years ago, this trail was one of the first rides of the season, as usual. There is one extremely boggy, muddy spot on it that does not dry until late in the season, if at all, and it always presents a dilemma to trail-conscious mountain bikers and hikers. Last time, I was in the lead, it as my first time on this trail when it was muddy, and there as a well-defined trail leading just uphill, bypassing the big muddy spot. I took it, and from behind me, heard, "SUSAN!! NO!! NEVER, EVER, EVER RIDE AROUND THE MUD!! It causes unneccessary erosion!!" And finished the ride with my tail between my legs, feeling stupid for breaking a cardinal rule of mountain biking. Apparently, the bypass trail was a maverick trail and my trail monitor behind me did not think it should be there and was horrified that I should add one more tire rolling over it. Cut to this time. This year, there have been a lot of postings on mountain biking websites, town websites, Mountain biking club's facebook pages, and public awareness meetings about trail maintenance, brought on in part by new wilderness area proposals that cut into mountain biking networks, and they all say the same thing- a hole in the trail because of wheel tracks is not a good thing, but widening trails to ride around the mud is worse and causes more widespread erosion. Ride through the mud. Ride through the standing water. Not around it. So this time, confidently in the lead, I picked the line with the most standing water (riding through standing water causes less damage than riding through mud that will not flow back and smooth your tracks), and about halfway through, I heard, "NO, NO, SUSAN, YOU BAD GIRL!! NEVER, EVER, EVER RIDE THROUGH THE MUD!! It ruins the trail!!" And the entire group nodded with judgement eyes as I stood there balanced on a rock in the middle of the giant mud puddle. This time, I called her on it and asked okay, what exactly should I be doing? If riding around it was wrong, and riding through it was wrong, what options did I have? Apparently, the trail around it was the way she thought I should go, so I obediently shouldered my bike, hopped from rock to rock over to the maverick trail, and remounted, internally rolling my eyes and wondering if I will ever be able to finish this ride without being yelled at because of my mud-puddle practices. By this point, my tail does not have to go between my legs quite as far, because I am beginning to realize that everybody has their own idea of how to navigate mud puddles, and everybody thinks they are the sole advocates of trail care, and everybody will yell at those they do not think are caring for the trails the way they would. And anyway, mud puddles are not my particular pet peeve. They are an issue, yes, but with each mud puddle I decide what it is I should do, and if there are rocks in deep mud, I carry my bike and step on the rocks, and if there is water over the mud, I ride through, and if there is room to squeeze around it without widening the trail, by all means. There is no one right way to navigate a mud puddle. But sliding your tires, on the other hand...definitely my pet peeve. There is nothing I hate more than a slid-out corner, all loose rock, that won't let me make a clean, fast turn because it is all loose sand and rough holes. There is no reason for it. Just a little control, and a little more front brake and a little less back brake, and the switchbacks and steep hills would not be such a loose, sliding nightmare to ride.

Bookings are starting up for the summer. There are seven arrivals today. I have not had more than four since the ski slopes shut down. It is starting- the summer rush. Lazy time is over. Our two months of finding busy work so we can make a little money, and spending lots of time at home is almost passed. We have needed every minute of it to start liking our lives again. Yes, Summit County and us, we are a tentative item again, at least until the next snowfall. I fear that the next ten weeks, until the aspens start to turn and the nights get frosty again, will not be long enough for us to fully forgive this place for last winter, and then we will be in the sequel. And it will be cold, and dark, and the people will be demanding, and the phone will ring, and the snow will blow, and we will be even les in the mood for it as we were last winter.

In the spirit of enjoying summer, B's snowmobiles are for sale. Last winter took us to new levels as far as how us how difficult it is getting to break away. Even one day out of cell-phone range can end in catastrophe. Maybe we need to rethink the mini-getaways and days spent in the backcountry (all of two last winter, and those we payed dearly for) and just take more actual vacations, getting away late into the fall and early in the spring. He bought a small used camper on ebay the other day, which we will totally justify after the snowmobiles are sold, and have plans for many more Moab and Fruita trips now that we do not have to worry about having to stay in motels. Most campgrounds do not allow dogs except in campers. It just seemed like a good compromise, since I think we should always camp, to save money, and B thinks we should always stay in a motel, so he can be warm. Now he can be warm and we can pay much less than a motel would charge us to keep him warm. And we can bring the dog along.

And now, off to do my thing. There is work, and babysitting this evening, and cleaning my house, and it is a gorgeous day outside.

