More Peaks! More Waterfalls!

2014 is more than halfway gone! 

Crazy!

This is also crazy. Crazy AMAZING!

This has been a great year!

One thing I'm obsessed with for the rest of the summer is Peaks. I mean, yeah, I also have a little race to prepare in 6 weeks, but it's only ONE HUNDRED MILES!?!?!

But summitting a mountain... THAT's awesome!

There are SO MANY I haven't yet reached or even attempted the summit!

THAT WILL CHANGE!!!

But this year has been awesome for peak bagging - and I've hit quite a few.

Of course lots of pictures were taken - so here are some of those, starting from the most recent... and there are a bunch missing because I don't want this to be THAT big of an entry.

Hidden Peak: (The ski-warming hut at the top of the peak looks like a nice Doctors office, eh?)

Pfiefferhorn: SO amazing - I want to do all the peaks along this ridge they are amazing!

Sunset Peak:

Grandview Peak:

Lone Peak: The beast of the Wasatch Front Range - I was nearing the summit when I got a text from my beautiful wife Kakes who BROKE HER ANKLE!!!

Gold Ridge: This gorgeous little peak is tucked right behind Bountiful Peak and overlooks Morgan and has a great view of the bowl behind Bountiful Peak!

Timpanogos: The Annual Wasatch Mountain Wranglers Timpependence Day Night run! Awesome to be up there with 60ish of my favorite trail runners!!

Ed's Peak:

Raymond:

Also like always I still love Waterfalls probably about as much as I love Peaks, so here's a few more waterfalls I've visited recently:

I took my three older kids on an adventure to the Farmington Canyon Waterfall - and their courage made me very happy as a father!

And Adams is always a fun waterfall:

Looks like I need more peaks and waterfalls!!

The Struggles of November

I had a pretty epic month in October.

I ran my first 50 mile race in a time that I was more than happy with.

I then ran my fastest 50k race so far on tired legs!

And just two weeks before the 50 miler, I ran another tough 50k where I came in 3rd overall!

Oh, and I ran to the top of a couple of mountains as well!

NOT a bad month at all.

Actually a really fantastic month!

Especially since this didn't happen to me:



I love that picture.

I think my blog needs more pictures of wipeouts. They are unfortunately harder to find than I'd like!!

So anyways. It's November. I feel like BLAH. Part of it is I'm STILL somehow recovering from the Pony Express and Goblin Valley. I'm tired. My head hurts. I think there is some Seasonal Affective Disorder going on as well... which is SAD.

But I've still been able to get out and do some fun things.

I watched the kids while my amazing wife ran the Moab Trail Half Marathon - she did awesome.

And we saw Arches National Park, and I was able to hike/run 6 miles seeing some amazing arches like Landscape Arch, Partition Arch, Navajo Arch, and Double O arc. Definitely somewhere I would like to go back to and maybe put together an adventure 50k!! (I need to modify that route a bit probably...) At only $10 for a week's entry to the park? That is NOT BAD!

Beautiful area! I really hope to go back soon!

After getting back from that awesome family vacation/adventure, I was tired and slightly sick for a few days. That's not fun.

Finally on the next Friday I got out with Matt to hit another peak, Ben Lomond. Even BETTER than that, the day before I found out I had won a GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition in a work Benefits Raffle!
So we had a lot of fun, and I made a video to test it out:




Yeah I am still figuring some stuff out with it.

Ben Lomond was great - even though my watch paused and messed up the total (should be 15ish) a bit.

The next day I went up to the Steed Creek cliffs again with Professor B, the next door neighbor of MVH who is trying to get into trail running more. I was definitely slow after Ben Lomond!

Last week I finally made it back out in the morning for a run up Farmington Canyon with the Newman Group.

It is very nice to run 11 miles in the morning before work!

Friday morning I got up early and drove up to Antelope Island to bag the big peak on that Island - Frary Peak. I went with MVH who had just won the Frary Peak Climb 10k Race the weekend before. It was nice to get him beyond where the race turned around and to the actual peak. With the snow and the rain we took almost twice as long round trip as he took on his race! 7 decent miles on a trail I'll definitely have to do again!

