I love my health insurance

April 1st I improved my health insurance situation by receiving benefits thru my employer, better than what I had. I've had some nagging physical issues in regard to my body and riding, musculature issues, specifically my lower right back and hip get so tight it hurts, especially after a ride and my lower back can hurt during a ride too if it's rigorous enough. I wasn't sure what this was all about but just dealt with it as part of the deal, I'm not getting any younger, right? I've been doing stretches, etc to help but it only feels good at the time and doesn't help long term. So I used my lovely health insurance and headed over to The Boulder Center for Sports Medicine to get evaluated and I'm so glad I did. For a very affordable $25.00 copay the nice doctor looked at my shoulder that I injured in March and he gave me strengthening exercises and elastic bands for that and he did one x-ray of my pelvis area to check things out after examining me. Turns out my right leg is 11mm shorter than my left, 17mm if you measure from the top of the pelvis, apparently anything over 6mm is considered significant and can over time impact your body in a negative way, like lower back and hip discomfort. So to make a long story short and I so wish I had a image of my xray to post here, we're going to use my health insurance to correct things.

• I will begin some physical therapy to correct the damage that has already occured and strengthen the effected area.

• I will get a fancy little shim to put in my shoe

• And best of all I will get a professional medical bike fit so that I'm not compensating with my right leg as much and I can find out if the fit and geometry of my BLT is good for my body type and going forward what type of frame and geometry would work best. All for a affordable $25.00 copay, how sweet is that since the bike fit alone is close to $600.00 if they use their imaging machines. Yahoo!

So needless to say I'm pretty stoked to have figured this out and that I can do something about it and not go broke in the meantime. On another positive note Craig and I are heading to Salida area this evening for a long weekend of riding, camping and some fly fishing for Craig. We're bringing the dogs and meeting some friends out there and it's gonna kick ass! The weather has turned lovely as well and everything is super green right now, maybe we'll even take a dip in the Cottonwood Hot Springs. Time to get a little dirty!

Tributary to Arkansas River with Collegiate Peaks in the distance

Getting Your Sogg On!

Guess what, we had a wet weekend, all three days, wet! What can you do if you still want to get out, you grab your Gore-Tex jacket and head out. I don't think I've used my Gore-Tex jacket this much ever before. It totally feels like you're in the NW lately, all soggy and wet with slippery roots and rocks, cold and tired by the end of the ride but still happy to have gotten out.
Sunday we rode up high with Craig's brother Randy and my friend Kim, we decided to ride the South Mag trails up to the Tennessee Mtn Hut but we didn't make it quite that far due to rain, hail, thunder, lighting, dropping tempertures and snow drifts every 20 feet or so. I took a few pics from that day but they turned out pretty blurry. Monday, Memorial Day, dawned with some sun but that quickly went away and turned to over cast with the promise of more sogg, oh well. So Craig and I headed over to Jamestown to ride up Ward St and hit some good trails up higher. As we climbed, and it is all climbing to begin with, we had two raging creek portages, sketchy, some more rain and hail and thunder, but it was lovely in its own wet way. The wettest ride by far this season and I was cold when we finally got back to the truck. I've also been demoing a Trek Remedy 9 over the weekend thanks to Kim and Dan and that has been fun, what a wonderfully balanced bike, it climbs and tracks really well for 6" travel bike and it bombs down without much thought to anything that may get in it's way. I'm planning on demoing a few different bikes as I try to figure out what I want to get to replace the BLT.

Me and the Remedy, I was having a good time, just a little cold and wet.

Craig and the quagmire, it was sloooppppy out there today, but kinda fun for inner swine child.

Tasty, lovely and quiet BC singletrack.

I think I'm sticking my tongue out, nice..

The stream broke its banks and was running down the middle of the trail, we portaged around it to the left. This usually happens to this stream each spring, it was raging though.

Mandatory dirty ass shot.

My lovely muddy legs...

Watch out Remedy this guy looks a little shifty to me!

Snoozing...or not...

Art by Betsy Walton

I ride during the week, sometimes in the evening with friends after work. I've always done this and enjoyed it immensely once Summer arrives but lately when I've been riding, usually on the later rides starting about 6PM, I get home kinda late and I'm tired from the ride but feeling fine. I eat a little, hang out and wind down and then go to bed. However I can't seem to get to sleep and when I do I wake up a lot. I don't know what's up with this, it doesn't seem to happen when I ride earlier in the day or on weekends, just these late evening rides. It's annoying to say the least but I don't know what to do except deal with it, I don't want to give up my evening summer rides. I've noticed sometimes and not all the time, that when I get very tired physically I can't rest or get to sleep, my mind seems to be still amped up though my body is tired, so it's a mix of mental and physical. I wonder if anyone else suffers from this, I know it can happen to Craig once in awhile too. Sleep is so important to me but as I've gotten older I've noticed it's not always as reliable as it used to be, just something that you have to deal with I suppose.