Hello and welcome to An altitude Problem, where yours truly is catching her breath after a day at work (yes, truly!) a trip to one grocery store once, and a trip to the other one three times.

I finished with my work in Keystone about 1:00 this afternoon, and headed back to the office to type out an inventory list and unload a trunkfull of sheets and towels, and on my way past City Market, stopped and bought lunch- a cup of soup and dessert- a package of sweet, ripe organic strawberries and some Hershey's Hard Shell to dip them in (yes, this is my latest guilty pleasure.) I drove down tot he office and ate my lunch, finished my workday, and then drove to Natural Grocers to check their dollar bin (one never knows what one will find in the dollar bin, but on a good day, one can have organic, slightly overripe fruit and veggies for a week for five or six bucks). The dollar bin was bare, so I bought a few essentials and left. Since City Market has shrimp on sale, B has been pestering me to go buy some, and I had forgotten earlier, so I swung in again. Emerged $45 later. Drove home, unloaded my groceries, and puzzled over where the shrimp might have gone. Turns out, I had left it at the register, so I made a panicked phone call to find they still had it, so back to town I went.

Yes, I feel not-exactly like a rocket scientist.

The picture at the top of this post was taken by B, catching me by surprise at the end of a bike ride the other night, as I was coasting down the ridge above our house. He surprises me occasionally by taking some really great pics. This may be one I have to print and frame.

And now, off for a ride, then back to clean house. Of all the people I have not seen for years, and often think about, guess who should call and ask to drop by tomorrow? Nancy and the kids, who, I suspect, are not such kids anymore. Goodness, what is Anne by now, like 19? She is still the little pigtailed farm girl with enormous blue eyes that she was when she was five, to me...

Hello and welcome to An Altitude Problem, where we may be going for a record number of posts this year. It is an indication of our state of mind when I post a lot- I am either whining, or have nothing better to do, or are procrastinating doing something I would better be doing. Lately, it is that I have had the time.

The 2nd was B's and my 8th anniversary. After a few rather blatant hints on my part, he did everything right for me. He came to the race and the after-party, he whisked me away to a warm, beautiful place the next day, got a motel room so we would not need to rush home.

He didnt especially enjoy the race, because it meant standing around for almost two hours under skies threatening rain, just to see me start, ride past once, and cross the finish line. And then hanging out at the noisy bar (noisy bars really aren't his scene) and driving me home late, when I was exhausted, dusty, stinky, and my lips were slightly numb after only one free beer.

The race went better than expected. I came in 5th out of 12 riders in my class. I feel good about it because I gave it everything I had, didnt hold anything back, rode on the edge of control downhill and ignored the burn in my quads and pulled the uphills as hard as I could, and still watched several women pull away from me. I did miss one corner twice, each time around the two-lap course, and wasted precious seconds that I could not make up, and came in 9 minutes, 57 seconds behind the race leader. I honestly do not think I physically could have ridden it almost ten minutes faster, the winner won it fair and square. Now I have two and a half weeks to be ready for the next one.

The next day, we left Andy in the house to be picked up by the dogsitter after she got off of work, and we hit the road for Steamboat Springs. All the cabins at Strawberry Park Hot Springs were booked, so we got a room in town, then headed up to the hot springs. It was an amazing, relaxing day. Strawberry Hot Springs is far and away the most beautiful, natural hot springs we have ever been to. The water smells very good, not at all sulfuric, just natural, 104-degree stone-walled pools cascading into each other, separated from the swollen, icy stream a few feet away. We hung out in the water most of the afternoon, moving to a cooler pool after we began to feel overheated, lying in the water, heads propped on convenient stones, arms and legs floating weightlessly, rising and sinking with each inhale and exhale. Today, my skin feels silky, my muscles are not at all sore. It was the perfect way to end race week. We ate dinner at a bistro in town, eating our meal at a patio table on a lawn a few feet away from the raging river, pushing at it's banks. We walked through town, under flowering trees, warm breeze whispering to us, got ice cream, and finally returned to our motel and fell asleep, feeling like we had been on vacation for weeks. The only unpleasant part of the whole trip was the looming ski area and condo town. Every time I looked up, I saw it, and I did not like how it made me feel. Ideally, our escape should have not been to anywhere with a ski resort, so as to not remind us. It revealed something to me about my current feelings about resort towns. I do not see fun and recreation anymore when I see ski runs, I only see stress and demanding guests and entitled tourists and the need to juggle an overwhelming work schedule so I can go through the motions of skiing and snowboarding and being cold and having snow down my pants so that I can keep my sanity, when what I really wish for is a dry, lonely trail to nowhere, everywhere, anywhere disappearing under a mountain bike or a sturdy pair of shoes.

