The CragBaby

Once a year, my work calls a ski day in the winter and a water-ski day in the summer. Today was the Ski Day. I went up to Snowbird, as that is were I have my season pass, and it was a bluebird powder day. The best part was the grayhghost, the Stone-face-killah and Wydysh all had it off work as well. The three of us enjoyed the powder, and the grayhghost (you will never believe this!) snowboarded rather than skied. I actually saw him fall, a sight I have never before witnessed.

A bearded grayhghost. Photo by me.

Me and the StoneFaceKillah on the lift. Photo by me.

Me enjoying the pow of Little Cloud, quite soon after they opened the gate. Hell’s yeah. Photo by Grayhghost.

TB having anything but a good day. Bummer.

Yesterday I volunteered at Ten Thousand Villages. With the cyclical nature of retail, it has been quite slow in the store so it was nice that we were sending out the quarterly newsletter as I stamped a bazillion newsletters while running the register.

Last night as I was leaving, the volunteer coordinator said, “It was great working with you.” I have noticed that every time I leave the store, my fellow workers will state very similar comments and it is such a relief to be leaving a work environment with so much positive energy. The best part is I know they are genuine when they say these comments, and I in return honestly have a great time working with them.

I was thinking about this over the weekend. Can I implement this positive enthusiasm into my career? I think that if I stated such a quote every time I left work for the day, people might starting looking at me like I am crazy. However, perhaps I can implement it in other ways. Perhaps I need to just say ‘thank you’ more often when someone helps me on a project, smile and laugh more in the office (I am usually very serious while at work, which is completely out of my character) and then occasionally tell people, “It was great working with you today.”

It’s funny how simple it sounds, but how rare it is to hear this in the work place. The funniest thing is these little simple things make the biggest difference. After having a long week that included a car accident, this simple statement by the volunteer coordinator at Ten Thousand Villages completely turned my week around. Thank you.

This past weekend I had my first adventure at Ibex. I had Friday and Monday off from work, so used the time off as an extended climbing weekend. I left Friday morning with Grayhghost and the original Crag Baby and rolled into Ibex around Noon.

Over the weekend we did some bouldering, a multipitch route, found a bunch of Fossils, and hung out with #200 lb. Gorilla, Shaft and SP. Good times had by all.

Me working a V5 at Topus. Photo by Grayhghost.

GrayhGhost at the Red Monster. Photo by me.

Grayhghost doing the dyno from a mono. Picture by me.

The best pic of Shaft. Taken by #200 lb. Gorilla.

I am going to try a new training schedule for the upcoming Salt Lake City Half Marathon that consists of only three days of running a week: one strength, one speed and one long run. I openly talk about my goals as once they are out in the world, it is easier to actually make them happen. Running is extremely difficult for me, so perhaps if I put my training schedule out to the world I will be able to more easily jam out my runs.

I am getting a slow start to the training process. The race is two months away, I signed up just last week and then got sick for a week. Due to this fact, I am going to not count the runs I have done in this past week and start fresh with this upcoming week (which means I probably should have skipped out on that 3 miler I did today…. he he he… just kidding).

Here is the gameplan, which I will fill in as I accomplish them (hopefully).

Week 1: (Feb 26 Week)

• A Speed Training of 3 miles – Done on a treadmill at The Front. For being the first run of the training and it speed training, it felt surprising good.
• Strength Training of 3 miles – Done on the roads, running east from my house since there is a slight increase in grade. The run felt ok, but definitely not good.
• Long Run: 5 miles – I need to go out today, but instead I am blogging with my chihuahua on my lap.

Week 2: (March 5 Week)

• A Strength Training Run – Done. I ran to the gym rather than driving. The run felt spectacular and I am still trying to figure out why. I think it was due to the food I had eaten that day and when I had eaten.
• Speed Training run consisting of 3-4 miles each – missed this run. =(
• Long run of 5 miles – Done. Complete this with Ms. Pear. We ran around the neighborhood and did a couple of laps at Liberty Park.

Week 3: (March 12 Week)

• Strength Training run – 3miles around the University of Utah and past Steiners. It felt like a great run.
• Long Run of 7 miles – Ms. Pear and I ran approximately 7+ on the Pipeline trail during the week. It was a fantastic run!
• Speed Training – missed this run because I went out of town over the weekend to climb.

