Bonking and 9th grade teams

So just a quick little update...

The weather has been phenomenal the past few days and I have been very motivated in my running and swimming efforts :) I've done 4 days straight so far of swimming (I definitely regret taking 2 weeks off) and my running mileage (with no two-a-days) is up to 50 miles per week including a long run and a hill workout.

So yesterday I was feeling quite motivated and decided to tack an extra 10 minutes on to my hill workout at Red Rocks. Unfortunately, I COMPLETELY BONKED on the run. The best way I can describe bonking is when you just have no energy left (like if you're eating a ton of food and you're stuffed, and you still make yourself finish the meal). After about 20 minutes I already went into oxygen debt and each climb was a huge struggle...almost a walk. So I pushed on til I got to the top of the main peak and checked my watch and actually did it faster than I usually do. Odd, since I felt like I was going to die. After that first major incline my legs loosened up and it actually turned out to be quite a decent workout even though I don't recommend running along mountain sides on loose gravel when your legs are exhausted. Not to mention I ate an entire large hot and ready afterwards. The run was really exciting too because there were tons of other runners out there as well! Which brings me to my next point, I've found quite a few running groups in the Denver area and decided that I should probably put a little more effort into meeting people (not from Winter Park) - so I'll be doing 2 or 3 runs a week with random groups. I'll let you how the first one goes on Thursday!

Teaching has been going really well here. I was chosen to be on one of the 9th grade teams for next year, sweet! Basically our principal has decided to group the 9th graders together on one floor and have half the kids always go to the same group of teachers (math, science, English, history). This is to help cut down on discipline issues and give us a better network because all of us have the same students. I'm also on a team with teachers who share similar strategies and have pretty much the same mindset as me. I already tell that next year will be stellar.

Final note (I promise), Eugene and Dena might be coming out here for a week to road trip back to Michigan with me!!! Can't wait.

So much for a "quick" update huh?

B.I.N.G.O

So Friday I was supposed to hang out with Ashley (I went to high school with her and now she goes to DU), but after the Pistons were completely massacred, I was too depressed to do anything. So I called it a lazy night.

Saturday morning I drove out to Bear Creek to do my long run. It was about 50 degrees when my run started and was 30 degrees and snowing like crazy at the end of it. I was really happy that I decided to bring a long sleeve shirt. Then about 2 hours later, I met up with Ashley to go watch the Wings game and it was about 55 and sunny again - craziness.

Oh! I almost forgot. There are prairie dogs everywhere at this park, and not in fenced in area like the Detroit Zoo. It's so cool to see some of this wild life just chilling everywhere. There's also rattlesnakes (kind of scary to see during runs), coyotes and a millions different species of birds. I love it :)

So we went to this bar called The Tavern which is pretty high class. They had fireplaces and tons of flat screens. So the Wings absolutely destroyed the Avs which made for a good start of the night.

After the game, we went out to dinner and then met up with a friend (Ryan: history teacher) to go to a BINGO party. So I guess this guy throws these epic parties a few times a year. He takes all the money that people pay for the cover and donates it to charities - pretty sweet. So he rented out this entire bar and we ended up playing BINGO for about 3 hours. It was pretty awesome but stressful at the same time. I don't know how all those old ladies do it all the time. You've got to have a lot of mental endurance and a lot of focus, especially when you have to black out the board. After losing 6 games of BINGO, two live bands played and my night was complete.

"You got two boards, that's smart! Now you have a way better chance of winning"

"It's not worth it, the stress is way too high."

-Nick (random guy we met at the bar)

blaugh....

So I some how managed to get sick again...sucks. Sometimes I just don't understand how it happens, I haven't been around anyone that's sick, i've eaten perfect and had plenty of sleep. Oh wait, I'm around 100's of kids every single day, shit. So yesterday I went to Red Rocks to do my "hill" workout (more like a mountain climb). It went very well - I even iced afterwards!

On a high note, my buddy Tank (Nate Chouinard) finally had his baby! Thank god, Auna was due about 2 weeks ago. Can you believe it, another Chouinard and a baby Tank. Congratulations buddy. I also got offered a job at Gold Arrow Camp in California! The pay is really good, I'd be working as a group counselor, and get to live for free at 7000ft. Think of how good this would be for my training. I'd even get reimbursed for my transportation out there. The only bad thing is that I wouldn't see any of my family or friends from back home for the entire summer - camp starts June 16 and ends August 18. So hopefully the summer teaching position in Rochester works out.