Back in Summit County, we remembered who we are. We got back into town at 10:30 a.m., picked up Andy, and came home. B immediately left for work, and I spent the afternoon dreaming of the day when we can live somewhere that has flowering trees, when I can have a garden, maybe even a greenhouse, where we can live off of the fruits of our land. I took my greenhouse drawings to the trailer park manager so he could peruse them before he tells me I can't build one on our lot, and dug dandelions and pretended that I was gardening and that summer was here to stay.

Hello and welcome to An Altitude Problem, where the focus of the week is racing. Race season is official. It's here. It's big, and bad, and here. I am a nervous wreck. I just want to train, train, train, and never stop.

The weather is beyond nice. Maybe still a bit windy, but nothing like those horrible windy days of early and mid-May. About four trails are dry enough to ride, but one of those is the three and a half mile loop outside my door.

Yesterday was the BolderBOULDER. I ran with my friend, we stayed the night before the race with a couple we know who live in Boulder, close to the action downtown. I slept light because I had a bad feeling that I was going to go to sleep, forget where I was, forget that my friend a few feet away was not B, and I would wake up spooning her. Or worse, I would not wake up, she would, and would not know how to go about telling me to stop snuggling her while keeping both of our dignities intact. Add that to the excitement of the event and a comfortable, but strange bed, and having hydrated way too enthusiastically the day before, and you have me, lying there for hours in the dark. I actually tried counting sheep, visualizing one sheep running across the pasture, then two sheep running across the pasture, then three sheep, and so forth...I got all the way to twenty before I wanted to start killing the sheep. Finally, at three a.m., my friend sneaked out of the room to use the bathroom, and I followed her, meeting her in the hall and giggling together at the absurdity of the fact that we should be sleeping, not peeing. Back in bed, I finally drifted off and dreamed that I missed the race, except it was on Keystone Mountain and I had lost my timing tag and took too long brushing my teeth and for that, I was livid. And then the dream was cut short by her alarm ringing at 6:00 and she bailed out of bed to shut it off and collapsed on the floor against her two-year-old's crib, her leg asleep, numb and lifeless. The kid started whimpering, she started laughing, I was asking if she was okay, and there was no more sleeping for us. We went to the kitchen, ate breakfast, pinned our race bibs on, and headed out the door, our host giving us a ride around many detours to the race start.

We found a pace that was comfortable and finished in 1 hr, 10 minutes. Not exactly a race pace, but we had too much fun to really want to pick it up. We might have finished a bit faster had we not kept having to change our pace to match the bands every few blocks, skipping and clapping, shaking our hips, whatever we could manage that matched the music while maintaining our forward momentum, high-fiving bystanders, zig-zagging those slower than us, running across the entire street full of people just to get hosed down by a water gun or a sprinkler, grabbing at marshmallows and bubbles and other odd bits of food and miscellany as it flew over our heads. We bypassed the slip-n-slide and kiddie pool that others were flopping down in on their way past, and whooped and yelled at the great costumes. It was a great day for people watching, and the chatter was loud and entertaining. At the end, we picked up our pace and charged into Folsom Field, flying around the runners who didn't quite have a finish sprint left in them, and crossed the finish line, high-fiving and just generally high. It was a fun day, a fun run with over fifty thousand runners, and over almost as soon as it had started. Our starting wave was 8:33, and by 9:43 we were done and wondering what was next. We caught an RTD bus to an intersection as close as possible to the friend's house we had stayed at, and walked up the hill from downtown to their house, showered, threw our clothes in the car, buckled in her two year old, and hit the road for home. We stopped in Golden for lunch, a falafel in a sunny courtyard, being watched by a great dane tied to the table next to us, then took the canyon back to the interstate.

I got home and was greeted by Andy, thrilled that his mommy was back home after a night away, and beyond ready for a bike ride. We both begged until B decided to come along and rode the loop by our house, then a loop down the the pond a mile away from our house, where Andy swam and retrieved a homeless flip-flop that he found in the grass and raced in excited circles and shook himself all over us. We got back home and I fell asleep, exhausted from the minimal sleep the night before and the excitement of the morning.

