Spring Snow

It's rare that there's enough snow for snowshoeing on the trail near my house so I took advantage of it last week and got 2 snowehoe run/hikes in.

Poor Strummy, he's not a fan of cold feet so he kept to the packed down part of the trail while I stayed in the deeper stuff.

Can't remember the last time I was snowshoeing, forgot how much fun it can be.  Especially when you don't have to drive to the trail.  I only drove the car 3 out of 7 days last week and even then only a couple miles to get to and from the pool.  My pool gear is so heavy, hard to haul it from the car let alone on a bike or walking never mind the scary distracted texting drivers so I drive the 5 minutes to the pool.  Plus a big giant hill on the way.  Stupid, wasteful I know but I've yet to find a solution.

I'm thinking of trying some mountain bike races this spring but one of them is the same weekend as USDAA Regionals.  Coincidentally they're about 5 minutes apart and I can sign up for the bike race close to the start time so I've got a sorta crazy idea about seeing if I can sneak over there for the race in the middle of the day if the schedule works out right.  I know, sounds like a not very great idea but we'll see.  Regionals will take priority, the bike course/trails aren't super interesting and this could well be Strum's last trial unless there are some UKI trials this summer that fit in my triathlon schedule.  Strum turns 11 this month and I'm not a super big fan of double digit dogs doing agility but he seems fine so we'll keep going for the next couple few months.  Hate to take it away from him, he truly loves it.  But don't want him to spend his old age injured.

We needed the moisture and I'm glad for it but ready for spring and itching to hit the trails.  It's melting quickly with the warm temps. but this only means mud season is upon us.  Ah well, it's better than drought.

Springtime in the Rockies

Bike ride in shorts and t-shirt in the mountains yesterday.

View from Poorman Road

And today?

The forecast started out at less than an inch yesterday then went up to 1-3" last night, this a.m. it was 3-5" and at around 11:15 a.m. I measured a foot.  And it's still coming down fast and furious.  Jonny left work just before 11:00 and said there were cars stranded all over the road, in ditches, crazy out there.  Glad I didn't try to go to the pool today.  Looks like a day for Scooby Doo slippers, a cup of cocoa and a good book.  And my weight workout later. 

I was finally feeling mostly recovered from my neck and knee injuries brought on 5-6 weeks ago from too much snow shoveling and skiing.  I'm not even going to try to shovel.  The snow is that heavy, wet back breaking midwestern type snow and it's supposed to be 50 degrees and sunny tomorrow so hopefully enough will melt that I can get out of the driveway.  I may try for some skiing at North Boulder Park if I can get out of the driveway tomorrow but I suspect it'll be too wet and heavy and they might not even groom it.  If so I'll shoot for 45 minutes at the most.  Just yesterday I was telling myself I was done with skiing, it's not worth the injuries and my knee was still a little sore from it on my bike ride.

Was hoping to sign up for a couple of mountain bike races in April and May but I guess we'll see how the weather goes.  Was feeling fit and feisty on the bike yesterday but the trails maybe even the dirt roads are going to be shut down for a good long while.  And I'm so not into the bike trainer.  Maybe once the roads clear I'll head up to the high country for some snow shoeing.  Because clearly I haven't learned my lesson about injuries from snow sports that I almost never do.

Went down a rabbit hole yesterday of holy crap it looks like I'm going to have to go to a race in Arkansas on May 1st if I want to qualify for USAT's offroad world championships in Canada in 2017 which has been my long term goal.  Because USAT thinks it's a great idea to have their off-road nationals at a poorly attended race in an obscure location in May before triathlon season kicks off for most people.  Hello USAT, do you see the snow?  Plus no place to get in open water before May 1st.  Maybe if you live in California or Arkansas you can be ready for this but for most of the country not so much.  It's easy to qualify for Worlds if you go to this race, you only have to finish in the top 18 or something in your age group and I doubt many if any age groups will have this many so pretty much just have to show up and finish.  With 5 weeks until the race there are only 115 people signed up, about 30 women and only 1 woman in my age group.  Not a lot of people going to be going to Canada next year.  The other way to qualify is to be ranked in the top 20 in your age group but they only take 2 people based on rankings and the slots roll down.  So if you're ranked 20 you have to hope that the 18 people ahead of you don't want to go.  And who knows how their rankings work.  I was ranked 8th out of 74 women overall in my age group and 3rd out of 14 in the Mountain Region in 2015 according to Xterra's rankings.  But USAT has me at 17 out of 23 (what happened to the other 51 women?).  And some of the women ahead of me only did one race or didn't even go to Nationals and some I had beaten at races and Xterra had me ranked ahead of them so I don't know how it works.  And I'm not interested enough to try to figure it out.  My coach told me she knows someone who went by petitioning USAT and so few people wanted to go that they allowed her.  Said it was super easy.  So if it comes down to it and I still want to go next year then that's what I'll do.  Because it's a 16 hour drive to freakin' Arkansas and while the race looks appealing, 4 days total of driving does not.  To go to Arkansas.  No offense to Arkansas but I have plenty of super nice places within 2 hours.  All for a race that is a year and half away.  So USAT Worlds in 2017 is on the back burner for now.  Not sure what my goals will be for the year now but I'll come up with something.