Fund Raising with Eagle Mount

Alright. I think it will take about $1200 to get to Race Camp and D Team Training camp. We are figuring $275 for gas, $350 for each camp, $45/night for a bunk, and then there's food. I am going to have to go in my old boots because I still don't have Alpine boots. That's next.

I am raising money several different ways, through my Ebay Store, teaching rock climbing at Spire here in Bozeman, ($40/hr for a private lesson with me), and donations through Paypal and First Giving.

The First Giving thing is neat, because 20% of what I raise through them will go to Eagle Mount here in Bozeman, an incredible organization that does therapeutic recreation. The skiing program is truly outstanding.

So tell your friends, pass this link along to anyone you think might be interested in donating, and thanks for reading!

Training Log: Catch Up!

Well, sorry I've been spotty in my posting, but using this week's Quote That Helps (see the sidebar), I'm gonna do the best I can and not be hard on myself about it!

The catch up is: at the gym, we've been going to Yoga which is lovely. I have so so so missed that practice! Tom and I have managed to get in one lunchtime climmb (today actually) and I am so excited to be so much stronger! My core still needs a lot of work, so Bosu ball, here I come!

I did manage to break a toe the other day, kicking a chair while barefoot and running through the kitchen. Ow. Second time I've broken this one. Great. It's taped, and we are moving on with our lives.

And... I am going to the D Team Tryouts Training Camp! YAY! It's official! I was worried because I don't ski at that level yet, but they are letting me come anyway, so WEE HOO!

There is a Race camp for a few days before that, so i think I am going to go early and just ski ski ski for about a week. IN AUGUST! How lucky am I?

I have $570 in my training fund from donations and sales on Ebay, I need $900 to get to camp, so visit my Ebay store or send a friend! Thanks for helping me reach my goal!

A Trainwreck Epidemic, and a CHALLENGE

I just got the following comment on one of the posts I wrote, and it echoed SO many sentiments that I have gotten via email, that I thought I MUST post it.

From Lisa:
Today I had to comment because I know exactly what you mean about the vitamins- I am so bad as to be derailed almost daily because I read both that vitamins should be taken with a meal and that dairy products impede absorption. Therefore I feel like I can never take my supplements if I've had a meal with even a trace of dairy- and this includes almost every meal since I'm also vegetarian and have limited sources of protein. Anyway, keep up the good fight. I've been greatly enjoying reading. (Only wish I could comment at pithily as Catherine).

****

First, Lisa, thanks for the comment, and second, you should know you are not alone!

And herein lies the problem. We educate ourselves so that we can do the best job possible taking care of our bodies. That is our job not only as athletes, but as humans! I mean, I want a strong, healthy body so that when I am a grandma, I can ski with my grandkids! And for that to happen, i have to take care of it NOW.

But there are so many things you can do, and so many things you can do wrong, that when we get totally tied to HAVING to do it right, sometimes we can't do it at all. And that just doesn't make any sense!

So here is my challenge to all of you out there (including myself):

When you find yourself NOT doing something, because you can't do it perfectly, challenge yourself to do it anyway, and do it to the best of your ability with the tools and information you have now.

So, Lisa: Dairy? Take em anyway! Kate: Missing one? Take what you have! Beth: No time to commit to a real workout schedule? Park further away and walk, take the stairs, and go around the block once a week.

But all of us: try to look at all we are doing that is POSITIVE and live there. Good for you for doing the reading and knowing about how your body uses the vitamins. Good job! Take that win. Then let yourself be human, and do the best you can with the tools and time you have avalible.

Oh, and by the way: we all wish we could comment as pithily as Catharine. But don't let it get you down! Instead, visit her blog for a good laugh at the Catharine Chronicles.

Happy Birthday Liat!

Thanks for sticking with me and pushing me hard. I love you!

Training Log: July 15: Hyalite Peak and Liat's Birthday!

