morning...

woke up early, so thought i'd polish off a post... and post.... no, that doesn't mean, 'add caps.'

relatively good news on the knee... pretty clearly a 'tracking issue' thing with the patella... from shreding the nar nar pow pow (translation, i am a clumsy and oafish skier who probably is not aided by impending issues of age. luckily i have a medic alert bracelet. unfortunately, i am this close to constantly screaming profanities into the thing, collecting cats, driving a golf cart...)

seems fine. i might should modify the squats... and stuff... but they are just so fun... if it continues to improve, i'll not make modifications...

for those of you who just skipped my long whinefest... welcome, to ultimate stuff w/ me. so nice to see you...

i'm still waiting on the ultimate podcast 3. i showed up late for the broadcast, so i may or may not be included (whatever 'technical difficulties means'... i'm thinking it means the same thing that that call from doc meant the first time i got cut by sockeye... yeah... anyway...we're making a few changes around here...

that's a story for another day... this week, where were we...shit. been a week and a half, no two weeks. well, last week was my defacto rest week... no ski sunday, weights monday, tuesday cancelled due to to much snow (i know, i know), wed, weights, thursday, a preposterously easy ski...

this past saturday was an 18 k ski, the last half of a ski marathon... a couple kids did the race, we took most of the team on a tour to cheer and ski... it was fun...

last year, rich gross (head coach, former us team biathlete) and i skied the course on sunday (after saturday's race...) the conditions were horrible... warm on saturday, it had refrozen for sunday... the course is a screaming down hill, followed by a fairly easy up and down... but at the start of the screming downhill, we run into womens 2nd place finisher muffy roy, (mom, coach, and once top 10 in 3 different sports in canada... biking... skiin... and i THINK 800 m running) who has just skied up the course (point being, shes a stud. frisbee players, not so much)... this year, totally different... so much snow the grooming was just OK (for the occasional reader who knows or cares i.e. pbowen) for my stiff flex fischer 610's... oh, and she was robbed of the first place by a bad start by the starter (i witnessed) that put her in bad position for the jockey for the 3 mile screamin' down hill... why do i ramble on about these folks? well, the son, a 15 year old clocked a 16:20 this year, sis was top 8 in xc running for 4 years, number 1 in skiing, and dad coaches world cup snowboard racers... and i'm worried about finding a fall team...

finished the ski in good time, w/ plenty of breaks to gtfootw, and cheer... and wait for the rest of the ski team... mellow eve... but woke up after a few beers with a mild headache... what i initially thought was some weird alcohol induced head ache turned very VERY quickly into a floor writhing agony of something... hectoritis? head in a vise... front and back... couldn't move... spent all day, instead of going for the planned 12 k, flopping around on the living room floor... called in for a sub for monday... as it turned out, I MIGHT have rallyed for monday, but i just slept all day....

today, did some pointless drills with the kids... and a quick 8k in like... oh... 30 minutes... equivalent to, in running, at least in terms of effort... to say... 4.5 miles at medium pace... say, 7:40... (i.e., the times don't always match)... then 30 minutes of capture the flag w/ cross town rival redmond...

highlight: after a quick schooling by their head coach, local ski star (our 50 y.o. olympian was not there to humble him), i traded team jackets with one of their kids... in falling light, we did our best stratego spy impersonations... no, didn't necessarily affect the outcome... but pretty sweet... as I drew a crowd trying to catch the swing... in my mismatched jersey... micah (true captain... classic, work hard get good guy) catches the option... as i'm flailing 3 opponents to the ground, this kid makes the hottest athletic move of his life... dodging right to avoid the tag... LEAPS over me, (I MEAN BARREL JUMPS) as the 3 redmond kids crash (on to me) skates left, and dishes to tim (the olympians kid). tim, chronic underacheiver (his dad didn't make the national team until his 30's) skates left, jams up on to a snow bank... skates the bank over the oppositions outstretched hands... jumps down (this is no bull shit, between micah and tim, it looked like a tony hawk video, w/ me as the barrel) darts right and scores the winnah!

well, it's not about me, but hell, kids grew up on skis...

OK, you made it this far, you deserve some ultimate talk...

1) for real... come to the 5th fastest growing community in america for some frisbee...
2)first hs practice yesterday... went well
total time: 2 hrs. 3:15-5:15. solid warmup with running/stretching/running/plyos, 3 drills (swing/goto/dutchbox), mini, then 6 on 6.

thursday... 4 x 4 min intervals, hard... not SUPER hard, but brisk... didn't have heart rate monitor on. today... weights, frisbee.... tommorrow, skate, sunday, classic, and pm frisbee, if the snow is not as bad as projected....

luke