Always Forward

Location: Heber City, UT

Apparently, this new site architecture is not empowering me to update any more often than before. So what’s been going on since I arrived in Utah in mid-September? You might be surprised…

The spring started off rough with the training, but by mid August, I was feeling like I was back in relatively good shape. But Chile, sickness, and the road trip set me back quite a bit to the point where, when I arrived in Utah, I felt like I was starting over again.
This year, many new things have been distracting my attention away from sport and training. But I’ll say they’re pleasant distractions.
I have a car in Utah for the first time, so I’ve been putting it to good use. Thankfully, it gets twice the mileage as my previous vehicle that I had in Vermont, so I haven’t been spending too much on gas or putting too much carbon in the atmosphere. Living here the past several years, off and on, relying upon my bike and a borrowed car for short trips around the Heber Valley definitely kept my carbon footprint infant-sized.

One of the major distractions has been Salt Lake City. Before September, Salt Lake was a place I drove through on my way to and from the airport. I don’t think I actually left the highway and had been in Salt Lake City before this year. Moreover, compared to the rural Heber Valley, the Salt Lake Valley is a monstrous sight. There’s the Kennecott copper mine in the distance, which alone wouldn’t be bad, but combined with its coal power plant and smelters, it spew tons of particulate pollution into the air, making for some really noxious haze in the summertime. It’s also a horrible example of suburban sprawl, something I had enough of growing up in the Twin Cities.

ut since then, I’ve found the downtown and university areas of Salt Lake City to be really interesting. There are lots of great coffee shops, restaurants, and clubs. People are generally pretty liberal, though with a much more pragmatic attitude than what I became somewhat annoyed of in Vermont. The city has decent public transportation, complete with a multi-line light-rail system. I’ve also been spending a lot of time in Park City. A number of old friends have either moved to Utah, or been re-discovered here.
So what have I been doing?

I’m still training. For the two weeks here when it seemed like we were under a permanent cloud of gray, cold rain, I definitely spent more time inside. I’ve kept up a decent shape. Basically, my goal for the races in December is to minimize pain and maximize enjoyment. So I’m going to have fun. And hopefully I will have trained enough that it doesn’t hurt too badly. Oh, I’m well familiar with pain: that which comes from pushing your limits. The kind of pain I’m talking about is the pain of being out of shape. It won’t come to that. Gulp.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with friends. And making new ones. And dating. Oh, dating. Yeah, that’s been a new thing. If you’re an elite athlete, as I was, your experience might have been similar. I had a phobia for kissing, hand-holding, going to bed after 10 PM… hugging was okay. The reason? You could get sick! For a few years, I was sick once a year – and that period was miserable, it was a major crisis. The weird thing is since I started dating in the spring, going to bed at 2 AM, I have been sick twice. I guess that’s a 100 percent increase in sickness per year; but still, I wonder what I missed! Dating has a steep learning curve, wow. I can shoot clean in front of 50,000 screaming German fans, but being next to someone you’re infatuated with – that’s hard! Either way, I guess I’m learning.

Next week, I’ll fly up to Alberta with the National Guard team for the first North American Cup races, then onwards to West Yellowstone, Montana, and Grand Rapids, Minnesota. All this depends upon snow, of course. At the end, I’ll fly to Vermont to pack up the rest of my things into a moving truck and send it to Salt Lake City, where I’m moving into an apartment downtown in January until I move to Boulder in August. After packing, I’ll spend Christmas with my family in New York and return to Utah to move in to aforementioned apartment. I’m planning on teleskiing, writing a book, completing Officer Candidate School in Colorado, and getting an even better feel for Salt Lake City and the other million people I have yet to meet there.

So that’s my update.

Brian

Comments (1)