Although this was my first week back at work after the holiday break, it was a short week for me… stressful! But because there hadn’t been much terrain open at Beaver Creek in December when I first went for training, we were asked to come back for two days of follow up training, focused around levels and terrain progression (i.e., which trails are appropriate for which levels of students and which order should you progress students from one trail to the next).
I drove up to the mountains on on Wednesday night – after my mom’s last day of chemo, hooray!! – and went to bed hoping Thursday would be a better day than Friday. I took one (consulting) work call at 7:30am, then headed to the mountain, but since my work call ran a bit long, I was running late to get to Beaver Creek, which was really stressful! By some miracle, though, I made it to the mountain base on time, and after venting for a moment to my coworkers, I felt a lot better. The day didn’t end up being awesome, but it wasn’t awful either – I would take that!
Friday was steady improvement over Thursday – I woke up well before my alarm, which gave me time to get in a whole stack of Peloton workouts. A 10 minute core class, 10 minute cardio, and 20 minute power yoga. The cardio class with Olivia was particularly fun, and it made me think I really need to start doing these before skiing everyday. So far, so good on my challenge to do ten minutes a day each of core, cardio, strength, and yoga 👍
It was another cold day on the mountain, but after a mid-morning break for hot cocoa and to warm my toes up, I felt a lot better. I have these heated boots, but they stopped working this season, and after two months of working with Salomon (since they are under warranty), I still haven’t been able to get them fixed, which is annoying! I am someone who gets very cold very easily, so I consider heated boots a necessity on the mountain. After all, when I’m teaching, it’s definitely unacceptable for me to tell my students I need a break to warm up!
I learned a lot on Thursday and Friday, both about terrain progression and also some tips for my own skiing. I haven’t actually skied on my own at all yet this year. This is in part because I’ve been using so many days I would ski to either teach or go through training, but also in part because the snow has been pretty bad this year. Even now, the base is only 22″, which is insanely low! (For non-skiers, the base snowpack is usually around 70-80″ in January – which is a huge difference in the rocks / bushes / etc poking up through the snow.)
I was thrilled that I made it home in two hours, without really hitting traffic, and I stopped at the grocery store on the way so I could then just settle in for the night. My mom and I made pizza for dinner, with a plan to watch a movie together, but we ended up arguing with each other while cooking, which ate up the time for a movie. No one said caretaking was easy, but I particularly struggle when my mom is doing something absurd (the chemo does a number on her moods / brain) and I feel like I can’t say anything or complain because, after all, she has cancer. We ended up calling a truce and watching a quick episode of Schitt’s Creek before bed, which at least helped me go to bed feeling reasonably content.
The next morning, I woke up thrilled to be in my own bed with Sadie. Well, I guess my mountain house is my own bed too, but it doesn’t have Sadie Bug! While I am lucky enough to have my mom here to watch her, I am always leaving Sadie in Superior when I go up to the mountains. I figure it’s a better idea to start taking her up to Minturn in the summer, when I can take her hiking and she can get excited about that. Otherwise, it just seems cruel to bring her up there and then leave her alone in the house while I ski!
Unfortunately, while I woke up excited to be with Sadie, I unfortunately woke up far too early – at 4am! I read in bed for a while, and spent a bunch of time browsing social media. Oops! What a waste of time. I haven’t actually set this as a new year’s resolution, per se, but I really want to cut back on the time I spend on social media, and spend more of that time actually reading books (even if they’re light rom coms). I just feel so crappy about myself when I waste time on social media!
In spite of that slow start to the day, I started getting active when I finally came downstairs – making breakfast and then taking Sadie out for a run on the neighborhood trails. I was planning to just do 3.5 miles, but ended up taking an offshoot of my normal route that I’ve always wanted to explore, which ended up adding another mile on to the loop. It had a lot of hills too, but I kind of liked the new challenge!
I kept the run short, thinking I would hit the Peloton bike after I got home, but I ended up skipping that. oops! Instead, I lounged around at home for a bit, then got my butt in gear to go out for a slew of errands. I came home, made lunch, and then took on one more chore at home – giving Sadie a bath.
While we had lunch, Mom and I put on Netflix, and it recommended Jeopardy. I hadn’t seen it in a while, but with the recent news of Alex Trebek’s death, thought it would be nice to watch. Well, Mom and I ended up binge watching it for nearly two hours! There was a bartender from New York named Austin Rogers on, who just kept winning episode after episode. At first, I was impressed, but then he started acting cockier and cockier, and soon I was rooting for him to lose. Unfortunately, the producers kept pairing him with contestants who could barely answer any of the questions (many of them were often in the negative), so I was pretty annoyed. Finally, I put my foot down for us to stop watching, even though he hadn’t lost yet. Hopefully next time!
In the evening, I finally got around to finishing up my workout for the day – a 10 minute arms toning class with Leanne, (can’t recommend this class enough!), 10 minute core class with Becs (also awesome – it was kind of like a “strength for runners” as it incorporated a bit of glutes and stability), and 10 minute yoga flow with Anna (packed a lot in and was definitely more of a full flow than the “focus” classes that make up a lot of the 10 minute yoga offerings). Although I didn’t get to all of that until after 9pm, which was super late when I had gotten up so early, I was glad I had done it!
The next morning, I started my day more on the right foot, with another 10 minute core class. I’m trying to work my way through all the 10 minute core classes in the library, and I’m getting close to finishing – only about 30 more to go (out of 210). I followed that up with Leanne’s 30 minute Broadway ride, which I absolutely loved, and then a 20 minute glutes & legs class with Selena. Along with some Peloton Reddit friends, I’ve been following Selena’s lower body strength challenge for the month of January, and it’s been great to be fully committed to three leg days a week!
While I was working out, I had popped a cranberry orange baked oatmeal into the oven – my first time trying this flavor combo. It came out absolutely awesome, especially topped with my homemade lemon curd – I will definitely make this again!
I knocked out some work emails midday, and then texted my friend Chris to see if she might want to go for a walk, which would help me kill two birds with one stone by also getting Sadie some exercise. It wasn’t quite a run, but it’s always amazing to catch up with Chris, and a walk is better than nothing for Sadie!
In the evening, I threw together some Indian food and coconut rice for dinner, which was really filling. I was just disappointed that I didn’t end up with enough time to knock out more work emails and prep before the new week began. I usually start a new year feeling refreshed and on top of things, but this year (I think particularly because I took Thursday and Friday off work), I feel super behind already – like I’m still playing catch up for 2020. But I keep reminding myself that new year’s resolutions don’t have to start on January 1 – there’s no bad time to get it together! Hopefully this will be the week I feel more ahead of the game with work.