Did you know that your armpit is one of the warmest areas of your body?

Well I headed up to the snow this morning thinking that it would be a GORGEOUS day! The weather down in Arnold was chilly, but clear blue skies. As I drove up the mountain there were definite patches of black...not grey, but BLACK. I pulled into the parking area and got all my equipment together. As the team and I were standing around listening to the announcements it started to snow on us. We were all caught up with how pretty it was....that is until the coldness set in! We were all frozen within minutes. As I looked around people were jumping up and down (pretty hard to do without slipping in skis); others were huddled up close together with the hands stuck in their armpits, trying to warm their hands; still others were slightly jumping in place and blowing what they had hoped would be warm air onto the hands. It was down right COLD.
After the announcements we broke off into our groups. My group is the group that is just starting to learn to skate ski (race style ski). We had drills throughout the whole morning...and when I say drills I mean we would ski for a short while (a very short while) and then stop and stand there to watch what we needed to do next. On any other day it would be have been fine, but we were all concentrating on not freezing that it was hard to do. Not long into doing this I started to not feel so good. I wondered if I had eaten something that wasn't agreeing with me...and as we would be skiing I would start to feel better, but the moment that we cooled off I started to not feel so good again. Meanwhile one of the guys asked a few times, "How do we know if we are hypothermic?" Or "How do we know if we have frostbite?" We all laughed....but it was so cold out there and the storm was intensifying that we were freezing...and it did feel that we were freezing to death.
About an hour and a half into the practice I started to feel so bad that I thought I would pass out. Someone told me that I was as white as the snow...so that is when I decided to get into the warming hut immediately. What is a typical 5 minute ski, took me almost 15 mintues to do. I was so out of it that I was worried that I would pass out in the snow. I finally made it there and the moment I walked in the woman that works there to sell the food ordered me into the bathroom to splash HOT water onto my face (my lips were now frozen) and to keep my hands under the hot water as well. I defrosted fast enough...but I didn't feel warm. I went to sit down and one of my coaches walked in. He noticed that I didn't look too good....so he told, or better put, he ordered me to drink hot fluids to warm up my core tempature. I hate tea, but when they stuck it in front of me I drank as much as I could in order to get the hot fluids in me as fast as possible. As I was concentrating on that, my teammates were coming in and several of them looked as bad as I did.....
We all were taken care of warmed up as best we could. I spent about 2 hours in the warm hut. I couldn't drag myself back out into the cold that soon after getting warmed up. I finally did motivate myself to get moving...The weather cleared up a bit and I was able to get some good skiing in for a good hour, then the storm rolled back in! That is when I called it quits! I was not about to freeze again!
Though to be honest...that was just the start of my troubles......it was snowing so hard at this point that I had to put chains on! And I am a CHAIN VIRGIN! I have never put chains on before and I have never driven a car with chains on....so this drive down the mountain was going to be an interesting one!
One of my teammates actually put my chains on for me and he followed me down the mountain! Wasn't that nice?
Today was a good learning experience for me. What did I learn you might ask yourself....well I learned the following:
1. When standing around in a blizzard wear more layers;
2. Try to not just stand around in a blizzard!;
3. Or maybe just turn around and go home if you see nasty black clouds in the sky;
4. Invest in a 4x4 vehicle!
In all honesty, it was a hard day to get through...but it was great experience b/c what happens if that is exactly what the weather is like in Alaska at the race? I won't be able to give up then.....so if another blizzard rolls while I am practicing I will suck it up and ski the set distance of the day!

Our first, not so great, ski day!

Today was our first team ski practice! I drove up last night and stayed at one of my bother in laws friend's cabin. I love this little cabin! It is so cozy and warm! I arrived first and couldn't reach the key...and when I finally found something to stand on, I thought the key wasn't there...when in reality it was there but just pushed far enough back that my short legs couldn't get me close enough to it! It was freezing and jumping up and down was not working....After about 20 minutes I finally was able to reach the key! I got in, turned on the heater and started unloading my car! The others arrived soon there after and we chatted for a few hours before hitting the sacks!

