Moab and other unrelated goings on...

I haven't really been in the blogging mood for the last several months, but for some reason the urge has begun to return.  Perhaps it has something to do with currently doing my Psych rotation; maybe it's the massive amount of introspection and overanalyzing that seems to go hand in hand with that area of medicine, or maybe it's the lack of stimulating activity to be found in Pueblo.  Probably both.  

Anyway...after finishing my trauma surgery rotation last Friday (which was both exhilarating & exhausting), Steve and I packed up the car and headed to Moab, UT for a much needed weekend of relaxation, sleep and good times.  We were tempted to go to Fruita since it's 100 miles closer, but we knew we wanted to go to Moab at some point, so we may as well just do it now.  I slept pretty much the whole way there and we arrived around midnight at the campground where our trusty Trek rep (& friend) Larry was camping with his family.  It was late and we just wanted to sleep, but due to the fact that 20 insane rednecks right next to our tent were living it up on their last night of the 2009 Moab Jeep Safari, we had to sleep in the car.  

The next day we rode the Porcupine trail in the early afternoon and then some other sweet trail in the late afternoon.  I knew the Moab trails were unique and that there were lots of rocks, but I had no idea what the riding would be like or how impressive the slickrock really was.  I rode my new Superfly (this was her maiden voyage) and I felt like it handled the rockiness and severity of terrain quite well for a hardtail.  It obviously wasn't as smooth a ride as the Roscoe, but I felt like it climbed super efficiently and the big wheels carried me over more stuff than I was even confident riding.  We crossed paths with several Jeeps out on the trails and I was extremely impressed by what these people were capable of doing and had the balls to do in their 4x4's.  That night we hung out and roasted marshmellows around a campfire with Larry's fam before heading to our cabin at the hostel (complete with hippie smell) to sleep in a real bed.  

Sunday we decided to ride the Slickrock trail since, afterall, it is what put Moab on the mountain biking map.  The plan was to just do the practice loop to see if we liked it and then decide if we wanted to do the whole thing or move on to another trail.  Well, for better or worse, we ended up doing the whole blasted thing.  It had it's super fun sections for sure, but it also had sections that scared the living crap out of me.  Basically, I'm glad I can say I did it, but I don't need to do it again-ever.  

After surviving the Slickrock trail, we loaded up the car, hit 4 different bike shops in town, and headed to Arches National Park.  We were able to get some really beautiful shots with our camera that Santa brought us.  

We love you Kara! Kara's friends and family have begun a "Click-it for Kara" campaign to encourage people to buckle up. I think this is just about the only way to deal with such a tragedy-turn it into something proactive; much the same as the MADD concept.

The countdown to Boards begins today...10 days till USMLE & 13 till COMLEX.  I can't wait until it's over!!!

Heartbroken

On Sunday Steve's cousin Kara, almost 16, was in a terrible car wreck. She was thrown from the car she was riding in and airlifted to the hospital in Daytona. The only injuries Kara sustained were, unfortunately, to her head. Yesterday Steve flew down to Florida to be with his family and say goodbye to Kara. Her life will continue on through the amazing gift of organ donation. I don't really feel like getting super personal in this blog, but I wanted to ask people to pray for Kara's family and friends as she leaves behind a whole ton of people who love her very much.

Please be careful on the road and buckle up.

Due to the fact that all I do every single day is study for boards, I have nothing the least bit interesting to blog about...so it will be about 3 more weeks before I resume being a normal person again. 

I did race the St. Joe mountain bike race a couple weeks ago (which was super duper fun and my Paragon is the best freaking bike a person could ask for) and I managed to have a really good race even though all I do is sit on my behind and read all day long. I've decided to follow in Dan Larson's training footsteps by expending as little energy as possible throughout the day so that I have everything saved up when I finally do get to ride my bike (I may keep using both sides of my mouth when I talk though). So the St. Joe trails were insanely twisty-turny and my Paragon tore that junk up. I think I made a couple guys who don't like to get beat by girls cry on their way home...how rewarding.

At the moment it is really "raining it's ass off" as Steve just eloquently put it so the Landahl race might be a no-go.

So Steve got a job at Wheat Ridge Cyclery and will be heading out in a couple weeks to find us a place to live (preferably not in the Mexican ghetto-apparently Denver is the capital of Mexican gangs, SWEET). We are totally pumped about the relocation, but sad to leave some good friends here in KC. I will be staying thru most of July and August, and then my 1st rotation starts September 2nd!

Okay, that's the extent of my boring update-ciao.

2 years from today.

This is my ridiculous dog last year on one of his many trips to Mission Med Vet...I think this is the time he got attacked by the mean neighbor dog...what a doofus.

Today is KCUMB graduation and I'm at school pseudo-helping with the event. It's exciting for me to think that my classmates and I will all be back here graduating in exactly 2 years! I found out yesterday that I passed my cumulative exam for 1st & 2nd years so, aside from boards, I'm officially a 3rd year. I've found that in med school it's the small achievements that keep you going. We're continually counting down to the completion of something...it doesn't matter how big or small it is, we need to be able to feel relief from crossing things off the checklist.