For liat's 25th Birthday (OH MY GOD, she's 25!) we decided to hike Hyalite Peak. I haven't hiked this since last year, and I had forgotten what a SPECTACULARLY beautiful hike this is. 11 waterfalls on the way up, high Alpine meadows with plentiful wildflowers still! Then a hard 2 mile push up a gnarly scree path to the top for the most amazing views the Bozeman area has to offer. Seriously. You can see into Yellowstone, and all the way to Paradise Valley.

This is one of my favorite falls, it looks like a giant water slide, and Liat an I always wish we could just sit on the bridge and eat lunch, but its a pretty popular spot, so we never have it to ourselves for long.

Up in the high meadow, we found this bizarre spider on the path, and we are trying to figure out if that is an egg sac on his abdomen, or if he just has a beautiful turquoise bottom! He was big, and FAST, and really beautiful. I like this picture because you can see all his eyes! EEEE heeby-jeebies! We are going to email the pic to MSU and see if we can find out what kind of spider it really is.

The meadows are just spectacular, I can't wait until the kids are old enough to hike up here, it would be a great spot to backpack up into and play. There is a small little alpine lake up here, as well.

And this, of course, is what you look like when you turn 25. Okay, that's totally unfair. This is what you look like when you are LIAT and you turn 25! GO GIRL!! All in all, a great hike. It took us 6 1/2 hours, 4 up and 2 1/2 down, although we dawdled quite a bit on the way up, taking pictures, stopping to snack and so on.

Liat is going to babysit next weekend so I can take Tom up here, he's never seen it!!

Because I can't do it perfectly, I can't do it at all

I am just full of deep thoughts lately. And I haven't even had my first head shrinking session yet! (It's Tuesday).

But I had a funny thought, that I thought I might share with the rest of the perfectionists out there.

I take vitamins every day (or I try). Its hard to do, because there are a lot of them, and I have to take them three times a day. I have been working doing some things that make it easier, I got some little baggies and Liat marked them with Am, Noon and PM for me (and she wrote some cute little inspiring things on them like Go Kate!), and I was pre-filling them with my vitamins, so I can grab three, throw them in my purse, and get on with my life.

I ran out of one of them, a mineral supplement that I am supposed to take three times a day.

So, because I am dedicated to getting the whole thing back on track, I hied my self down to the Co-op to get a new bottle. Unfortunately, they had to special order it. So the logical thing to do would be to just fill the baggies with the rest of what i have, take the supplements I do have until the one I am missing comes in, and then add it to the mix, right?

WRONGO! Guess what I did? I left the project on the table and walked away from it with a sense of, "Well, I can't do this until I get that, so the project is stalled, and i'll do it when the other supplement comes in."

Because if I can't do it perfectly, I am not going to do it at all.

Now, we have learned this lesson! Right? Haven't I been posting about the fact that you do the best you can with the time and resources that you have, and whatever you can do is better than nothing?? Hello? Kate? Are you listening?

So I thought I would point out that it pops up every once in a while, this silly sabotaging perfection, and I caught it red handed. Now, i am on the look out for it, I want to exterminate it from my thought process. I bet I will get a lot more done, and won't be so GRRR about the stuff I can't do. Ahhhhhh... tranquility again...

You Were Saying?

Push, Push, Push. This used to be my mantra. There HAS to be a way to get it done. And that can be true, you can force things through. But I think, too, that there have to be days when you say, "Wow, things are just HARD today." and take that subtle hint from the universe and back off.

Today was supposed to be another glorious day:

6:00am meditation with Tom
6:30am breakfast and coffee with Tom
7:30am Tom goes to work, I clean the house
8:45am Abs class
9:00am Back workout
9:50am Yoga
11:00am home

This is what really happened:
Slept in, did not do meditation, breakfast or Abs. Got the kids to the Ridge at 9:30, where Liat had been waiting for me all morning. Got my act together, just in time for the world's crappiest, shortest yoga class.

Spent some time talking with Liat, the time talking superseded our ability to get in the back workout we wanted, and thus we ended up talking about THAT rather than working out.

Went back to the Ridge kids to pick up Ethan and Bodhi, only to find out that Bodhi had had an accident (???) up in the big climbing structure, and had just sliced his foot open and was laying on the floor screaming and wouldn't let anyone help him.

