An Open House...and a package (thank goodness)

So today was our third day of work at our new school, Gypsum Creek Middle School (GCMS). We had no meetings planned (except for a short one here or there for special groups) and had the whole day to work in our classrooms...and boy, did we need that time! Tonight was Open House, so things had to be put together for parents and students to walk around and all. It took all day, and eventually some things were made in to neat piles that we will have to finish over the weekend, but the rooms looked good overall. Open House went well. It's a much smaller event than we're used to (consider 340 or so in the entire school for grades 6-8, as opposed to the 1000+ Natalie is used to). Things went well as we introduced ourselves with our grade level teams and discussed policies for the year. We're really looking forward to the conference/workshop we have the next two days, the long weekend to get lots of work done in our classrooms, and the first day on Tuesday. It will be so exciting!

Side note: gotta give a huge shout out to Meghan. To make a long story short (or maybe not), the bank didn't get our letter to close the accounts and forward our money. So they agreed to let us email a request to close the accounts and allow Meghan to pick up our existing money (in the form of cashier check). She agreed to pick up the money and then run to the post office to over-night us the money so that we could have it in time to pay rent. "That's what friends are for..." Thanks Meghan!

Also, not sure it has previously been mentioned, but the road in front of our house that was being torn out and redone is finally completed. Hallelujah! The dust will no longer fly through our windows at such a fast rate :-)

First Day

Today was our first day that all teachers were required to report. We met with the whole staff (like 30 teachers) until noon, then had the afternoon to work in our rooms. And boy oh boy, is there work to be done in our rooms. We have open house on Wednesday, so the room just has to be looking nice by then, but I will not even be close to being ready for the start of the school year by then, but with some work over the weekend, when all my friends are racing at Gateway Cup, I should be ready to go for the Tuesday after Labor Day.

We met with the whole staff tonight at the principal's house for a post-first day party. So we met Jeff from Michigan (first year teacher) and rode our bikes the mile and a half up the hill. We had some wonderful BBQ and some good microbrews. It was nice to finally meet all the staff in a social situation. Then Deb (LA teacher) brought a cake and we celebrated Natalie's #31 birthday. We sang Happy Birthday to her and she received the game Cribbage as a gift. (If anybody knows how to play this, let us know please....) It was really a cool time, and I think it helped her deal with having to celebrate her birthday without any of her friends from IL. She had a huge smile as we sang Happy Birthday, and then blew out her candles. I will try to get a picture up soon. Overall, a very good night! Looks like we have plenty of people that we have things in common with and will get along great with the staff at school!

FAC

We are now officially members of the Vail FAC - Friday Afternoon Club. We had decided to "join" - aka attend - this club last week; after weather prohibited us from joining FAC last Friday, we had our hearts set on joining today after our new teacher meeting.


(Side note: the meeting was fine, got lots of good ideas, met two other new teachers from our building and are rip-roaring-ready-to-go for Monday out at Gypsum Creek). Anyway, what is FAC??? and why would you care to attend???

FAC is held all around out here, almost every restaurant has one...but the particular event we attended was at Vail. After 4 p.m. on Fridays, you can ride the gondola up Vail mountain for free. When you get to the top you have lots of options: go hiking, get cheap food and drinks, play sand volleyball, play bocceball, play disc golf, just sit and watch people, listen to a band, and so on and so forth.





It was awesome - and by the looks of the size of the crowd, we aren't the only people who think so! Tonight was a beautiful night on the mountain, a perfect setting for relaxing and enjoying the scenery. We took some pictures of ourselves and had a few strangers help out too. Enjoy the views!

Group ride and new teacher training

Last night was the Wednesday night group mountain bike ride. I felt really good, I was keeping up really good, I was passing people on the climbs, by far felt better than any other night! On the first downhill/rolling section I lost my line and my front wheel slipped off the trail and I went over the handlebars and tore some skin off my leg and arm. OUCH! Got back on and caught back up just in time for a long steady climb. I struggled for a bit, then got my legs back and was good the rest of the night. I was able to keep up with the other guys on the uphills and downhills. It was an awesome ride. We ended up with a little over 2 hours and 19 miles. After waiting for one of the other guys for a bit, we had to go seeing as how we had no lights and it was getting dark. We ended up coming down the last half of Abrams singletrack in the dark, then it was off to home to get ready for new teacher orientation. I will have to get my lights out for the rides the rest of the year.

Today was new teacher orientation starting at 7:30 in Eagle. I last did this 4 years ago at SASED. Natalie last did this about 9 years ago..... (I spent a while in school.......learning......) :)
We got our new Apple laptops, they are pretty sweet! It's the first time in my life that I have ever had my own computer! We had tech. this morning and learned how to use our new Macs and then we had classroom management this afternoon. It was kinda bittersweet starting a new year, but without our old friends from Chatham. However we are both super excited about starting the new year and getting to meet our students and the rest of the staff. We will meet staff on Monday at the principal's house for dinner and activities. We have a busy weekend planned with lots of hiking and biking and eating up valley for Natalie's birthday.