Finally on Saturday I went with my wife up the Steed Creek Trail again - this time up the Hornet Canyon split to a cool little canyon that supposedly has a waterfall when it is runoff season. Of course, we decided to do it in a blizzard! Almost 4 miles. It was very slippery and we had a few slips and falls, my wife came down on her hand a bit hard and we hope nothing serious happened to it - but after 2 days it is already greatly improved. Yikes.

I took my GoPro but haven't had time to finish the video. Hopefully I'll finish that soon and get it up!

While driving out to Antelope Island MVH and I were talking about how there should be a shorts contest for the winter amongst the Wasatch Mountain Wranglers. So I put it out there and had some good response.

Here's my response to the challenges:



Oh yeah! It's ON!

So November. It's just over halfway through and it definitely started with a big BLAH feeling.
Somehow it was awesome too... I mean looking back at this entry and it's been an amazing month so far!

I guess that BLAH feeling is being overcome! The Struggles of November are showing their fruits as some great memories, and dedication to keep on going!

Life is amazing. Live it amazingly!

2013 - Plans and Desires, Wishes and Dreams!

2013 looks to be even more fun than 2012!

And that's saying a lot, because 2012 was an AMAZING year!

Also after writing that Giant review post... I think for my recap at the end of this year I'll just do a "Top 5" or "Top 10" instead of tons of pictures and text for every month.

So what's in store for the year Two-Thousand-Thirteen?

A LIST of course!

PLANNED: things I am FOR SURE doing

• Official Things:
• Buffalo Run 50K in March. And preparing for that.Basically I have to run a lot more than I normally would to prepare. I guess I don't "have" to prepare too much - I mean honestly I am not worried about finishing the 32 miles. My goal for this, and why I need more preparation, is I want to be able to move around the days after the race without TOO much soreness. I don't want to be stuck in bed because I can't move from running over 30 miles!
• Spartan Beast - I have like 16 people on my team already - some of the same people we did Tough Mudder with last fall - and people they have invited. I may try to put together some training times much like Justin and I tried to do. I also probably won't do a 'we stick together the whole time' for this... because I don't want to have to wait for people who haven't prepared! I love obstacle races!
• Unofficial or Non-event Things: 
• Yoga, yoga, yoga! We enrolled my beautiful wife in Yoga teacher training - she starts in March. It will be a bit of a sacrifice for a few months where she will be BUSY and learning - but in the end I'm sure I'll learn a lot too! I'll also continue Yoga classes at work.
• Climb more - at least one time outdoors with somebody experienced! (and with more equipment than me!)
• Bag more Peaks - one possible course I'd like is to make it up to Bountiful Peak from the Davis Creek trail
• More HIIT workouts! Pullups! Backyard Exercises! Utilize my awesome pullup station AND improve on it
• Continued BJJ classes at work.
• Slacklining - I got TWO of these for Christmas - so I'll definitely be doing as much of this as I can!

Desires: These are things I would like to do, but haven't signed up or anything official. Still a good chance of doing! These could be possible!

• Dirty Dash - I LOVE the Dirty Dash. It's not hard - it's just good clean DIRTY fun! With a group, and even better, with a photographer - you can have a BLAST. Like I said - I do love the obstacle races!
• Bairgutsman - I wanted to do this last year - hopefully I'll find a way to do it this year!
• More to come!

Wishes: Things that would be nice, but might not be doable.

• BJJ Gym membership - If we can get our finances are a bit more in order I'd love to add some sort of official BJJ along with the stuff I'm learning with Micah. Maybe even at Unified BJJ where he teaches the kids class.
• Ninja Warrior/Parkour style equipment - I plan on improving my outdoor workout equipment - but I'm not sure I will be able to do THIS type

Dreams:Yes... any of these would be awesome! (unfortunately not that likely!)

• Yoga on a Caribbean Island...
• Try out for American Ninja Warrior
• Buy some land away in the wilderness(ish) and create an ultimate obstacle-course/workout/training/adventure course!

Previous years staples that AREN'T on the Docket:

• Ragnar - there is still a chance this could happen - there are almost always people looking for team members last minute. We'll see what happens but I've already done 4 of these... I'd be okay not doing one this year.
• Yeah that's pretty much it that we did last year that we aren't doing!