Right. Like I said, I guess it comes and it goes, and we are going to BREATHE and let it go, and be okay, and try again tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day.

How to Make It Work

I have been thinking about the differences between training now, at 36, with a family and a mortgage, vs. training when I was 18, single and at a training center. When I was younger, I lived at the Ice Castles International Training center for a while, pursuing Ice Skating. While I was there, my life was prescribed for me in a very concrete way.

Our schedules were given to us, and they looked something like this:

5:00 am Patch Practice
6:30 am Stroking
7:15 am Breakfast
8:30 am Morning Freestyle
11:30 am Karate
12:30 pm lunch
1:30 pm Ballet
3:00 pm Afternoon Freestyle
6:30 pm dinner
7:30 pm Weight Training
9:00 pm Cardio
10:30 pm lights out

Our meals were designed for us according to what our trainers agreed we needed to do, loose fat and build muscle, mostly. We kept detailed diaries of what we ate, and our cardio was adjusted accordingly.

It was kind of a no-brainer situation. Show up, eat what was put in front of you, no more, no less, do your work, get your rest. We did this six days a week, and took Sundays off. (During which time we usually did lift practice in the pool).

We all lived on campus together, my "class" included Chen Lu, Michelle and her sister Karen Kwan, Surya Bonaly, and a bunch of other great skaters. (Michelle was 13 at the time.) Because of this, when we ran into each other on the way up or down from the rink, as we stopped to chat, we'd do calf raises on the stairs. There was never a moment when we weren't training, and it wasn't hard to live in that mentality.

Today, life is a bit different for me. I assumed going into this, that I would have the work ethic, tools, and sheer will power to make a massive training effort easy for me. Alas, those tools, while very helpful, are not the things that will make or break me here in my desire to be healthy, have great balance, strength and stamina.

Today, my life doesn't have a schedule that stay constant for more than two days. I have to think hard about what I eat, how often I eat it, and of course, i have to prepare it myself, while feeding my kids as well. Yes, I know, everyone has to do this. But it has been interesting to try and figure out just exactly how many calories i am burning on a given day, so I can make sure that my calorie deficit (while I am still in the fat-loss stage of my program) is not more than 500 calories a day. More importantly, that the meals I eat are maximised to carry enough Protein to build the muscle I am demanding, that I get as many vitamins and minerals directly from food sources as possible, so they are efficient, and easy to metabolize and therefore build strong connective tissues, minimizing the chance of injury and maximizing my ability to heal should I hurt myself.

Both my little sister and I are certified Nutrition Technitons through Intrafitt, a program that was built for body builders and endurance athletes to treat their food as highly efficient fuel. But times and research have changed, and Liat and I (okay, mostly Liat) are finding ourselves slogging through books and articles to constantly update and refine what we believe about food, and how to make it most beneficial to our training. It was easier to show up at the cafeteria and pick up the tray marked "Kate".

So I have this mental image of what a great training program looks like, and what I would do with my day if I could, if I got paid to train, and it would look like this:

Daily:
5-10 mile hike or 3 mile swim
"Epic" cardio once a week (26 miles or more)
Yoga
Vipassana
Weight Training
Balance Work
Six meals a day (complete, no bars or red bull!)
A gallon of water a day
Vitamins 3x/daily
Film viewing/technical reading

Clinics and Camps monthly until Bridger opens.

Obviously, to pull this off, I'd need to be single, independently wealthy and 18!

So the question became, how do I do this? How do I balance my desire to do it to the very best of my ability with the real life situation? I want to be with my kids, take them to their swimming lessons, hang out with them, teach them, hike with them, spend time with my husband, work on my blog (s!), make my art, clean my house, pay my bills...

And the answer, I think, has evolved over the last three months. It used to be that when I "blew it" (ala Trainwrecks)I would get really down on myself. "Come on, Kate, you know how to do this. If you can't commit now, how will you ever make it?" "How bad do you want this? Obviously not enough to get your shit together to get to the gym at 5am every day."

