Ooooh, the Pain!

Everything hurts. Literally, everything hurts. Including my toes, which rarely hurt. But here I sit, in pain from head to toe. It doesn't hurt so much when I'm not moving, it's when I have to get up out of a chair or lift my arms that causes a groan response.

What caused this pain, you ask? Well, in all my infinite wisdom I decided that yesterday I wanted to learn how to snowboard. So I dropped Glen off at work for the day and up Mt. Washington I drove, bent on taking a lesson. I rented a pair of boots, a board, and got myself a "discover snowboarding" lesson. So I get to the lesson, and one of the instructors is younger than me. The other one is an older fellow named Ken, who reminded me almost too much of Dave from the tri-ice a thon. You remember Dave. Crack those walnuts! Well this guy was just like that. Without the walnuts bit.

So they started out by teaching us the basics, like how to walk around with one foot attatched to the board and the other free. Simple in theory, except that the attatched foot gets torqued at very unpleasant and sometimes painful angles while moving in this postion. But don't worry, that's normal. That's right, the pain is normal. Disturbing, I know. Next they went through how to gracefully get off the charilift without falling flat on your face. I swore I would never get it, but once they showed us how it wasn't really that hard. Four times yeaterday I got off the chairlift without falling. Four times! I feel like I should get a medal just for that.

So next came the hard part, standing up. Hard part, you ask with skepticism? Yes. Because the the damn board MOVES while you're trying to stand up. Do you know how hard it is to stand up when your feet keep slipping out from under you? Pretty damn hard. But it turns out, if you use your hand to grab the front of your board and wedge your fingers underneath, it makes it a lot easier to get up. This is, of course, from the sitting position. It's much easier to get up from being down on your knees, 'cause all you have to do is stick your butt gracefully in the air and lift your body up. Not nearly as hard as the gynastics you need to stand up while facing down the hill.

Next comes edging, which is basically slipping down the hill on the edge of your board. This requires a decent amount of balance, but it can be done. Both forwards and backwards. With a little practice I could even go back and forth across the hill. So now all I have to do is learn how to switch from forward to backward and back again. Which isn't so hard on flatter hills, but when you point the board straight down to turn on a steeper hill, you get going pretty damn fast! Which then, of course, means you bail onto either your knees or your butt to stop, rather than just digging the edge of your board in. Did I mention I'm a beginner? So you fall on your butt, but rather than trying to get up facing forwards and needing to do the now painful gymnastics move on a steeper hill, you flip yourself over. Not an easy task when you consider your feet are fixed to the board and you need to flip the whole apparatus over. So you do this wonderful graceful move where you fling one leg over the other and whip the board up into the air so you can start on your knees. Then you lift your arse gracefully in the air, push yourself up and away you go again.

One of the principles of this sport is that you need to hold you arms up to about shoulder level to steer well. So the whole day you're holding your arms up. Let me tell you you'll feel it the next day. And all the moves required to get standing, stay standing, or turn around requires the use of many, many muscle groups. If you ever wonder why most snowboarders are so ripped, try it. You'll understand. A few more days and I'd probably have washboard abs. Another nice thing is that if you fall backwards and you're facing up the hill, you fall hard. It's not just ass meeting ground, it whole body meeting gound after a few seconds of free fall backards. Luckily I only managed to wind myself once this way. And I'm glad it was only once. I believe this particular problem is the reason snowboarders wear helmets. Next time I will be renting a helmet.

So now here I sit, in utter pain every time I need to bring the coffee cup to my mouth, and groaning every time I stand up. But it was totally worth it.

Ever been biking in gale force winds?

So the snow has finally almost completely melted, so I'm back to biking to work and the gym again. And let me tell you, a week of a treadmill to a running junkie like me is pure torture, so I'm glad the snow is finally gone. Though looking out the window right now depresses me a little, since it's now snowing again, and I heard it's supposed to keep going for a day or so. Super.

Anyway, so Monday and Tuesday this week we had really strong winds and rain from two separate storms. Our power went out Tuesday night sometime because of it, too. Actually, because of trees that have blown over and such, a lot of people on the island have been without power for about a week. But anyways, back to my story. So on Monday I decided that even though it was sprinkling a little, I would ride my bike to work, so that when I went to the gym after work it wouldn't take me a long to get home as if I walked.

As the day progressed the weather decided to get worse and worse. The wind got stronger, and it rained harder and harder. Probably one of the reasons Monday was such a nice day in the lab. No one wanted to leave their house to go out and do anything. So finally, 3 o'clock arrives and the wind is the strongest it's been all day. But I decide, since I'm a brave Albertan, that it's just wind, I'm going to the gym anyways. So I change into my pants and away I go. Well, my pants were still damp from getting to work in the morning, but I only had to get to the gym, so I figured I'd stick it out. I couldn't go my normal route, since they had it blocked by danger tape from several fallen trees, but still I headed for the gym. I made it most of the way to the gym all right, but when I got to the top of the hill the wind was so strong I had to get off my bike and walk the rest of the way.

I've been in my share of windy situations, but this was completely insane. The wind was so strong I had to lean on my bike and hold it against the ground so it didn't blow away. I could barely stand, not to mention walk. I stood waiting for the light to change and I swear I thought I might just blow away. For those of you who were there, it was Skyline Ridge wind times 10. And the rain came at my face so hard it almost hurt. Yeah, I called Glen to come pick me up after I was done at the gym.

I didn't know wind could get that strong. I was wrong. So next time I hear that a storm's bringing gale force winds, I think I'll just go home instead of to the gym.