This morning, I awoke determined to not do anything. Nothing at all but hang around the house, maybe work a little, eat healthy food, drink lots of water, and be ready for the bike race tomorrow night. That was before I remembered that I really knew nothing about the race course, and that it was probably marked by now. I arranged to meet a friend over in Frisco to go ride it together, just a leisurely ride... Then another friend called. Would I like to go for a quick ride in the Ranch? She never calls, and she really sounded like it might be important to her because she rarely gets out of the house, and it did sound like fun. We met at 9:30 and rode a loop together, then I came home, loaded my bike and Bobby's bike (which he had reluctantly agreed to let me ride) on my car, grabbed my grocery bags, loaded Andy, and went to Dillon where I dropped off my bike for a pre-race tune-up, bought groceries, ate a quick lunch of bing cherries, strawberries and raw cashews, then hit the road for frisco, where I drove right to where my friend lived...and it wasn't her house.

I actually wondered if she had neglected to tell me that her landlord had painted the place and put a different entryway in. I was positive I was in the right spot. I have driven there a half-dozen times. I have walked there in the snow after last call, then raced through the snow the next morning to catch the bus home in time to see Bobby, who had so nicely let me go out for girls night. I know where this chick lives, but her house flat wasn't there. I drove around the block. Nothing. I drove around the next block. Nothing. I finally called her. "Why can't I find your freaking house??" I demanded. She laughed and gave me her address. In my defense, I was only two blocks over, and all those streets off of Main look alike. I still don't know what wires crossed, but that must be what is feels like to lose one's mind. That totally helpless feeling that nothing is as it should be and the things that should be familiar are strange to you and your friend's gray townhome with steps up to the front door and crescent windows and a sloping driveway is now a cream and green townhome with a ground level entry and square windows and a flat driveway.

I got there, unloaded B's bike, and we hit the bikepath for the Frisco Peninsula, Andy making me proud by trotting obediently beside me, barely even noticing that his mommy had forgotten his leash, sitting at stoplights, staying a nice two feet away from me as cool as a cucumber just as if he had been leashed. We rode a few pointless circles, wasting a mile or two trying to find the starting line and finally, with the help of my friend's iphone map, found it and rode the race course. I am a little worried about it. I am going to have to do two 6.8 mile laps, and the elevation gain felt rather significant to my legs, a bit sore from overuse lately. And I am racing with tougher broads this year than last year. I decided to ride in the Sport category.

Andy was limping a little when we got back. I inspected his pads, and saw a little bit of pink on the bottoms of his front feet, where the skin was rubbed thin. He flinches when I press on them. He may have run a little farther that he should have on the rocks and pavement. He is such a happy boy, and so fiercely loyal and eager to please, it is often hard to miss the warning signs that he is overdoing it and literally killing himself to please us. Now he is passed out on the windowsill. Poor boy. He has gone on a 14 mile ride with me already this year and did not act like it hurt him, but today was a warmer day and the ground conditions were rougher and the 11 or so miles we did today wiped him out. I feel rather terrible about that, and have kissed his head and scratched his ears and promised to be more careful with my sweet boy many times already this evening. It is hard to believe we are so attached to and have so much love for a sixty pound bundle of muscle and fur and silky ears and gentle brown eyes and toothy grin, with a permanent worry wrinkle on his forehead as he tries so valiently to understand us and protect us and discern our every need and perform his duties for us that his little doggy brain almost overheats.

And now, I should go to bed. B has not yet emerged from his home office, where he has been other than for the ten minutes it took him to eat dinner, since he got home from work. There will be no riding for me tomorrow, until the race at 6pm. I need to work tomorrow so I am not even tempted, and as luck would have it, there are arrivals that need my attention. Wish me luck, faithful few. Tomorrow evening, 6pm. The moment of truth...

Tomorrow also markes the passage of another year, bringing the total to eight years since that hot, windy June day when B drove me to the church, all distracted by his Cinderella dressed in yellow, yours truly still under the impression that life was like a fairy tale, we wed, drove into the sunset, didnt stop driving until we hit the ocean, and finally began getting to know each other. We plan to celebrate all the good times we've had since that day this weekend. (Cheering from the sidelines and two free beers and hanging out with stinky bikers is not our idea of romantic. Too many skinny people in spandex tend to ruin the ambiance.) Our half-formed plan involves a cabin in the woods, hot springs, a hiking trail or two, and no men with shaved legs and no women in smelly polypro.