And what has evolved here is the fact that life will happen. And it helps to have a (very) flexible training partner who is just as dedicated as you are (THANKS, LIAT!), and it helps to just keep trying.

There is this old Evian ad that I think I wrote about once before: Every day is a new chance to do something healthy. So I decided that part of my training mantra needs to be that if it doesn't happen today, I'll do everything I can to make it happen tomorrow. Meanwhile (and this is key, here...) I am going to enjoy the curveball that life has thrown me today.

In this last five weeks, this has meant letting it be okay if I go four or five days with NOTHING as far as training, but sticking with what I can and not getting discouraged (This was a MUCH bigger feat than I thought it would be). Cooking good meals anyway, taking vitamins anyway, not letting the lack of exercise snowball into other areas where I was doing well.

This also means allowing myself to eat ice cream occasionally!

This is definitely a work in progress, but it has become interesting as in the last two weeks, suddenly, things have come into balance, time with family, time in training, and I have really learned that everything comes and goes, my ability to make the kinds of food I should be eating, my ability to bring all my vitamins with me, my ability to get on the balnace board twice a day, my ability to get to the gym every day, my ability to remember to stand on one foot while i am doing the dishes, my ability to let go and focus on what is happening now, my dedication to my meditation practice...

and its okay that these things come and go. The trick seems to be KEEPING them coming and going, and in the big picture, it balances out to time in training and time with family. The last two weeks have been a spectacular success in this vein, less time with babysitters, more time in training... lets see if we can keep it up!

And if we can't, lets be patient, and loving and wait for the time when we can start again.

Training Log: July 11: Hike with Tom

So this is only the SECOND hike I've done just Tom and me, which is bizarre, because I feel like I have walked all over South West Montana... odd that we haven't done it together. But that's been the problem, always the problem, it costs $10 an hour for a babysitter, so a five hour hike is $50 plus travel time... so Tom stays home so we can afford for me to work out.

BUT, we do try and get a date in about once or twice a month, and since its been so light, we decided to hike! So Tom did Kirk Hill to Leverich Canyon with me (we figured out that its seven miles) and it was great. What a lovely experience to have three hours just to walk and talk. Ahhhh... (We actually did also have a nice high five that we've been together 10 years and still have stuff to talk about...) We went into town to get sushi after, but hey, 9:45 pm in Bozeman on a Wednesday night... yeah, everything is closed. We went grocery shopping together instead.

We also decided to try and get early morning dates in, (good luck with this one...) the theory being that if the kids don't wake up a hundred times during the night that we could then get up at six, do a little Vipassana sitting, and then have breakfast together before he goes to work.

It was a great theory, but Ethan woke up about five times last night, so not only didn't we get our meditation session in, I actually cancelled a workout! Didn't get Yoga or to do back at the gym today, but, in my new "gentle, loving" mind frame, I am just gonna roll with it, and get back on track tomorrow. Honestly, I think I need a day off anyway. Laying in the hammock with the kids for a bit, and then I think we are oging to hit up Music on Main. Lovely!

The Team Grows

I've started therapy! So excited! I have procured the services of Dr. Marvin Backer, PhD, PA, Hypnotherapist, Psychologist... this should be interesting! I thought and thought about weather to share this stuff on my blog or not, and I decided that whilst my peers read this site, many others do as well, and I'd like to present an honest picture of what it takes to try and break into the elite in a sport.

I had an obstacle to my success, a tendency to sabotage myself when I am close to success, and I want to make sure that I do every thing I can to remove obstacles in my path.

When I first started this endeavor back in March, Shannon and I wrote up a list that looked like this:

Game Plan to the D Team:
1. Define Obstacles and Impediments

(and then we listed them all, for me they were things like: health, age, injury, etc)

2. Remove each obstacle or impediment to clear the path to success.

So as new impediments come to light, my job is to figure out how to remove them, making my path to success easier and easier. In this way, the one or two impediments that I can't remove become less of a factor, as I am stronger in every other sense. For instance, I can't help the fact that I am 36. But I can help how lean, strong, fit, happy, healthy I am. And this reduces the age issue by a significant amount (we hope!!)