As soon as the sun came up we were ready to go! I, unfortunately, realized had left my ski boots at my house in San Francisco, so I was definitely going to need to rent some stuff that day. Once I got up to the resort, I saw that there wasn't a lot of snow....so I decided to rent everything b/c I didn't want to ruin my skis.

After our annoucements, we were broke off into groups. My group was for people that have skied before and are comfortable on skis but that wanted to skate ski this year. Because the snow wasn't that great, none of us were going skate ski that day....we were going to perfect our striding abilities. Most of us needed to get our ski legs back...so it was good that it worked out this way.

All and all that day was a good day. I skied a total of just shy of 9 miles that day. The majority of what I skied was after our lunch break. I broke away from the masses with some of the guys and we took off to all the trails that were open that day. We skied through a lot of mud, grass and snow (more mud and grass then snow), but in all honesty I thought it was good that our first ski day had so many obstacles. We would be skiing along just fine then WHAM!, we would hit mud...and for those of you that don't know what happens when you hit mud....you get thrown off balance and more then likely you will fall. Luckily I only fell 2 times that day...but it was a challenge to make sure I was upright for longer then I was on the ground!

I ended up not going back up the next day to ski, mainly b/c the snow was going to be so beat up from us skiing on it. I figured I would give it a few weeks and when we have our next team practice the snow should be better and I will be able to skate ski!

Extending a warm THANK YOU to all that have donated!

Right before Thanksgiving I sent out an email to the executive assistants to some very powerful people at my company. I explained who I was, what I am doing for LLS and if they would be interested in donating to my cause. In all honesty, I wasn't expecting much.....

Much to my surprise, my email had moved several people and they wanted to blast the commercial group nationwide with my request. The emails from people from all over the country started pouring in moments after that. People were moved by what I was doing and they wanted to help me reach my fundraising goals. Then the donations started pouring in afterwards.

The generosity from people in my company, many of which I have never met, has moved me beyond words. Unfortunately, many of the people that donated, had been touched by this disease at least once in their life time. They understand the battle that we are up against more intimately then others.....and because of that they are lending a helping hand.

As many of you know....I want to raise a certain amount of money to help make a difference...but I can't do that alone. You all are helping me make a difference! Thank you to everyone that is supporting me in anyway that you can! Your help and generosity are more valued then you will ever know!

Did you know poison oak has no leaves in winter?

Our second hike was today.....I woke up and SF was beautiful...so I thought I would hike in shorts. If San Francisco was beautiful, Oakland had to be beautiful! Right??????

How much more wrong could I BE? I picked two folks that were driving with me and off we started. As we got closer to the freeway interchange we could see fog...very dense and damp looking fog. I was sure that as we started ascending up the mountain that the fog would be gone....I was wrong! It was getting more dense as we drove up! We finally arrived and I realized "Oh dear Lord, I am going to freeze today!" I got out of the car and immediately started jumping all over the place in order to stay warm!

Did it work?
Nope!
Did I look foolish?
Yep!
Did I care?
Nope!

After a quick role call and name game, we walked down the path, while we played another name game. Once we got to even ground we started stretching, watched a demo on proper poling and then we were all told that poison oak has no leaves in the winter and to watch out! GREAT! Just what I needed to hear...that I have a huge potential to get poison oak. It was everywhere around us where we were stretching....So my game plan was to stay in the middle of the trails and never touch a dog that had been wondering off a leash....a bit crazy, but I know how I get when I get mosquito bites and I sure as heck don't want to experience poison oak at our last hike!

Anyway, the hike started and I broke away from the pack with a few different people. We thought that we would take a different loop back to the car....and boy did we! It was a solid few miles uphill. It was strenuous, and my knee threatened to buckle on me several times (those of you that know me, know that I have a bad knee that I have to be careful of). I kept moving at a solid snail pace...but I made it to the top. It was a bit more difficult then I thought it would be, but I did it.