Other than that, I guess not too much has happend in the last few days. Progress reports are due tomorrow, so I have about 75 tests to grade before tomorrow morning. So on that note, back to grading.

Those moments that bring a tear to a teacher's eye

So yesterday was a typical school day. Just reviewing for the students' upcoming test. I told all my classes that if they come to tutoring after school today, I would give them 10 points of extra credit on their test. Now I know this may seem ridiculous to those of you that graduated from Rochester Adams or teach at a school where majority of your kids graduate, at my school I would predict that 4 out of my 100 kids show up. To my surprise though, 10 students came! As tutoring came to an end, one of my students showed me that his calculator was giving him different answers than what I told him. This is quite common with calculators, he had it in radian mode instead of degree. So I showed him how to fix it and asked him he would like to know why his calculator does that? So I started out by writing on the board pi/2 = 90 degrees. I had him punch it in his calculator in the different modes to show him that it gave him the same answer "What the hell!" he exclaimed. Which as a teacher, is music to my ears. So I should him how radians were related to circles and degrees, etc.... When it clicked (which was rather quick) he says to me "That's awesome! See that's why I love math, you start at point A which is actually point B and work your way around it until you get back to the same spot. You just changed my entire career path, I want to be a math professor at a university."

I went home after school and completed a little more than a 7 mile run. I felt really good buy my pace was still above 7 minutes a mile. So I just checked online and found out that according to "Jack Daniels PHD", that actually converts to a 6:51. Thank god. I knew that altitude had an affect on running, but not that drastic. So I guess I'm actually in pretty good running shape out here.

So today we're having the "West Cup" during lunch. It's a 4v4 soccer tournament that fund raises for the school. And happily, I get to play on the team I sponsor. We won today like 6-0 and I had a blast. I almost forgot how much I love this sport. I'm going to try and join a club team out here this summer (or in Rochester) depending on where I may be. Well time to get back to work...

Weekend number 1....w/o skiing

So Friday was the first Friday night I've had that I wasn't driving up to Winter Park. It almost put me in a state of panic...what is Colorado without skiing? So I ended up doing a run at Red Rocks Amphitheater. Red Rocks park has a natural amphitheater and is located right in the foothills. The landscape over there is amazing and makes for a great workout. I usually park my car in the nearby town (Morrison 5800ft) and run to the top of the one of the foothills (~7200ft). That climb is a killer workout and you can see all of the foothills and Denver from the top. So the climb from hell is well worth it.

You can see Red Rocks just below the mountain in the background. The hill I climb up is on the right side of the hill.

When I finished I called up Rae and we got some people together to play Euchre, then headed out to Lodo's (the bar that was in Real World Denver) because two of Rae's roommates work there and we get free drinks. So we headed up to the bar and had a couple of drinks and some guy tried to pick a fight with me because his friend's girlfriend was talking to me. Of course the guy was really trashed, so I decided that this conversation probably wasn't worth it.

Saturday was a very lazy day for me. I decided to take advantage of not having anything to do. So I watched Superbad (hilarious), did a short 3 mile run, read my book (How Soccer Explains the World), watched Good Will Hunting and ate Dinner. I love that book by the way. It ties soccer into Globalization and Terrorism - thank you Samantha. After dinner I decided to do something that my family may not approve of (don't worry I didn't get a sex change operation or tattoo my face or anything) - but I have decided that you guys will just have to wait til I get home for the surprise. I then met up with Rae and headed over to Cheeseman's Park to throw the disc around for a while. I guess there's ultimate frisbee summer leagues around the Denver area and some frolf courses somewhere. That would be absolutely perfect.

Well today is supposed to be gorgeous again, so i'm headed off to Bear Creek Lake to do a long run and then probably working on lesson plans for the rest of the day. Here's a picture of the start of my run :)

Colorado...what a tease

So Tuesday was welcomed with Sunny skies and 84 degree weather. I was pumped cause it was the first time I would get to put the top down on my jeep. So did that, cruised down to Bear Creek Lake State Park to do a little run. This park is great. All dirt trails right near the foothills.

