Month Without Posting - a good sign for Ridn!

Yes, it has been more than one month since my last blog entry. Work and play have kept me very busy. Work entails customer meetings while winter weather makes them assessable; play has been snowboarding on great snow and trying to keep aerobic fitness up and body weight down.

An excellent opportunity to combine work and play occurred in March when I was able to travel to Reno / Tahoe to attend the Western Dairy Management Conference. I arrived early and left late in order to get three sun-filled days of snowboarding in the Sierra-Nevada's. While snow levels were lowest their in years, at about one-half of the normal amount, nevertheless, the riding was first rate. The first two days were with coworkers Jim and Bennet at Mt. Rose and Squaw Valley. The base was deep and carvable top to bottom - no eastern ice! While there was no western deep powder, it still a blast. The last day I went solo to Northstar and enjoyed the Backside Runs that are steep, yet very rideable as soon as the snow softened.

When I returned we got a St. Paty's day 2-footer that made Killington into the deep powder paradise I was seeking out west. I was able to go on a Saturday morning when the crowds could not get there due to roads being plugged with snow. The entire complex of mountains were left ungroomed and natural, so I finally had the chance to let my Malalo ride on top of loose snow. It was great to ride the bumps when the bumps were soft.

As far as aerobic fitness is concerned, I was only able to get one decent road ride in before the big storm put things on hold again. And that ride was a hand and foot-numbing experience. I finally had to hook the Y-Foil up to the Cyclops and do some indoor training in the back room on the first day of spring - it was 5 degrees outside!

Decision time came this past Saturday. Do I finally get out and ride the bike so I have some fitness for the fast-approaching Battenkill-Rubaix (a 56-mile race on climbing dirt and blacktop roads) OR get in one last day of Killington snowboarding?? Killington won out and it was a great day of attacking the soft bumps on Chute and Bunnybuster. Today (Sunday) will be the road riding day.

Still trying to combine work and play, I found a bike store in Sacramento that rents Trek 1500 / 105-equipped road bikes, so I can try to ride out there when working the first week in April.

It is a great thing to be able to work riding into working and to have the dilemma be which type of riding do I do today?