Today was our last team hike before being in the snow....let's just hope that it snows soon!

Crazy vs. Driven

The question that I am now asking myself is was I crazy last year with my training or was I driven? Sometimes I wonder how the heck I was so full of energy last year with my training. I trained most mornings and the majority of the evenings. How did I do that? Well I guess I could chalk it up to living in the same city that I worked, so my commute was half the time it is now.....Or shall I chalk it up to being down right CRAZY!?

Last year I would get up at 5:30am in order to be at the pool at 6am, would get a mile in, then go home, get ready for work, work a full day, go home and either head back to the pool or I would do another form of cardio...not to mention a few days a week I was strength training. After writing what my routine was last year and rereading it, I now can honestly say that I was CRAZY. I definitely have my Pa's genes in me (for those of you who know me, you know how great that is for me to say and realize).

Already this season I can sense my lackluster to train like I did last year. I am hoping that will change as the season progresses. I have high hopes for myself this season. I want to focus on getting the full technique down for skate skiing....it is substantially harder initially then classic skiing. Learning the balance alone is tough. Along with learning the different ski style, I really would like to go the further distance, but not having the same drive that I did last year to work out as much as I did is a bit disheartening.

I do have a greater number of things happening in my life this year as opposed to last, so I know that my focus isn't solely on training and raising money...as sad as that is....

I keep telling myself...."Once we are in the snow, things will be different..." I just hope that is true. Maybe I am making a mountain out of a mole hill. I just know that I have great plans for myself with this year's team....and I am not about to let life get in the way of me accomplishing them! I just have to figure out a way to make it all work.....I guess we all have that problem though, right? I hope!

Anyway, enough of that....tomorrow is our team's second hike. We are hiking in the hills of Oakland. It should be a good day. Our time hiking has been lengthened....so I am looking forward to a great workout!

I'll let you all know how the hiking goes....here is to hoping that we aren't hiking in the mud (though that might add some entertainment); that the season continues to go well; that we meet our fundraising goal as a team; and that my workout CRAZINESS returns for a second coming! Until next time....!

Similarities between mud and snow!

Hi Everyone! Ski season has started and I am back on the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Team in Traning team. We are again, heading to Anchorage, Alaska to race through the city. This year, I have returned and am a mentor on the team. For those of you who are new to the team in training thing, a mentor is a person that is put in charge of some new folks that might need guidance with setting up their fundraising page, with fundraising in general, who might have questions since this is a new experience for them, etc.

Unfortunately, this season started off with me getting tonsillitis and potential strep throat! I missed the kick off b/c another one of the mentors threatened me with my life if I showed up and infected the whole team....so while everyone got to meet each other, I was sitting on my booty at home, wishing that the god's had been nicer to me. :)

In any case, I got over the tonsillitis and I never had strep...which is great! And the day of our first hike arrived! The whole team met up in San Francisco, for us to hike along the waters edge, under the Golden Gate Bridge and onward. Mike, the other SF mentor, and I arrived with a crash! He road up over the curb.....and that is how I met the 2006-2007 ski team!

The day had called for rain...we all definitely expected it to rain all day long, since it had been raining since the wee hours of the morning. But the heaven's had mercy on us and the sky cleared up! It was a gorgeous day, a great day for a hike. The first 30 minutes or so were spent doing name games and attempting to memorize everyone's names, then we moved into stretches and then the hike began. It was pretty easy in all honesty....that is until we got to the MUD! We were walking up and across a hill when the mud got really bad.....and we all know what happens in mud.....SLIPPING AND SLIDING! Man was I having flashbacks to last season! Several people were a bit freaked out about slipping and all the people from last season pointed out that this is exactly like being on snow for the first time! You are going to fall....and just like mud....it is soft (that is unless you hit ICE...but we didn't mention that part).

Did we convince people that falling is okay? We were successful in giving people the confidence to do this race? I think so....but I guess time will tell!