Wednesday, it was about 50 degrees when I woke up to school - so I thought it would be another warm day. However, it ended up dumping snow from about 4pm until late last night. I didn't really mind though. All the trees were snow covered and looked sweet. So today is actually the last day of school for the week and I get to go to a formal lunch at Denver University for some of the teachers in the area. I'm pretty pumped, I hear the food is amazing and most importantly, free! It's funny to see that i'm employed but still live like a college student.

So Cullen imed me the other day and asked "what do ski bums do when there's no snow?" I have no idea. On a further note, i've decided to take a break from hardcore partying. It costs too much money and I think my body will appreciate it. I guess I'm going to have to join an old man's soccer league on the weekends or something. However, i'm actually excited to have a weekend with no plans, we'll see what happens.

An update on my life in Colorado...

Hurray, I have a blogspot, so everyone can read about my exciting (or not so exciting) life of trying to be a grown-up.

I know I already emailed everyone this update, but i'm posting it anyway just so anyone else that decides to "check-up" on me can.

So first things first,

Here is a glossary

Bumps – moguls: mounds of snow that form on the slopes from people turning down the mountain
Cirque – The top of the mountain that’s shaped like a giant bowl (officially Vasquez Cirque)
C-lot – The “C”hallenger Parking lot. The Challenger is the lift that services extreme terrain.
Extreme Terrain – Ski runs that possess cliffs, large rocks and steep drops. “Double Blacks” These are nothing compared to “the wall” at Pine Knob. (see pictures to the right)
Park – “Terrain Park” area filled with jumps, half pipes, walls, boxes and rails to ride on.
Box – Fiberglass boxes in the Terrain Park. Very Slippery
Powder – aka: nar nar, pow, freshies. Fresh snowfall that explodes when you push through it.
Ride – snowboarding

Here is a brief summary of my life since I moved to Colorado:

I teach during the week and basically do nothing to exciting during that time. I know it was a little rough at first getting adjusted to an inner city school (I found out last week that my school has the highest drop out rate in 3rd highest state for drop-outs (42% for my school)) and being a "grown-up" in general. However, I completely revamped my classroom management (I grade them pretty equally on warm-ups, participation, class work, assessments and a project) and things are getting better. The students MUST show up to class in order to get a decent grade (this cuts-down on my skippers) and my class is shaped like a horseshoe. I can monitor and help all students readily and smack around any students that try to "tag" desks or text on their cell phones.

Tagging (def) - Inscribing gang related material on public property

So I could definitely see myself sticking around here another year or so.

However, I have applied to Middle Park High School and Granby Middle School which are 15 minutes away from the love of my life (Winter Park). I'm impatiently waiting for the opportunity to blow them away at an interview. If that works out, PEACE OUT DENVER! I'd be teaching 4 days a week and be able to enjoy God's Country everyday of the week.

So outside of teaching, I’ve been pretty good about working out still. I've been running AND swimming at YMCA down the street. I've been running between 45 and 90 minutes and swimming 20 and 45 minutes a day. Running out here is amazing. I've found a couple of really nice parks to get my legs off the pavement. Red Rocks in particular is gorgeous. One of my loops has about a 1500 ft climb and you can see all of Denver from the top of it, AMAZING. Another place I’ve been running is Bear Creek Lake Park - not quite as amazing. I went once and the mud was so thick it added about 5lbs (not kidding) to each shoe. I got so pissed after 15 minutes of kicking giant chunks of clay of shoes, I turned around and went home to binge eat. So to answer Dena's driving question: No, I have not gotten fat.

Living at elevation was quite a change as well. Denver is at about 5300 ft above sea level. So what this means is: I can no longer run at 7 min pace per mile, it's now about 7:30 per mile, I start to feel pretty tipsy after about 2 drinks and must take a breather at the top of every flight of stairs. Now Winter Park is at about 9000 ft. This means: I can no longer run...period, I am telling everyone I love them after 2 beers, and have a heart attack after climbing half a flight of stairs.