Right, bedtime...

Hello and welcome to An Altitude Problem, where your blogger sits in the stew of an existential crisis. And yes, I am a big enough dork that I actually googled "existential crisis" just to make sure it meant what I thought it did. It did. The big red "you are here" arrow on my life map did not have to move at all from the junction of "Why?" and "Who?" and "How?", which is about the perfect place for a real, true...you guessed it.

It all started innocently enough, with a mouse click and a phone call. The mouse click was on a site I have visited many times, the site of Colorado Mountain College. I have been turning over in my mind the possibility of going to school for quite some time. I have narrowed my areas of interest to...well, not very narrow. I would like to work with special needs kids, and council special needs adults. I would like to work in a field that somehow magically combines ecology, earth-stewardship, sustainable agriculture, forestry, and wilderness studies. And I would like to be a chef.

Which leads to a lot of rumination about how well qualified I already am in each of those fields. I already know I am psychotic and over-analytical, but also easily empathize and enjoy listening to people's problems, although mostly because the more I hear about their problems, the better I feel about my own. That might not be the best hybrid for a successful therapist. Mote in your eye, beam in mine, and so forth. I would enjoy (for the most part) being a special-needs teacher, but I do not want to have to find myself in a classroom full of perfectly normal kids because that is the degree I have to fall back on. And the other thing, the earth and water specialist thing is, lets face it, not something that would fit well in my life. Not something I could do from right here, right now. It would require nights away from home and lots of traveling and moving around. But the one thing that seems like a real possibility if I decided I wanted to do it and worked really hard to prove myself and actually, miraculously, was accepted into the program, is a culinary arts degree. Keystone has an incredible culinary arts program. One graduates in three years with an already stacked resume, because of six-month rotating apprenticeships in Keystone's six four-star restaurants. So it is on the career front that I am dangling right now, knowing that my 27th birthday is looming, knowing that I sure as heck won't be getting any degree if I wait until after I have kids (okay, IF.) Feeling the stress of neither B or me being educated, should we need to job hunt again. And becoming aware that our time at this job should not, for the sake of our sanity, be indefinite.

Making the sacrifice of three years to become a chef would open up a lot of opportunities as far as where we could move and our quality of life once we got there. So now we just have to decide- is it worth it to us? Can we support me being a full time student for three years? Can our company live without me? Can B live with me being owned by Keystone, whipping up delicacies in tiny, esthetically arranged, overpriced portions, my life being exclusively about reduction sauces and garnishes and stainless steel commercial kitchens?

We do not know. I do not know. If only I had known several years ago, and I was all graduated now and had resume in hand. Who are we? what are we here for? where do we belong? how do we get there?

The other half of my personal crisis concernes the face I show the world. I had a rather uncomfortable heart-to-heart the other day with a friend who, upon my probing, admitted that I am possibly seen as a pedestal-dweller by many who do not know me well. I ran to B, expecting him to argue this and tell me what a warm and loving person I am in the first impressions I create, and he laughed a bit, and agreed that that is exactly how he saw me the first time he met me- as aloof and cold and having a bit of an elevated opinion of myself. Well. I am at a loss. I had no idea. And now I must go about finding the root cause of this impression I seem to give people.

Those who know me well know that I am not confident, I am far too easily hurt, and yes, I do throw up the shields and circle the wagons at the slightest sign of threat. If I get too overwhelmed, I cannot think of anything witty to say, so I shut up. I try hard- way, way too hard to make everyone love me. But if I percieve that they do not like me, there is no way I am going to keep putting my tender parts out there to get stepped on. I have nothing more to say to them, thank you. I will just stop breathing the air that belongs to them, lest I give them even one more reason to dislike me. So yes, I am aware that my defense mechanisms are well polished and idling, ready to go at a moment's notice. I have these knee-jerk responses to any hint that someone might not adore me, and they tend to alienate. So it stands to reason that I sit up on my pedestal because the pedestal is very safe. Nobody can get hurt up there. I desperately want to be sought out, because if I do the seeking, I could very easily get my tender parts crushed. And when someone does seek me out, I can think of a hundred reasons why, and few of them are without agenda, and if I suspect agenda, I go ahead and pull in the tender parts, just in case.

There are people in my life that have become so constant, and so consistant, and have proven to have enough in common with me that I have become fiercely loyal to them and do not think twice about breathing their air. These people know me as the yes-woman, the crazy one, the best friend. I am lucky to have found people who wait around past the first impression, or put me enough at ease that I am able to be myself from the start.

