I have grown up in Big Bear, which I always thought had some pretty gnarly winters, but Mammoth has given me my first real winter. I have never seen so much snow in all my life. Day after day it continues to dump fresh powder. Every morning I open my door to a new three-foot drift of snow that I have to shovel through so Kai can go out for her morning business. It has been weeks since I have been able to look out my kitchen window and I have added shoveling to my daily workout routine. I thank God for my pellet stove that runs like a champ all day long.
Despite the conditions, training has been going very well and we have been able to do every workout when scheduled. I am used to the 30-minute commute down to Round Valley, our home away from home that has become our winter training site. The build-up for London has gotten off to a far better start than my preparations for the Olympic Trials. I am very excited for what awaits at London.
US Cross Country Nationals is less than two weeks away now and my anticipation is great. It has been a while since I last raced and I feel anxious to get out there again and compete. I was thinking the other day about how seldom I have raced this past year. I am lived vicariously through Sara as she raced the past three weeks in a row. I must say that I do miss the highs that come with getting up for a race but I do prefer the boxer style bout every three months approach. I like to fix my mind on something and then go after it.
The hardest part of the last month has been bacheloring-it for the better part of the last month. I always hate the time apart. It is really the only part of the job that I could do without. I had a very memorable scary night home a couple of weeks ago. I, uncharacteristically, rented a scary movie about a mass murder, Ed Geene, because I knew one of the actors in the film. So after driving back from the movie store I came back to my doublewide to find the front door locked, which was kind of freaky since I never lock the front door. Obviously someone had been inside.
Being the ambivalent male that I am I didn't think a lot about it and unlocked the door and made dinner while I started the movie. Just about the time the movie was starting to freak me out Sara called and we started to chat. She was concerned about the whole locked door thing but I didn't really understand why until she nervously told me that maybe someone is in the house. I guess that would be the only way for someone without a key to lock the front door. Right after she said that I started tripping out. I immediately went to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest butcher knife we had. I opened every closet door and looked under every bed expecting every time that some hairy dude was going to pop out and kill me. I don't think the butcher knife would have done me any good. Anyways, it was probably the scariest moment of my life. Pretty pathetic I know but for me it gave me a good scare. The adrenaline rush I got was amazing. If some scary people pop out at me on the course at XC Nationals I will be flying.