So speaking of 3rd year, Steve & I are off to Denver on Thursday to scout out houses & jobs. The trip can also double as a celebration of our 3 year anniversary! I'm super excited to see all the houses that I've been checking out online for the past few weeks, and I'm also just excited to get out of KC for a couple days and think about something other than board exams. We're staying with the Shuldas and I can't wait to finally meet Saige!

The forcast looks perfect for the mountain bike race tomorrow in St. Joe! I'm not quite sure what the course will be like, but it sounds pretty fun. I'm hoping that I can pull out a decent race even though my training has been less than desirable. I did do the Wednesday night hill ride and managed to chase back on enough times to end up with the main group...can that count as a whole week's worth of training?

Czech capital of Kansas.

This past weekend Steve, Jackson and I packed up the mom-mobile and headed west to Wilson Lake, Kansas for the Midwest Fat Tire Festival hosted by Doug Chambers & Golden Belt Bicycle Company. We didn't get to the park until after midnight on Friday and were greeted with 30+mph winds that made setting up a tent very interesting. We got very little sleep due to the constant whipping of the sides of the tent in the wind and Jackson's paranoid neroses, but (irregardless-which is in fact not a real word but all too commonly used by intelligent people as if it is) were excited to be out of Kansas City in a place with fun, dry trails. I did the hill climb on Saturday morning (twice b/c I stuffed up the 1st run) and the short track in the evening with a XC trail preview ride in between.  I was really loving the trails...lots of fairly short climbs, fun fast sweeping descents, random technical spots, longer stretches of  minimally technical trail that you could pedal hard through. 

No other expert women showed up for the weekend, so I was the lone gal on the short track start line with the expert men. They, along with a few sport guys, promptly pulled away from me from the gun, but I was able to slowly get up to and around those few sport guys by the end of their laps and I was obviously the last finisher of the 8 expert laps. I really love short track races because they're fast and intense like a road crit but you probably won't be in a big group of sketchy riders with the risk of unexpectedly smashing your face/body/bike into the asphalt. I love that you get the encouragement of the spectators on each lap vs a XC race where you might see a person or two every 30 minutes or so. It's also cool because you can see things changing in the race and feed off of the suffering of other riders (that sounds bad, I know) whereas in a XC race (which I really do love as well) I have an uncanny ability to convince myself that everyone else is riding strong and steady the whole time.

Saturday night after the races we hung out, roasted smores and got the best sleep we'd had in days. The wind died down to almost nothing and the skies were crystal clear. The next morning we ventured into the town of Wilson (which happens to be the Czech capital of Kansas) for a homecooked breakfast at a local joint called Made from Scratch-yum! 

The XC race began at 11:30 with the expert & sport racers going off together. I ,again the only expert woman, fought my urge to let everyone pass me at the start and I actually headed into the trail in front of some of the guys. I don't know what my deal is, but I hate to feel like I'm holding people up and I spaz out and mess up a bunch when I feel like this, making it worse. Anywho...the race course was gorgeous, the sun was shining and it was warm enough to sweat. I tried to keep myself in race mode even though I was only racing against myself, but many times I found myself just spacing out and enjoying the ride. 

We headed home after the race with our worthless dog who had the most fabulous weekend of his entire life. Great times were had by all and I have decided that I love Kansans.

This is our tent's inaugural adventure and this is Ivy-the smartest 2 y/o in the world who wanted to play house in our tent.

This is Jackson with marshmallow on his lip...and he and Cam breaking the wishbone stick.

XC Race

Curse the Kansas weather...

So this weekend was supposed to be our debut for the MTB season, but alas, it became the 4th race to be cancelled for the year. It seems that most of those that were planning on racing ended up doing a similarly beneficial ride/workout, but Steve & I were super lazy and took a day to relax. I decided that I would go ahead and not study since I had already marked it as a day off on my Boards study schedule. We started out with a Pancake breakfast (I feel that my pancakes are worth bragging about, along with my homemade pizza creations) then took Jackson to Loose Park and threw the frisbee for him all over the park. The day was absolutely beautiful! Jackson has finally learned not to run away from us and he actually brings the frisbee back when we throw it rather than running in the opposite direction. Since Jackson was so good at the park we drove down to the Plaza and stopped at the Three Dog Bakery. The gals that work there always feed Jackson about a million samples and he shows off his good dog behavior-anything for carrot cake & peanut butter cookies. We strolled around the Plaza for a bit and then hit up Smoothie King on the Way home. Later we decided to get our exercise by riding bikes down to the Plaza to have dinner at P.F. Changs because my wonderful dad sent us a gift card. He also sent us a Cold Stone gift card so we got some ice cream to go and rode back home with our ice cream in our bottle cages. I'd say we had a pretty fabulous day even though we didn't get to race. Now it's back to studying...