You, faithful few, are the validation I seek. I go places, and I hear "I read in your blog...", and I realize that my faithful few click on a link not because I will ever know they did it, not because they are just trying to make me feel good, not because they may have to fake interest in my affairs some day, or are looking for conversation starters should we cross paths some day and fall into awkward silence, but because they may actually like me and be interested in what I have to say. That actually blows my mind a little bit.

And yes, I already know what it takes to stop being seen as the one who thinks she is too cool for everyone else. I have to start liking myself. It is a tall order. It's not an easy task. It is why I set unrealistic goals for myself. Why I am so competitive. Why I spend so much time and effort trying to set, then break, personal records. After all, when one is one's own worst enemy, one has no time to be one's best friend.

Sorry. Not trying to bring you down. I know that this is not what you signed up for when you started keeping track of our altitude problems. But if I go ahead and put my psychoses out there, where there is no calling them back, it forces me to at least pretend to be a better person. And with enough pretending, eventually one can't help but become the character they play. And I want to be a genuinely warm, loving character. I know the first step. I have to start liking me before I can accept that anyone might like me.

And finally, where do we go from here? Once we have ourselves all transformed and bettered, what do we do with ourselves? We can only hope that we make the right moves on this not-exactly-mapped-out journey.

Hello and welcome to An Altitude Problem, getting used to this new concept of consecutive days off. The winter was a long, dark, cold tunnel, and we have emerged. I honestly don't know how we are going to do another winter, because the thought of that mad rush not being a one-time event makes us want to run, screaming, over Loveland Pass, or Vail Pass, or Fremont Pass, or Rabbit Ears Pass- the four passes that keep us here, boxed in, socked in, snowed in, and parked in. So we try not to think about it.

B is still busy, doing things I am not qualified to do. All the things that had to be postponed at the end of last fall are now needing to be finished, all the holes in ceilings from water leaks this spring have to be repaired, owners are popping up to the county to assess the damage the winter did to their properties, so he is rushing to stay a step ahead of them. Today he took a trailer to Denver to bring home a load of wire mesh and I do not know what else, a list of items the Department of Wildlife recommended to foil the beaver's over-enthusiastic damming of a pond behind one of our houses. We have tried pipes, tunnels, bi-weekly digging of a channel, but the beavers just clog our attempts to keep the water flowing down the valley away from the house and instead, the water flows over the back of the pond, into the basement of the house, and down the street, through the neighbor's yards and driveways. Andy got Giardhia last year from drinking from the stream that comes down the street. Two winters ago, the stream built into a two foot deep ice flow and all but made the houses we manage at the end of the street unaccessible. The owner of the house was all for killing the beavers. We did not like that idea, and the Department of Wildlife liked it even less. I thought we had left it that in the spring, we would call a specialist to come trap the beavers and move them to an area not shared with million dollar houses, so I am quite relieved that the beavers get to stay in their home, with the compromise of a drain in the bottom of their kid's playground.

I do not have a busy schedule these days. I have made no money at all since we got home from vacation. There is not much need for an inspector when nobody is checking in. I am banned from any sort of work that involves things indelible and splatterable, such as painting, and B has a maintenance man for hauling trash, picking up a couple thousand cigarette butts from around hot tubs, and washing windows this summer, so I am not it. I will be it after mud season is over and the guests start arriving again, I am sure, but right now, I am not doing much of anything. And I still have not filled the deficit of days off created by taking only about five since the season started in November.

What I mean is, with a normal job, people take two days off a week. Thats fifty two weeks, times two days a week, equals 104 days off a year. Plus a week of vacation. Three and a half months of weekends. Wow, when you look at it that way...maybe these nine-to-fivers are onto something. Even with our slower summers, we do not take that much time off. At any rate, I will be easing back into work again about the middle of June. Memorial Day officially starts summer everywhere else, but for us, it really kicks off July 4th. From July 4th until the middle of October, whenever the last of the fall foliage fades, we are fairly busy.

I decided not to pursue a summer job. It was a serious consideration for a while, back when I was in work-all-the-time mode and could not imagine what I would do with a day off if I had one. I planned to apply to Breck and/or Keystone stables, to groom and saddle and lead trail rides. I would still love to, but it is a full time job. Now, I remember what summer is like. Why would I want to spoil a good thing, no matter how great the job is? So here I sit.

