Summer

I was planning to do something fun in the mountains this weekend, but too much of the state is on fire.

The lovely sunrises we're having serve as a reminder of the devastation and loss that so much of Colorado is suffering. It's hard to appreciate the aesthetics of the smoky sky when thinking about the people who have lost so much, and how much of our grand green forests have been turned to ash.

So, instead of heading up to go camping or riding in the high country, I chose to spend Saturday morning riding my bike around Chatfield before heading to the pond for a swim.

It was colder than I expected when I started at 5:30am, so I pulled on my tights and sleeves. While the smoke formed a dense curtain across the eastern sky, I could barely smell it, and it presented no detectable breathing hazard around the lake.

Sometimes, I forget to enjoy the exercise experience. I get stuck focusing on pedal cadence, shifting, and watching the road 6 feet in front of my wheel. But on this ride, I decided to not worry so much about my level of effort, and spent some time looking around. In addition to all the pickups hauling boats and the SUVs headed to the dog park, I was also treated to the sight of a few herons gliding low across the morning sky. It was a delightful ride.

I finished the ride and was ready to check in with the COMSA monitor right at 7:30. The pond was calm and serene, and my friends Lisa and Reynold were getting ready to swim across the lake with me.

The water was quite comfortable for non-wetsuited swimming, but Reynold is training for a race where he'll wear the thing, so he wriggled into the neoprene. He was apparently feeling pretty peppy, and maintained a strong pace throughout our journey to the other side and back. My crummy vision and the uniform green of the vegetation made navigation a challenge, so I probably swam an extra 25% farther than I needed to. (Makes me really appreciate races like Horsetooth, where they kayaker does all the sighting for you.)

I worked pretty hard, even throwing in a bit of butterfly here and there. I went home feeling pretty good about the morning's exercise.

On Sunday, I ran Green Mountain before swim practice. I started later than I normally would, so that I could go straight from there over to the pool for swim practice. Bad idea. At that time of the morning, the trail is overrun by mountain bikers, hikers, and dog walkers. I still had a pretty good run, but stopping so many times is something I'd rather avoid. Next time, I'll start at sunrise.

The bad news is that it's obvious I haven't been running enough; my legs are sore this morning. The good news is that despite the hills and rocks, my knees seem to be fine. And as strange as it sounds, the hardest part of my Sunday was getting through swim practice. We did a bunch of hard sprint sets...and those are always excruciating. Intellectually, I accept the fact that there are people who enjoy sprinting -- but I doubt I will ever really understand how that's possible. They're mutants.

Anyway, I had a wonderful weekend, and I hope you did, too. I apologize for not yet providing the answers to the nickname matching quiz, but I will try to get that posted later today. Please check back again, and in the meantime, have a great day!