So we arrive at the fact that I am tripping myself up, currently using food as a sabotaging element, but sometimes doing other things. I don't want to get close and have this negative behavior stand in my way. Enter Dr. Marvin Backer, PhD.

We are going to begin excavating Kate to figure out why I do the things that don't help. I am so excited!

I asked Michael what he wanted me to come back with in the fall, and he said first and foremost he wanted me healthy.

Healthy, Great Balance, Strong, In Shape. In that order. Healthy has to be in the head, too, so Dr. Backer, welcome to the team, and GOOD LUCK!

Wherein Tranquility Descends

It has been an interesting couple of days. But I have to say that the few days since the fourth of July have been really, just... nice.

We decided not to fight with the kids at night. Getting them to bed is an ordeal of epic proportions, even though we have an established routine. We decided that, hey, its summer. As long as they are behaving, we are going to let them stay up until they fall asleep in the kiddie pool.

Its been great! Liat and I are trying to work out during the day so that I can be home at night, and the night before last, we hung out on the patio, laying in our hammocks, Tom with Bodhi, and me with Ethan, eating popcorn, reading books, staining our chins with cherry juice. Bodhi fell asleep in the hammock with Tom, naked from the pool and covered with a towel. Sigh.

Eating outside, light until 10 pm... its great. Today has been a dream day, which is not how I usually feel when I don't have a babysitter, but we figured it out. The gym I work out at, the Ridge Athletic in Bozeman has a place called Ridge kids, and they have this AMAZING climbing structure there. Unfortunately, every time I have taken my kids there, they have gotten punched, bitten, kicked, or sick. One time, one of the instructors was by herself with 17 kids! So we stopped going.

I had a chat with the general manager of the Ridge about a month ago, and I thought we'd give it a try again and see if anything had changed. Well, there were only 4 kids there, and 2 instructors, so great! The kids had a blast, and I got to go to... wait for it... YOGA!!

YAY FOR THE YOGA!! When I lived in Pasadena, I had a very dedicated yoga practice, at this amazing place called Yoga House and it is one thing I have sorely missed since moving here. I am NOT a fan of Power Yoga, Bikram Yoga, Competative Yoga... I think that Yoga is a very personal experience, all about balance of mind and body and spirit... I think there should be breath involved, and mindfulness, and that your yoga practice is just for you, wherever you are.

That said, its hard to find a place that isn't like "feel the burn!" This morning I was SO excited to have a class taught by this amazing woman with a great understanding of the roots of Yoga, she has a company called Yoga Motion, and has started teaching at the Ridge a couple of days a week. SO happy!

After Yoga, Liat and I did chest (although I am still sore from climbing with Tom yesterday, and almost crippled from our awesome leg workout that evening), I wore my spiffy new kicks to work out, and felt like a superstar.

All finished up by 10:45 in the morning! I was like "Yeah, rockstar mom!" and we all bundled into the car, had a snack, and headed to swimming lessons, where I got to watch Ethan swim across the deep end of the pool for the very first time. (By the way, last night he asked me when it was going to snow, and we got into this discussion about the fact that we'd go skiing in October when it snowed, but Bridger wouldn't open until Christmas, and he was SO sad! He said, "Well, when does Snowbird open?" I couldn't even believe he remembered the name of that place... looks like I've created a monster... COOL!)

The kids earn stars, which they can redeem for things like books and transformers, etc, so it was book week, and we went off to the bookstore, where we had lunch and read for about an hour and a half. Right now, we are waiting for Tom to come home, and our amazing Manny Clay will show up about the same time, and Tom and I will go hike Kirk Hill to Leverich Canyon, and then hopefully go find a place that makes great fish for dinner.

I am sitting here wondering if this is really what life is like. Maybe in some alternate, independently wealthy, totally indulgent universe? No. In my universe. Cool. My message to myself here: keep reaching for balance, Kate!

Why We Shop at Schnee's

Alright, so the horror of Kate's feet got truly traumatizing on our last hike. Virginia and I were heading up to Heather Lake when I realized that I could feel the top of my tibia where it bears the weight of my body. Uh...