It has been a horribly windy May. It snowed yesterday, not enough to accumulate, but enough to put us all in a foul mood. My rec center pass expired and $40 a month is a lot of money so we did not renew. I have been training for the BolderBOULDER outside, bowing into gusts that reach over 50 MPH, gravel flying into my face, pushing into the wall of wind that is always pushing back. I try to plan my runs in sheltered areas, in the trees, but not too in the trees, lest one should blow over.

Almost daily, we have a power failure because of trees falling over and taking powerlines with them. In one ten minute walk yesterday with Andy and my sister in law yesterday, we had to climb over about five fallen trees. And not beetle-killed pines, either. Healthy spruces and aspens, these were. Makes one think twice about walking in the woods on a windy day in the spring, when the ground is soft and lets go of tree roots easily.

BolderBOULDER is on Memorial Day. My friend and I plan to drive down on Sunday and pick up our race packets, then relax that evening and be ready to run 6.2 miles along with fifty thousand (give or take) other people on Monday morning. It will be my first experience running with a mega-crowd. Someday, I want to run a city marathon, but right now, 10k is about all this child can handle.

Every year, I have to overdo it once. If I do not run to, then past the absolute limits of my endurance and pain threshold, I never know where it is, and I never know when I am about to hit it. But after that first long run of the spring, when I run too far, and, by so doing, discover which signs of exhaustion originate above my shoulders and which originate from below, which are my body telling my mind to stop and which are my mind telling my body to stop, I begin to enjoy running long distances without the mental blocks that, in the winter, keep my runs within the 3 mile range.

I am a pretty solid half-marathoner, I guess. This season's first run was slightly better than last season's, last season I fell apart after mile 12. The season before that was mile 13. This season was mile 14. Perhaps it is still a mental thing, I do not know. I do not take anything with me that would give me an indication of how far I have gone so I do not get distracted by knowledge of distance traveled, I only know after I get home and map it.

My lungs were fine, my heart rate was fine, but my ankles, knees, hips, and back finally just said enough after almost two hours and 14 miles. I had to climb 800 feet or so over Swan Mountain to get home, and it was torture. I still ran a mile or two on the way home, between walking, and my nods and smiles to fellow runners felt more like grimmaces and bows of defeat. The total distance traveled was 18 miles. I was disappointed. I had hoped that with my casual training for the BolderBOULDER for the last few weeks, I would have more go-juice than that. I had hoped this would be the spring I could run the whole 18, and build from there to 26.2- the length of a marathon. I have to just face it- I am not an athlete. I may have athletic tendancies, but until I can spend time alomost every day training (and why would I want to do that?) I will never be in the big-time. I will always have a little of that healthy chub we talked about, always decide that spending time with friends, or with B, or walking Andy, or coasting on my bike down loamy, twisty trails, or chilling and blogging is more important than the big-time. And I'm fine with that.

I got home, peeled out of my stinky, sweaty clothes, wiping at the salty film of dried sweat on my face, hobbled into the bathroom, reached for the shower knob, and the electricity went off. I dug some dirty but dry clothes out of the hamper, put them on, hit the couch, and did not move for two hours. By then, my hips and knees had loosened up enough that I could walk without limping, so I got out my bike and took Andy for a run around the neighborhood and a swim in the pond before finally taking that shower.

The next day, I took the bus to my friend's house, chatting with the bus driver as we made the loop from Summit Cove to Keystone, back to Summit Cove (I did not realize that the bus only runs once an hour over noon, so I was 30 minutes early, and instead of waiting it out at the bus stop, I just rode the whole loop)down to Dillon Valley. We ran the 6.2 miles from her house to my house in the baking sun and howling wind, unable to hear each other unless we screamed at the top of our lungs, which left us gasping for breath. We did not stay with the chatty norm we usually try to maintain. Correction- I try to maintain. She has had a little less time to train than I have, between a job and a toddler, so she tells me to talk, and my talking keeps my breath regulated and I unconciously slow about one MPH and forget that I must be racing and we hit a comfortable pace that we can both maintain for the whole 6.2 miles.

That was two days ago, and I spent the rest of that day and yesterday favoring my left hip and knee, inflamed by too much running. I plan to only do one more run, on Friday, the midway point between now and the race, to give all the inflamed tendons and joints time to recover.