Week 4: (March 19 Week)

• A Strength Training run and Speed Training run consisting of 3-4 miles each, Long Run of 9 miles: missed every single run due to a horrendously busy week at work

Week 5: (March 26 Week)

• A Strength Training run: this run felt anything but good. I ran down to the sugarhouse area and back, equaling about 3.5 miles.
• Speed Training run: this run felt good and I focused on keeping a good pace, but slowing it (rather than walking) upon getting tired. 2.5 miles.
• Long Run of 10 miles: this run felt fantastic. I did some laps around Liberty park, ran down to Sugarhouse and made a loop ending at my house.

Week 6: (April 2 Week)

• A Strength Training run and Speed Training run consisting of 3-4 miles each, Long Run of 13 miles.

Week 7: (April 9 Week)

• A Strength Training run and Speed Training run consisting of 3-4 miles each, Long Run of 10 miles.

Week 8: (April 16 Week)

• Two easy runs consisting of 3 – 4 miles each.
• Long Run: Half Marathon that Saturday, the 21st.

I am looking for running partners as the Crag Baby can only go for about a mile. If anyone is interested, let me know.

I catch myself saving drafts before I ever publish a post. I am scared that my English will be incorrect or that I will state something inaccurately. But I am starting to realize that blogging is like a conversation. I need to speak what I think now, knowing that over time many of my thoughts will change and that it is ok.

I volunteer a couple hours every week. This morning I worked on a Valentine’s project with KCPW and Liberty Heights Fresh that entailed consumers purchasing flowers and chocolates, provided by Liberty Heights Fresh, through KCPW with the profits being given back to the public radio station. I went at 7:45am this morning to drive and deliver flowers, but was instead placed in the refrigerated trailor tying bows on the flower boxes. I worked with three great women and we were able to accomplish quite a bit in the period that I was there.

I started volunteering for the reason that that it would look good on my resume, no joke. Horrible reason, I know, but it is the truth. I now volunteer because I love it. It is easy to believe that there isn’t time to give, but it is amazing how it really is always possible to squeeze in a couple hours during the week. Not only do I feel good when I am done volunteering, but I meet the most amazing people every time I volunteer.

My favorite places to volunteer on a regular basis include:
- KCPW – KCPW is one of the local public radio stations that also broadcasts NPR and the BBC news. This might be my favorite volunteer opportunity as I have met so many great, knowledgeable people through their fundraising projects (pledge drives, Farmer’s Market, Valentine’s Day special with Liberty Heights Fresh). It seems that the people who listen to public radio, like myself, are adamont to keep it alive.
- Ten Thousand Villages – Ten Thousand Villages is a fair trade organizations that pays artisans a fair wage in advance of receiving products. The whole store is ran by volunteers and managed by two full time employees. The products are absolutely fantastic, plus you can know that the artisan was paid fairly.

I am currently working on another project with the Salt Lake Climber’s Alliance which is organizing their main fundraiser climbing comp. This project has been great so far as not only have I met a bunch of people in the outdoor industry, but also because I can support the sport that I so adore.

I heard of another great idea as I listened to a podcast yesterday on Wikipedia. The CEO brought up a good point that everyone who edits or adds information to Wikipedia is essentially a volunteer. I hadn’t even thought of that, but it is completely true. What a great, philanthropic volunteer experience! I think I will look into this next to see if there is any knowledge that I can add.

As many of you have probably noticed, global warming is really starting to take a toll. Just look at New York. Absurdly warm temperatures about a month ago, my friend Charlie had the top down on his convertible, and now upstate New York has 9 feet of snow! We have seen weird weather here in Utah as well as it is now February and we have had hardly any snow. The top of the Cirque at Snowbird is still rocky and there is a sign by one of the chutes that says “rocks!”.

But yesterday warmed my heart. We had been pounded with snow the night before and Sunday conditions were fantastic. I got to the resort at my usual time, around noon’ish, and there were still powder shots, walk on trams and many double black diamond gates were open. I was grinning ear-from-ear while riding through the trees with my friend Wydysh.

After much vacillation, I finally decided to sign up for the Salt Lake city half marathon. Two years ago I ran the Salt Lake marathon (not half) and had one of the best times in my life. The course was, according to serial marathon runners, quite hard but the community support was fantastic as supporters lined the course, including little kids giving the runners high five. It was fantastic. I wanted to do another race, but felt like the training process is hard to fit into my snowboarding and climbing schedule and so have decided to run just a half marathon. A half can actually be enjoyable as 13 miles is do-able; whereas, a marathon starts to get a little agonizing.

So, I signed up for the Salt Lake half. If anyone is interested in joining in, let me know. Party, party, party.