Until Next time.....
Ciao

Guess what we did today??

The picture should pretty much give it away.

Not much accomplished today...a load of laundry got washed - not put out on the line - but washed nonetheless...and I think Nick partly washed the car (don't ask - he's very mad at the car wash machines!) Anyway, the night ended nicely with a dinner out at etown.

It may, or may not, have been mentioned in a previous blog that there are lots of summer dinner specials out here. So, we like to look in the Vail Daily to see what good deals we can get. Tonight we drove up to Edwards for etown's Tuesday special - $6 burger and fries. They also happened to have the MLB package, so that made things even better. Got to see the Brewers & Cardinals lose and the Twins win. O, did I mention we also got to see the Cubs win??!! I heard through the grapevine that the Cubs' magic number is 31. It may be a tad early to start magic number countdowns, but I'll go with it.

So anyway, another etown patron noticed I was a Cubs fan; Nick asked if he was from Chicago and he said no, further downstate...as in Streator. So anyone from L-P who reads this understands Streator is pretty close and the man knew I was a Cavalier in high school. To make it all a little weirder (is that a word??), Reo apparently played Streator tonight for baseball. Hmmm, "it's a small world after all, it's a small world after all, it's a small world after all, it's a small, small world" :-)

Recap

Bike Racing 101 for all you non-bike racers that may read this post.

2 types of races:
Criterium - go around in circles really fast for a certain amount of time, usually about an hour.

Road Race - A certain distance on the open road, usually 30-100+ miles.

You start out in a pack, also known as the field, or the peloton. The pack is the safety net. In order to be successful in a bike race you have to at least be able to ride with the pack. If you come off the back of the pack you have no chance and may as well quit, unless you like riding with no chance of winning. If you are strong enough to ride off the front of the pack, that is a good thing, you give yourself a better chance to win if you eliminate some of the other racers, although you also lose the safety of the draft from the other riders in the pack, so it is much more difficult. If the pack is all together at the finish you get what is known as a field sprint. At this point it is usually the most explosive sprinter, or the person that just times the sprint correctly that gets the win. Timing is key cause you can only sprint at max effort for a short amt. of time, say like a couple hundred meters.

Ok then, so Sunday afternoon I drove down to Boulder to do the Category 3 race. This was my first crit since late June. And my first race with the 3's since upgrading. My goal was to be aggressive and ride near the front of the pack (it's safer here, less crashes). So the race started on a slight uphill, made a left turn to a slight downhill for one block, left turn into an alley that was about half as wide as the road, then a left turn out of the alley, sharp right, then sharp left for a block then another left to the finishing straight and the uphill. Following me????

I lasted for 10:00 minutes with the field, and was ready to drop out when a guy in a Carmichael kit came past me and I thought sweet, he will pull me back in, he looks like he is going strong. About 5 minutes later I just rode away from him, he couldn't hang, and I had no one else to help me get back to the field. 10 minutes after I got dropped like a bad habit, the front end of the field lapped me and I pulled out of the race.

Why did this happen? Well I have lots of excuses and theories, but basically I just wasn't in good enough shape. Our avg. speed was 25.6 when I got dropped and I have been successful in races with a higher avg. speed, so I know I can do it. Among the other reasons that I have for getting dropped so early are.

1.) I started off at the back of the field, so going into the 2nd turn when I was doing 18 mph, the front of the field was doing 32 mph, and with 57 riders I had to sprint max effort to get back onto the back of the pack. Multiply this effort over the next 7 turns and I was fried....

2.) The first 3 wheels I picked to draft off of got dropped within the first 2 laps, and I had to close those gaps burning tons of energy in the process.

3.) I am about 5-10 lbs over my ideal race weight and where I think I need to be to be competitive with these guys out here.

Basically I just need to be in better shape and have better legs, but I also need to stay near the front of the pack to avoid the accordion effect. There was 55 starters and only 25 finished. I will be there next year I am confident.

Race Tomorrow and Lazy Doggy

Early this morning we were woken up by a deafening boom of thunder and lightning that sounded like it had just hit the house it was so loud. It takes a lot to wake me up and this definitely did the trick. Then it started hailing. We got hail, about 30 miles up the valley they got snow. Temps were in the low 40's overnight, and about mid 60's today. Perfect weather! Wore a sweatshirt all day and was perfectly comfortable. I felt like I was in heaven!

Tomorrow is my first road bicycle race since the 29th of June and last for this season. I am super pumped, yet really have no idea how I will fare. I am doing the cat 3 race which is 1 hour long. I am about 5-10 pounds above my ideal race weight, yet my power is good, and my legs feel good, and I have been training at a higher altitude than what Boulder is at, so that should be good for my lungs. I have a feeling that about half of the Cat 3 riders will be in peak shape and ready to upgrade, so that will make it tough, but I am just going to be aggressive and try my best and hope for a small break or some primes or something.



Who says that dogs don't watch T.V.???? Here is Rusty searching for Animal Planet............. and we wonder why he is a little chubby..... lazy doggy!