The sun is staying up longer, and IT IS AWESOME!  I can actually run after work and not fear for my life.  Of course Sunday was the beginning of daylight savings time, which IS EVEN MORE AWESOME!!  It was starting to get pretty easy to get out of bed, so I suppose that will get worse for a while. But its totally worth it. 

So what did I do with my first extra long evening?  Nothing.  It snowed most of the day.  It is still March and we are in Colorado, so its not exactly smooth sailing.  I’m still optomistic though.  So much so that I took off on my bike Sunday morning for 5+hour ride in the foothills.  Are you done laughing?  Sometime during breakfast the forecast changed from ‘snow starting at noon’ to snow starting at 3pm’, So why not give it a try.  I’m sick of the trainer. 

It was cold and overcast and I left the house a little under-dressed.  I quickly put on all of the ‘extra’ clothes I brought with me.  Much better, but nothing left to go to if the weather turned crappy.  My ride had 5 significant climbs, about 10 minutes from the top of the first one (Deer Creek Canyon) it started to snow.  No big deal, I wasn’t wet or cold, it was barely snowing.  5 minutes from the top the precip picked up and turned to those little sand-like ice pellets.  They sting the face a bit, but they actually bounce off you and don’t stick/melt/get you wet, and the road was still dry.  At the top it was getting hard to see, the big wet flakes were back, and the road was no longer dry, anywhere. 

So I turned around and descended.  Normally the best part right?  I’ll just get back down below the snow and it’ll be a cold, but quick ride home, right?  Well, I’m still a little freaked out by going fast on wet, twisty, roads.  And the ice pellets were back.  And I didn’t exactly ride out of the snow, ever, all the way home.  And the snow actually started sticking to the pavement in the canyon.  FUN all the way home.  So much fun in fact, now I need new brake pads.

Why didn’t I ride on Saturday when it was sunny and 50?  Valid question.  Some friends of ours from Neb were out here skiing for their daughters’ spring break.  They stayed with us Wednesday night, then skied Thursday and Friday, we joined them Saturday. 

We had a good time catching up and carving up some greens with the girls.  Michele and I haven’t skied in roughly a year.  It was obvious by how quickly I got tired.  Snowshoeing last weekend kind of torched my ankles, but I didn’t really know how much until I put on my ski boots.  The snow in Summit County has been borderline atrocious, so I haven’t felt like we’re missing anything.  But we did buy four-passes, not exactly a great value if you go once.  We’ll give it another go before closing, I hope.

The work week was what I was hoping it would be.  A few fires got neglected with last weeks big deadline, but they didn’t seem to take long to extinguish.  Things were pretty normal and that generally leads to a solid week of workouts.  Rested Monday, Tues track with TNT, Wed lots of swimming and missed a short ride b/c it snowed, Thursday long hard run on the treadmill = blister, Friday first masters swim in a while, ouch and made up that ride from Weds. 

Now I’m just hoping for a couple more weeks of the same...