But...the skiing is incredible! Every Friday I'm on cloud 9 just waiting to drive through the beautiful foothills and up Berthoud Pass to snow covered Winter Park. So last Friday it was about 65 degrees in Denver and I headed up the mountains around 6:30pm. I took some gnarly pictures of the foothills of a huge storm coming straight at me (I’ll post later). I got off the freeway and it was a complete white out from Berthoud's Pass up the top of the mountain. So Berthoud's Pass is complete hell for anyone that doesn't know how to drive in snow nor has real wheel drive. When the snow is too crazy, there's a gate that the cops close so nobody can get through it. AWESOME. Don't worry family, my car handles like a dream in the snow and I made it up (this is a typical Friday night for me).

Saturday I headed to the mountain and skied all morning in 8 inches of fresh powder!!!! Incredible, every turn would send me into a cloud of snow. About 11:30, I traded in my skis for a board and rode with my friend Amanda for the rest of the day. I think I’ve finally mastered bumps (moguls) on a board and am getting really good at riding switch (backwards). So that means 360's and riding park (Terrain Park - jumping off rails, boxes, ramps and such) are next on the agenda :)

So that night was pretty chill afterwards, I went with my buddy Andy (I stay at his place every weekend) to Buckets (one of 5 bars in Winter Park) and played pool.

Sunday = Best day of my life. So Sunday is the last day Winter Park is open this season <>. I decided that snowboarding was completely out of the question and skied extreme terrain with my friends Rae (ran cross and track with at Grand Valley), Mike "Jesus" (amazing snowboarder and probably one of the most chill people I’ve ever met and he seriously does look exactly like JC, and recently Rae's new boyfriend), Jeff and TJ (friends from ski and ride school, they are dating), Brian and Lauren (Lauren is Mike's cousin from Fort Collins and Brian is her boyfriend). So yes, I was the fifth wheel. But the skiing was great, we dropped the cirque (which was all waist deep powder) and went hut hopping. At Winter Park, there are about 36 huts hidden all over the mountain. People usually go in there to chill (aka drink beer and get high), but we were actually cleaning all the garbage everyone left inside of them. We hit about 5 of them and continued skiing.

Since it was the last day, there was a huge party at the C-lot. It was like tailgating, but it was 60 degrees, 10 feet of snow, at the base of 12,600 ft high mountain, and skiing or snowboarding whenever you felt like it. There was a stage set-up with live bands, kegs galore and about 10,000 people having the times of their life. So at about 2:30, we went down to the lot to eat some food and have a couple of beers. It was a blast but sad at the same time, it would be the last time I see everyone from ski school that's from out of the country for 6 months(about 50% of the people I’ve met up there are from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Chile or Peru).

So the lifts close at 4pm and everyone meets at the top of the mountain and has a toast to the end of the season. So we headed up around 330 and threw snowballs at the last of the people to come up the chair lift, drank a beer, hugged everyone, cried, made-out, whatever and started to head down the mountain at 4:15 for the last run of the season.

A little after 5 we ended up at the bottom, played baseball at the bottom of one of the slopes, then I prepped to go back home. However, since it was the last day of the season and everyone was drunk (except me cause I had to drive back to stupid Denver), there were cops everyone on the way home and blockades set-up at about 5 different spots between the mountain and Winter Park (the town). Since my plate is expired, there was no way I was going to head back and get my car impounded. So I had ended up calling in half a day of work and drove to Denver yesterday at around 10am. This picture is of Winter Park in April.

Trying to be a responsible adult...

Since I had extra time yesterday and my realizing that having expired plates is a bad thing, I went to the DMV to renew my registration. However, since I’m from out of state, there’s a million more things that I have to do. Being the person I am, I discovered the bare minimum I needed in order to not get arrested. I had to get VIN identification and then go get my registration renewed. So about an hour of driving back and forth past the same Bingo place, I found the place to get my VIN identified and went back to the DMV to get registered - $450!! Since I don’t have that amount of money, I left and am trying to figure out a way to register back in Michigan…for the normal $70.

Oh and by the way, it’s been 80 degrees in Denver for the past 2 days. It’s always sunny here, but with weather as random as Michigan (aka tomorrow a snow storm is expected). Hope all is well, love and miss everyone!