Workin It

Me and the Art in my Booth at the Art Fair

This past weekend was my second art show of the season, Boulder Open Studios Art Fair in Boulder, CO. An easy, small show to do with very little expense since it's local, just what the business plan ordered so to speak. The weather was great for the most part, started off chilly and cloudy and ended very warm and sunny. Many of my friends came by to say hi or help out, this made my days more enjoyable and less tedious than they can be. I made some solid sales for it being a small and new show in Boulder and now I can relax, focus on some other things, as my next show isn't until July and that one is local too. I'm feeling pretty good, though each night I was way tired from being on my feet and being mentally ON all day. I love to do my art, I appreciate that I have people who want to purchase my work even in these hard economic times, I send much gratitude to those people. Sometimes it's hard to part with certain pieces but in the end it's a good lesson in letting go and moving on.

Mother's Day at PW

Emma and Me on PW.

Mother's Day is a bittersweet day for me as all the good and wonderful memories I have of my Mom get mixed with how much I miss her. The bush I planted for her last summer has come back and is sprouting its little leaves and I placed a nice lump of good chocolate out for her, she loved sweets. The day was foggy, cool and wet but not actually raining so we decided to go for a long and lovely ride up at PW with Emma, Sam, Jimmijames and Randy. The trail was in ultra tacky condition which made for excellent traction but the rocks, which there are a lot of at PW, were sketchy and slippery, a good challange. There was a bit of snow on the ground on the upper western loop which was a little unreal since it's May already but it was a good time and nice to be out in the wet with some lovely friends, Emma was the token Mom today, but she got a hall pass to come out and play!

There was a little snow up there from overnight.

Spring

I could see on my NOBO ride today how all of the moisture we've gotten lately has made everything really green. Spring really feels like it's here, we're just getting rain now instead of snow and the trees and plants are really popping. The foothills are taking on their fluorescent green that they have this time of year before the summer heat turns them brown. Up at the house a bit higher in elevation the snow is all but gone, things are nice and tacky and the trees have their buds and the bulbs are pushing up. I've started to do some gardening, cutting things back, getting ready for new growth and planting of seeds. The hummingbirds are using the feeders and we have some chickadees nesting in one of our bird houses, I'm still waiting for the wrens to show up.

A small jump in the fantasy bike park

Our back yard bike park is ready to be ridden mostly, we have some new bridges to put into place but the snow is gone and the sun is hitting the yard until almost 7PM so that means warmth, the evenings and nights are still very cool. I think in another few weeks we'll have to have a BBQ, invite friends up for some riding from the house and then some play time in the fantasy bike park. My local backside trails should be mostly clear by now and I plan to start riding them regularly from the house in the afternoon, transitioning from lower rides to higher ones. This weekend even looks promising with no chance as of yet for wet weather, which means working out in the yard, being able to hang laundry on the line and getting some projects under way.

Acceptance

Artwork by Jenny Mendes

It being Spring and the end of the week it is now raining lightly again in Colorado where I'm at. One of those days that makes you want to curl up in bed with a book or good magazine and doze all day long. Then get up, put some comfy clothes on and make a yummy pot of leek and mushroom risotto, my all time comfort food. It's DF and GF, so it's easy on the tummy as well as the taste buds!
I've been thinking and working with one of my various challenges lately, Acceptance. My ability or lack of ability to accept things as they are now and get on with it, not always trying to fix or change the situation. It seems to me that once I accept things as they are, the resistance goes down and things tend to work out nicely. But acceptance isn't an easy thing for me sometimes. I'm not talking about accepting things that aren't good for you, things that are in your power to change for the better. I'm mostly talking about accepting those things or people that aren't in your control, not investing so much of my energy in things that really have nothing to do with me.

Photo by JenniPenni

My riding funk may be unwinding a bit for me, possibly because I'm accepting where I'm at right now in regard to physical and mental fitness. Accepting and not giving a damn (well, mostly not) if I don't clear something or if I'm slower, tired or whatever. This is what I've got to work with right now so how best can I do that so I'm not so damn hard on myself about silly things.
Did some great rides in the last week. Rode last Sunday with the Sports Garage Cycling Group, mainly because Jimijames was riding and invited us a long and we hadn't seen him in awhile and it was an earlier in the day ride meaning better weather. We rode from Heil to Lyons and back, about 20 miles. Then some Nobo riding with myself and then on Wednesday a ride with Emma, Jimijames and Sam. Emma is riding exceptionally fast these days, she's got some strong mojo right now, and it's all I can do to keep her in sight if that. Thursday I did my first ride with the BMA Gurlz ride at Hall, Hall two days in a row really works my legs. I'm not big on large group rides for various reasons but it was fun, especially since I was riding with some ladies I don't get to ride with too often, Kim, Jen, Tracy and Paige as well as Cynthia. I've been feeling a need to connect with women, strong women, to have that chemistry in my life that only women can create among themselves, talk about the stuff that guys just don't get nor probably never will. I've never been accused of being a girly girl but sometimes you just need the energy of you own kind. It's women thing, ya know.
They're calling for rain tomorrow, which will make being in the studio glazing easier, I have a lot to do in there with my upcoming show, Boulder Open Studios Art Fair, in Boulder on the 16th and 17th of May. Of course the rain will help all the plants grow that are in the yard, I bought my pansies the other day too, a tradition in my family of Spring.
Sunday I think a ride will be in order hopefully with some lovely friends.