Other thoughts:

I've been thinking a lot lately about why I do what I do, fitness-wise. I've said my MAIN goal is to be ABLE to do whatever I feel like doing - and to be CAPABLE enough to ENJOY doing it - not beating myself up too much doing what should be FUN. That definitely hasn't changed.

Secondary to that is for Aesthetics. I'll admit I am plenty narcissistic. I want to look a certain way - and I know what I DON'T want to look like.
I admire Tony Krupicka and his abilities - but I don't want to look like him.

Anyway... This year will definitely be great!

BJJ Cross Body Escapes!

Writing down what I learn in Jiu-Jitsu helps me remember techniques a LOT better. 

The other day I read this intriguing blog entry on The Jiu-Jitsu Vortex, a new BJJ blog I'm following, about keeping a BJJ notebook and thought it was a good idea that I've kind of already am doing by recording it here on TFAOWLB.  (Now THAT's a spiffy acronym! I should us it more often. However, I should also use the word 'spiffy' less often.)

I know I miss stuff in trying to remember this - So I try to send it to the guys I train with as well and get their feedback before I'm finished here. If I ever get more serious, like actually paying for a BJJ gym membership somewhere (I'm SO lucky to get what I'm getting!) I think I will definitely implement an actual moleskin or something - practice drawing some too! However typing it up and looking for Videos of the relevant techniques has also been really useful.

Tuesday we went over escapes from cross-body, a quite unpleasant position to be in:

1. Trap their outer arm, thread YOUR inner arm under and through and grab as high on their back as possible. Swing legs towards their body/legs, then swing back the other way to create force and slip out to try to take their back. This is pretty much the movement - but you can do it without the BRahttitude and Heavy Metal. Although practicing the finishes like that could be very good!
2. Pop hips/Bridge up to get them to push down, then sweep them over the opposite way - kind of like this.
3. Start movement 2 above, if they sprawl , step the legs out 2-3 times then flip to your front keeping your neck and arms up to control their hips, so they are putting pressure on your upper back with their chest. In this position if you let them flip around they’d have your back – but this is before they can do that
4. From the opponent sprawled position one arm posts, the opposite leg posts up, and then throw the non-posted arm’s elbow up and around to drop them on their face, then take their back or whatever
5. From them sprawled again grab their leg, scoot it out, then pull the knee and take them backwards onto their back
6. From the Sprawl, if they try to flip around to take your back sit into them and put them in to Guard - OR do something more advantageous from there that I can’t remember at the moment!

I was actually able to succesfully execute #1 multiple times against the Kung Fu guy who has been training with us. I actually ended up submitting him with the same leglock I got him in a few weeks ago - gotta remind him NOT to cross his legs when hooking somebody's back. Then again - I should NOT have allowed him to get my back like that so easily sheesh!
I was lucky.
But I AM still improving - I hope that doesn't stop! Continuous Education in the art of BJJ sounds good to me!

Getting Stronger!

Getting stronger is great. No I'm not really talking about the Rocky Training montage although that's pretty great too... But I mean really feeling like there is improvement and growth in many areas of fitness.

It's fantastic!

Yesterday while waiting to start Crossfit I looked at the Incline Bench Machine and the weight was set to 235 lbs. I figured I'd give it a shot just for fun, and it was EASY. 3 reps and I didn't do more just because I was talking to some people. Now I'm not saying I can bench 235 - I have no idea. I haven't bench pressed in years due to a recurring shoulder issue and last time I did it was 180 or so. Still - I don't think I could have done the machine at 235.

Then Crossfit yesterday was tough - but not TOO tough, and even though I'm sore today, I think I was more capable in completing the workout than I have been.

Sweet!

This morning I met up with some Mudder team mates (one other guy showed up so it wasn't just Justin and I!) and we did the same relay workout we did back in August. With 3 people we did it a total of 4 times each so everybody got a fair turn. It was a COLD morning but it warmed up once the sun came up. One more week until we get to be up at a similar time, hopefully a bit warmer, and starting into our 10 mile Tough Mudder adventure!

If you haven't noticed, I'm quite excited!

I won't recap the workout - it was basically the same as last time with only a couple differences. If you really want to see you can check out my entry on Fitocracy.

I got a couple pictures of me doing the Sled Pull and Tire Slams too!