Feeling good!

The weather around here has been pretty nice lately. Occasionally, the temps will drop with a cold front, we'll get some more snow and then it'll be nice again for a few days. The snow melts off quickly and with the dry air, the ground stays dry as well.
What all this means for me is that I've been able to get in some good training lately! Today being the first day of Spring, I decided it was time to break out the sleeveless jersey for the bike ride and got a little sun on the shoulders. Went for a run as well and the legs are feeling great. My biking has really improved lately and my cardio is still improving so I'm looking forward to keeping that progression going. I've dropped my running mileage back a little as it had gotten up to around 35-50 miles per week.
Once the race is over, I'll resume the running regimen again and am REALLY looking forward to a new route I've found on the Colorado Trail. To be fair, I guess I shouldn't say that I found it. Jamie Donaldson told me about it since she uses it for training runs. Hopefully, it's been warm enough lately to have melted most of the snow so the trail can be runnable. In driving around on some country back roads, I've discovered where the CO trail crosses some dirt roads and can use these as mileage markers and resupply points for long training runs. I can get in a one way trail marathon run, a 16 miler one way run, a 50k round trip training run, or even a 52 mile training run depending on how the training goes. It's all within short driving distance and I'm looking forward to running and biking it soon.
This Saturday, I'm heading down to CO Springs for a full day of training. First, I have to do a climbing certification which is required for the race. Then, we'll do some navigation, biking, and finish up with a run before heading home. The high on Saturday is supposed to be 46 with a rain/snow mix. It's been in the 50s and 60s all week and now this.

Trip to Monterey

Allison, Isabella and I all went to Monterey, CA for my friend Freddy's retirement from the Army. His family is all from Monterey and when you have the connections that Freddy does, you can pull some strings to make things happen so he was able to have his retirement ceremony in his hometown.













Freddy and I met at Ft. Bragg when I had just come back from Korea and he had just returned from DLI (Defense Language Institute) out in Monterey where he had learned Hatian Creole. As a linguist, Freddy speaks 6 languages fluently and is teaching many of them to his kids. We've been friends ever since we met in May of 95. We've both been through a lot of changes and I've seen him through some rough times since then, but there have been many great times as well. He's one of those low maintenance friends that you can always count on and lives a great example of how to love others unconditionally.














The trip was short, but we were able to get to see a good bit of Monterey, Carmel, and the surrounding area. It's a beautiful part of CA and seems to be largely unspoiled by over development unlike the rest of CA and much of the US. Even so, it's not a cheap place to live by any stretch of the imagination.














Isabella did great on the trip. She slept through the night every night were were there in the hotel room and she was a perfect angel on the plane ride there and back. She is such a good baby. She was even happy amongst all the chaos of his family and the retirement party and tons of overstimulation. She took it all in stride her mommy and daddy were happy to have her along with us on the trip.