And that I could probably describe the shape of the top of the bone... and I thought, you know, i have been hiking in these shoes about 4 months too long...

So I sucked it up and went to Schnees here in Bozeman where I buy all my shoes, and picked out a new pair. I wasn't planning on getting Solomons again, but they just felt the best. I took them up to the counter, and the girl that was helping me looked up my account. She told me that I had bought my old Solomon's less than a year ago, and would I like to use my warranty on them? You mean, I can just bring in the pair I have beat to hell and they will replace them? For free?

Yes, that's exactly what they mean. So now, I have these, and happy feet, and I still have that $100 in my training fund to get to Mt. Hood in August! Thanks, Schnees!!

Training Log: Climbin' with Tom

I neglected to post some training log items: The week before last, Tom and I managed to climb together at lunch again, and again YESTERDAY, so now we have climbed alone together three times!

Its amazing, I really had thought I hated climbing, that I was just so sososososo SO done with it. But it turns out that was because an evil man had stolen our gym from us, and that I was just too heavy and out of shape to climb. And incredibly enough, with all the bosu balance work I've been doing for skiing, my core has gotten stronger than it has ever been, and now I am climbing well!

This is Tom at the Happy Boulders in Bishop, CA, the last time we climbed hard before the gym went nuts and I got pregnant. We had just been on the most amazing trip to Thailand, climbing, swimming, laying in the sun, and dreaming about one day having kids and taking them there.

SO. WE'RE GOIN' BACK! Yes. Yes we are, Tom and I are determined to get back to Thailand with the kids and climb our little hearts out in Railay. I don't think it will happen this year, but 2008-2009 season, we are saving for it.

Guess what? Dreams come TRUE in Montana!!

Okay, other training log items catch up: Last week, Liat and I were in the gym only twice, and we did a hard chest day and a hard back day. We generally don't hit the gym on the weekend, because we are doing some epic hike or bike or whatever.

Today was leg day, and it was PUNISHING! Doing glute exercises always makes me feel like I am going to puke. But hey, my ass is getting hard, so that's what counts, right? ha ha.

We have plans for a 22 miler this weekend for Liat's Birthday, and to try and start swimming the reservoir at the end of the week.

We have to re-tool the slackline in our yard because the forces are too strong, but look for some training to begin on that next week.

That's it for the training log update! Thanks for reading!

Training Log: Good Bye, Virginia

There is this incredible woman I love. Her name is Virginia. She lived with us in California, cared for our kids (to this day when I want to pull my hair out, I still think..."What would Virginia do?". She is this rather luminescent little spark plug, who can chug along at about 4 1/2 miles an hour on a stout hike after a night on the floor at the hospital (she's a nurse who works the night shift).

She moved here to Montana after visiting at Christmas, and lived here for a year, trying to make it work. Alas, the evil reality of student loans loomed large, and she is gone... she drove back to San Francisco yesterday, and Bozeman is a poorer place without her.

This was our final hike together, (Unfortunately, we didn't make it all the way up to heather lake, or even Emerald lake, because I have been a titch crippled lately... more on that later), but we had a good hike.

I'll miss her!

What did you do on the 4th?

Training Log: July 4: Sacajawea Peak

We haven't done this since last year, and it was a blast. Fourth of July morning, Liat and I headed up (kinda late, because we were up playing all night the night before), and trotted up it in the heat.

There were tons of families out, lots and LOTS of kids, the youngest we saw who walked up on his own was FOUR and a HALF! Incredible! What a burly little kid.

A huge mountain goat leaped in front of us while we had our snack on the top (amidst the giant horseflies of doooom), and Alaska, Liat's lovely but VERY dumb 70 lb pit bull decided it was a big white dog and wanted to play, so she chased it about a mile along the rocky ridge where the trail is NOT. We stood there, just completely astounded, hoping the goat would get away, hoping the dog wouldn't fall to her death, not realizing another option was that she'd could be gored.

It all worked out okay, it was a beautiful day, the goat was fine, the dog came back, and we got to scope out the Great One, which I SILL have yet to ski!