Yesterday, the electricity blinked off just as I finished putting the last of my protein shake ingredients in the blender and reached for the power button. I tried to shake it to blend it, but the protein powder just stuck to itself in gloppy curds and the orange juice and coconut milk separated and curdled and the thought of drinking it almost triggered a vomit reflex, so I dumped it down the drain. I went to work, but did not get a whole lot accomplished. In the afternoon, after the snow had moved in, I went to Marci's house and lay flat on my back in front of her TV for six hours and got lost in a marathon of a TV season she owns. I spent the day craving junk food, since that is what happens on the days I do not drink my protein shake, ate lots of chocolate chips, and, becasue I begged him to, B brought a pizza to Marci's house for dinner. Marci and I walked Andy after dinner, and I threw a stick to keep him running and give him more exercise than just a walk. We were walking along a stream and I threw it too close to the bank and it rolled in. Andy followed it. He had the spend the rest of the evening in the car, drying off.

June 2 is the first mountain bike race of the season. The question this year is not whether I will do it, but which category. Judging from my only other race, I am slightly better than the beginner's category, which means I may only be challenged by the sandbaggers who intentionally ride more slowly than their best times, and juggle a fine line between winning most of the time and intentionally losing just enough races that they do not get forced to switch to a more challenging category. Last year, I was sure I would lose even in beginner's class, so I entered it and won, and got (semi-jokingly, since it was my first race and how was I to know?) called a sandbagger, even though I won by only a second. The girl who finished a second behind me took first overall for the season, so she will have to move up. And I do not want to sandbag, even though winning a lot would be sweet. It probably would not make a lot of friends, though... although maybe I would not be sandbagging. I have ridden with a girl who wins a lot of the beginner's races, and she was stronger on the uphill. I was only faster than her on the downhill. Oh, dear...

But if I switch to sport category, I will probably get my butt handed to me. The courses are twice as long as the beginner's courses, and the Sport women also sandbag when they really should do the honest thing and move up to Expert class. I think I could keep up, but I do not think I could ever win. Although come to think of it, I rarely ride in a social setting with Sport racers, it is usually with the girls in the Expert or Pro/Elite categories, and they really kick my butt, I can't even begin to keep up with them, so how am I going to know unless I try? But on the other hand, it would be embarrassing to have to drop down a level because of my overestimating my abilities...but on the other hand, it would also be embarrasing to get forced to a higher level if I won too many races in beginners...but on the other hand...oh, heck. Sport it is. I think I just decided. May as well be miserable and never measure up, rather than know I may not deserve the wins. Although the thought of those long races and people passing me like I'm standing still while I am pedaling as hard and as fast as I can with the blood roaring in my ears and my breath so hard and fast I think I may pass out and my nerves making my stomach queasy and my mouth dry because that's what happens when I race and am running on adrenaline and gatorade...makes me a little nauseous.

B's and my anniversary is on the 2nd. He is a little squiffy about that, and supposses I'm going to make him come along and stand on the sidelines for two hours and cheer for me on our anniversary. He somehow misses seeing how that might be fun.

And, becasue I always have to carry a good thing just a little bit too far, I have entered one more foot race for this summer. Yes, all of my money will apparently be going to race fees this year. But this one, I am psyched about. It is called the Warrior's Dash. It will be half serious running, half ninja skills (okay, not exactly ninja skills, but you get the picture...) and half street party. It takes place at Copper Mountain in August, and the first portion of it goes straight up the ski slope before it hits service roads and singletrack. In the last half mile of it's 3.27 miles sits eleven obstacles. Wall jumps, scrambling over old cars, running through tires, crawling under barbed wire through mud, climbing up vertical cargo nets, crawling over horizontal cargo nets, crawling through culverts, jumping over fire, climbing over large round hay bales, running down a stream, balancing on narrow planks over gullies... finishers recieve one free beer, a tee shirt, and a big, wooly helmet with horns. I don't really care about the beer and horns, but the race is going to be one of the most grueling, most painful, and most fun runs of my life. I don't expect to do well at all, but I do plan on finishing, if a bit bruised and bloody.

Oh, yeah. This is shaping up the be the best summer yet. If it would ever stop snowing and the wind would die down...and I can keep myself from debilitating injury. Here's hoping!

And here's hoping I can see some of my faithful few this summer. We plan on making the Koehn Kampout, still on the fence about the Unruh Reunion, (maybe if B can't make it, I still can) and if you have no reason to attend either of those- although you do not need a reason to crash the kampout, the Koehns feel loved and validated by reunion crashers- you are welcome to come and get an altitude problem up here with us.