Things to share with you today

The snow is still hanging around here in Colorado Springs…meaning it HAS NOT warmed up for a whole week! But I hear that it is to be expected when you live in Colorado during the winter months! Our run at Bear Creek this morning did not go very well, thanks to the hard-packed/snow/ice slippery mix that covered the trail…especially on the UP HILL part where we ran hill repeats (you know that story about the frog in the well that went up 2 feet and slid back 1…that’s what I felt like today)!
I just got an e-mail from the Head Lifeguard…he says our plane tickets and Australian Visa will be in the mail this week. Training for the events has been going well…along with just getting some extra yardage each week in the pool…I’ve been training with the gates and the manikin. There’s no chance in h*ll for me to train in open water before the trip…so I’ll just have to rely on my 15 years of experience for the ocean races. By-the-way, I think it’s about time I follow this post with another photo from the beach in Lorne, Australia!
Speaking of Open Water, the 2006 date for the Tiburon Mile has been posted as October 1st from Angel Island to Tiburon Harbor. My friend Christine from the race also e-mailed me the other day because she was working on the ’06 event poster. I’ll definitely be going back as the 2004 defending woman’s champion (there was no race in 2005 so I automatically held my title:)! The race is a huge fundraiser for the Special Olympics…in 2004 I donated part of my prize money to the charity…this year I’m going to try and fundraise some before the event. I will keep everyone posted on that because I’ll need all your help to support the Special Olmpics!
This week is a ‘recovery week’ according to my training schedule. So that means that Sunday is completely workout-free. Anyone want to guess what the first thought is in my head when I’ve got a day off? (Keep in mind where I’m living.) (Also remember what I keep saying is all over the ground.) Give up? Its a perfect opportunity to SNOW SKI! Some of my friends at the training center are going to be over at Monarch Mountain all weekend. The main problem: my coach Denny has specifically wrote “focus on recovery today, stay off legs” on my training log for Sunday. Does skiing count as RECOVERY OFF LEGS??? Gosh, I hope so!:)
Grad school is going good for me so far. I’m keeping up with all the chapters we are supposed to read and practice. This week we got our first assignment…it’s called a ‘case study’…and I have to work on it with my Group C partner who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah…amazing what you can do with a bit of technology! Basically, we analyze some data, make some graphs, and write about what the graphs show us about the original data.