It is WINNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDYYY!!!!!!!!! in Boulder!
I am not complaining… I’ll take 80 degrees with no humidity, even with gale force winds, any day over the east coast summer scorcher-fest.
Still, it has been a bit scary… the winds have been GUSTS, howling and everything blown all about.
Today my day began with a 2k swim, per boundary set by Bob. I am allowed to swim up to 2k, but I have to do all open turns. Ggrrrr. I never realized how disruptive open turns are to consistent swimming. I encourage anyone who hasn’t yet learned how to do a flip turn to absolutely invest in this process. While, true, there are no open water turns in triathlon, there is a swim in triathlon – and flip turns are very helpful to the flow of your swimming stroke in practice. I am fully realizing this now that I can’t do them.
So, it was only me and another swimmer in the pool at FlatIrons. It was so windy out that stuff was being blown into the pools! Not chairs but anything on deck that wasn’t too heavy – flip flops, kick boards, pull buoys, etc. Normally that pool is pretty busy so it said a lot that it was empty at 9am.
I then did some PT exercises before heading up to the ellipticals to do a session with JZ. She snagged 2 right next to each other, wanting specific ellipt machines. These ellipt’s were fancy-schmancy. They hooked onto your feet and could replicate a stairmaster or various ski moves if you weren’t precise with your footing. JZ felt this machine in particular really helped her running. I was falling all over at first trying to get a feel for it, being overly dramatic of course, while Joanna and I chatted it up. I made her laugh when I told her I had put her name on my emergency contact for Flatirons membership, and wrote “lover” under the relationship description. 
Nick in membership laughed hard when he saw that.
After my swim and ellipt, I met my friend Matt Given for lunch at Walnut cafe, a trendy little hole-in-the-wall restaurant close to Pearle Street. I had met Matt almost 2-years ago wen we were both guest speakers for a function. Coincidentally he was on the same flight as me (1 row in front, too) from Kona to Phoenix after I had the accident, and he and his stepson were very helpful helping me get off the plane and to my connection flight. When you can barely walk and can’t use either arm it’s amazing how limited you can be.
This was the first time Matt had seen me since the plane ride and he said, “Well you look A LOT better!” I laughed at that. “Shit, could you imagine if I didn’t?”, I replied.
I then jumped on my bike for my 1 hour bike …. with the winds being what they were it was a hang-on-for-dear-life fear fest. A few times the winds were so stiff I was barely, BARELY, moving forward, and then they’d zing me with a cross wind that would blow me into traffic. Yikes.
Then it was a few hours of work. 15 minutes ago I got a text from Stoner (Michael Stone) telling me to come over at 6:30 for grilling. I love having friends as neighbors. It has been years since I have been able to join friends for dinner and just walk to their place. I don’t even wear shoes… I just walk on over in my socks. Stoner is such a good buddy I usually don’t even shower if I hadn’t yet. “Sharps, I could stand to be less of a good buddy”, he says.
Fish tacos for dinner, looking at the mountains from his spacious deck.
I feel so lucky to be here in this place. Place = Boulder …. or place = with these people.
