A bit of recap

Here is a brief synopsis of what I've been up to this past month:

Lots of crossfit over at Roots including a "bottom to bottom" Tabata air squat WOD with a 1-mile run tacked on to the end.  I'm happy with a Tabata score of 17 and a sub-7-minute mile.  My legs were sore for days afterwards, but not as bad as when I pulled a "bottom to bottom" Tabata air squat workout on "Wildcard Night" at Crossfit 701.

On Friday, the 14th of January, I drove to Golden, carpooled with Jeff to Denver, and then flew from Denver to Los Angeles.  That afternoon, a group of Caltech alumni, accompanied by a handful of friends and S.O.'s, headed out to the Mohave Desert for a weekend of engineering fun in the sun (and cold, and mud).  On Monday, the 17th, it was back on the plane to Denver, carpool back to Golden, and then drive back to Boulder.

On Tuesday, the 18th, we did the Crossfit Total at Roots.  For those who are interested, the CF Total is (roughly) twice per year workout that measures each athlete's progress in terms of lifting capacity.  On Total day, we have an hour and a half to work up to single rep maximum weight efforts in each of three lifts; the back squat, press, and deadlift.  In January 2010, I lifted 225, 105, and 245-lb for each of the lifts.  This year, I upped that to 255, 120, and 335-lb respectively.  I'm happy with progress like that.

On Thursday, the 20th, I tried skate skiing for the first time.  I'm not very efficient at it yet, but am able to have fun doing it, so efficiency will come.

Saturday, the 22nd, had me putting on my engineer hat to help my teammate Brett remove the crank bolt from his Toyota 4-Runner.  With some help from his dad, we rigged up a wooden bracket with a pair of bolts that would prevent the engine from turning over while I torqued on the crank bolt with a 3/4" breaker bar and a 4' cheater bar on the end of the handle.  Sadly, the glorious wooden bracket was not photographed before it splintered under the load.  The bolt was still not free.

However, not all was lost.  Brett's dad had a piece of metal C-beam, which he fashioned into a far sturdier brace, pictured below:

Brett is now properly equipped to remove the crank bolt from any 4-Runner he meets.

On Sunday, the 23rd, I headed up to Snow Mountain Ranch where I volunteered as a score keeper at a biathlon competition and had my 2nd endeavor on skate skis.

Biathlon combines skiing and shooting; what could be better?  Volunteers stand in the cold, but can quickly warm up by skiing around after the race ends.

On Monday the 24th, I learned to make Moroccan chicken salad, in the style of the possibly-famous California Pizza Kitchen.  I put together a batch as a test run for a cycling team dinner coming up on Friday.  The test run was a success.

Then on Tuesday, I headed to Colorado Springs to meet with various folks over the course of the day.  Fellow cyclist Ryan Belew gets a shout-out here for letting me borrow his wheel case for my track racing adventure to the UK.  That was a huge help!

On Wednesday and Thursday, there was a career fair at CU Boulder.  I went both days, saw a few folks who I knew, talked with recruiters from a handful of companies, but didn't see any opportunity that I would characterize as "just right".  Maybe next time.

Friday was the 2010 awards dinner and post-season party for the ColoBikeLaw.com cycling team.  I ended up taking home two awards; a pair of snazzy electric-blue leg warmers for a runner-up position the Road SWAG competiton and a gear bag for the overall lead in the most-races-raced competition.  Counting my racing campaign in Manchester, I had 105 race starts in 2010.  That's a lot of racing!

Saturday morning it was off to the airport again for a trip to the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista (a San Diego suburb) where I piloted a tandem for paralympic national team member Karissa Whitsell.

The scenery around the Chula Vista OTC rivals that of Colorado Springs, and in January is substantially warmer.

During a recovery ride by the lake, I spotted a latrine with a view.  The poor guy who had his belt stuck in the door at the Berlin house party in December would have had no such problem here.

On Wednesday the 2nd, I had to say goodbye to warm-and-sunny San Diego and return to Boulder, where it was rather chilly.  On the plus side, the snow on the flatirons was scenic.

When it is 0 degrees F (-17C), the snow sticks around like a bad habit.

Now, what does one do after returning from sunny San Diego to the frigid cold in Colorado?  Eat lots of vegetables.  I think my dinner on the 2nd may have set some kind of personal record.

Some 5-year-olds' worst nightmare: a plate of asparagus and broccoli.

Last Friday, the 5th of February, Boulder Indoor Cycling hosted the 2nd edition of their First Friday race series.  A handful of local track racers came out and raced on the dizziness-inducing 140-m track for the entertainment of about 230 spectators.  I had a bit of a slow start, but capped off the night with a win in the 50-lap points race.  I suppose that makes up for being eliminated from the sprint tournament in the first round.

On Saturday, it was back over to the gym for an in-house Olympic lifting meet at Crossfit Roots.  I'll probably be able to steal a picture or two once the event photos are posted on the Roots Picasa album.

Sunday was the Super Bowl, so I played football in the snow in the morning, and then did other stuff while the event was going on.  Afterwards, I checked out youtube for the best commercials.  The Pepsi date commercial, while not necessarily appropriate for all audiences, was one of the more humorous in my opinion.

On Monday, I put in another crossfit WOD, did some base riding at Boulder Indoor Cycling, and then headed to Denver in the evening for an improv comedy show at the Bovine Metropolis improv comedy club/theater.  A good time was had by all.

There was a bit of a snow storm Monday night, so on Tuesday I picked up a new book on practical psychology and its implications for motivation in modern economies and cultures called Drive, by Daniel Pink, and read it from cover to cover, finishing around 1:00am this (Wednesday) morning.

Today was not overly exciting.  I completed a project to replace the damaged draw string on the backpack I took to the UK and Europe.  I also made a significant effort to synchronize the training log that I keep on my computer using a set of Matlab-translated-to-Octave scripts/functions with the TrainingPeaks website that my coach and I use to plan my future training.  Things became a little out-of-synch during the off season, but now are squared away.