I just returned from a long weekend at a friend\/former colleague’s house in southern Vermont.\u00a0 This was my 8th or 9th year organizing the trip and while the attendance was lower than in previous years, we wound up with a fun group.\u00a0 The conditions at Mount Snow were the second best I’ve had there; last year’s 16 inch snowfall reigns supreme and though we didn’t get much snow at all this time ’round, there was coverage over nearly every square inch we found which produced soft and fluffy snow conditions.\u00a0 Unlike it’s normal moniker as the “ice” coast, the scraping and scratching sounds were almost nil.\u00a0 It was fun on so many different levels that finding the words to describe it is difficult!<\/p>\n
I was lucky this year to have a couple of skilled partners in crime.\u00a0 With me was my good buddy Craig and his friend (now my friend too) Elizabeth.\u00a0 Craig has an impressive resume of mountains visited, including places in France, Utah, Canada, etc.\u00a0 Elizabeth spent an entire season some years ago in Colorado.\u00a0 Both of them, with lots of experience, made it so much more fun for me because we were able to go to any part of the mountain without concern for finding an easier route for the weakest of our threesome.\u00a0 Rather, we found a great tree run, hit the bumps, and raced at ridiculous speeds on the cruisers.\u00a0 We even added vanity to the mix by taking videos of one another followed immediately with, “How’d I look?\u00a0 Lemme see the replay!”<\/p>\n
A natural by-product of pushing the envelope or, for that matter, doing a physical activity that’s not part of the normal routine, is the soreness that follows.\u00a0 Despite my claims of being in shape, of being pretty much on schedule with my tri training, I’m hurting today.\u00a0 I hit a tree with my shin which left a nice bruise; I hit an unexpected mogul during a bump run and bent my torso in a very unnatural way, and I took a violent fall while working on my opposite foot in the lead while on an eary groomer.\u00a0 That latter incident left me with a bruised coccyx, something akin to whiplash, and a mild headache that’s not yet subsided.\u00a0 There are also the minor, non-impact oriented aches in the legs and abs, but I feel good about those because they are expected and will heal within a day or so.\u00a0 The only injury from which I won’t soon recover is the burn to two of my fingers while cooking up our Saturday night feast at the house.\u00a0 Figures that of all the mania on the mountain, my worst injury was in the kitchen!<\/p>\n
Next up is Vail at month’s end.\u00a0 My friends Matt and Danelle are getting married there and a few of us NYers are headed out for some snow and nuptials.\u00a0 My brother will be driving up from Denver to visit his buddy in Vail, and the three of us will definitely seek out the back bowls and secret terrain that locals visit.\u00a0 Since I’ll have my NY friends with me on the trip, I’ll likely try to fit in a few hours off the reservation with my brother, and a few hours in a more laid back atmosphere with the group.<\/p>\n
As I look forward to 2010, I wonder how if at all I’ll get any skiing\/boarding in.\u00a0 With my goal of competing at Ironman South Africa, I’ll be so busy with getting in all of my training and doing so mostly indoors because of the winter season that any time away will be hard to schedule.\u00a0 The potential injury factor is also significant, but I’ve never turned down the opportunity to play sports, or to perform an activity for fear of injury.\u00a0 I still hold out a desire to fulfill a childhood dream to visit Aspen though, and depending on the economy and my budget and my job situation, I may be able to make it a reality if I do so in January of 2010… but like everything else, we shall see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I just returned from a long weekend at a friend\/former colleague’s house in southern Vermont.\u00a0 This was my 8th or 9th year organizing the trip and while the attendance was lower than in previous years, we wound up with a fun group.\u00a0 The conditions at Mount Snow were the second best I’ve had there; last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}