All in all, I love this hike, its a beautiful trip, a great distance, you hike through the forest and out into this rocky exposed area with all these amazing little wildflowers, clinging to the dirt between the rocks, with little pats of snow melting away... and up onto the ridge where you get just breathtaking views of Bozeman and, really, everywhere else. It's a busy hike, lots of hello, and excuse me, but its great. Not a hike for seclusion, more a social hike with a great steep push to the summit.

Training Log: In Which We Discover Kate Is Insane (finally!)

Why do I like to hike so much? This one really underlined it for me. Not because you can burn so many calories, try and shorten your time, hike something steep and challenging at a trot, start to learn to trail run, start to extend the time you are running.

Although those are pretty compelling reasons. Not even because I am getting my exercise outside, feeling the sun on my skin, feeling the dirt on my ankles, spotting one BRIGHT red Indian Paintbrush in a field of Monkshood.

Because it makes me take time to connect. With myself, with whoever I am hiking with. Liat and I and Virginia and I spend an enormous amount of time together, all alone, with no distractions. Our hikes are like mini therapy sessions, and usually they are over two hours long, so there is silence, and thought, and truth, and exploration.

During a recent hike, Liat and I were examining my relationship with food, and the difficulties I have been experiencing lately, and we decided that the best idea is for me to get counseling from someone who specializes in eating disorders. This never EVER would have occurred to me if we hadn't been chatting, then thinking, then analyzing what's making me fail, what's keeping me from my goal, what's recurring difficult and frustrating.

Thanks to the fact that I have a strong support system (thanks, guys!)and good, deep trust, brought on in part by hiking 35-50 miles a week with a good friend, we identified a problem that never would have been exposed.

Now, of course, we also talk about how stupid Paris Hilton is, how addicted we are to her champion, Perez Hilton, how lame boys are, how crazy kids are, the movies we've seen, the books we've read, our childhood scars and dreams...and more.

On the flip side of that, we do walking meditation a lot, (which I do almost constantly while I hike alone). This is a great experience, and one I'll post about shortly!

Where in we scream in frustration and go swimming instead...

Hi, everyone! Well, I have about a dozen posts for you, from thoughts on training and staying with it, to a week's worth of training logs and some more gear reveiws. I was taking my time, enjoying the week of the 4th of July, and letting it stack up... and today I sat down to post 'em all... and AARRRRRGGGGHHH!


My lovely and trusted Photobucket added some "functionality" to their site that I missed, and I spent the last four hours banging my head against my desk because my photos werent posting to my blog.

Seriously. Two Red Bulls and a giant coffee later, I still didn't have any progress made and the kids are going "moooooooom I'm Hoooooottttt and I wanna go Swimmmmmmiiiiinnngggg and he took my transformerrrrrrr"

I fixed it. I got it to work. I'm going to the pooooolllll to chilll ooooooouuut before I loose my mind. Stay tuned this weekend, we'll catch up!

Thanks for reading, and hope you had a happy fourth!

Training Log: June 30: I like to Bike with Mike Volume 2

Well, I wish it was true, but...

So I ventured back out on the South Cottonwood trail, despite the traumatizing 22 mile hike of the week previous. It was great! Michael rode his cross bike and I rode my old hard-tail mountain bike. The trail is a great one to learn on, I haven't spent that much time on a mountain bike, but every time I've been out single tracking I've loved it.

I need to learn how to put more weight on my back tire when I am riding up hill, I had to walk a bunch of the hill, but Mike was patient! I need to get out on my bike more, I am just amazed at how out of cycling shape I am!

We took our time going almost out to "the meadows" and then flipped around and rode back to my house, I don't know maybe 10 miles round trip?

The best part was when Mike showed up, he pulls a map out of his car and he's like "Now, Kate. I want to show you this." Ha. Ha. Ha. "This is a map." Ha. Ha. Ha. "They are incredibly useful." Thanks, Michael. Lesson learned. (Gawfaws all around...)

Ask yourself if this is real or not... whaddya think, did I make it across?

Happy Birthday MH!

Thanks for everything you do. Hope you had a great b-day week!