Big Cottonwood Canyon

Heres how my morning went. Im supposed to meet up with the team to ride up Big Cottonwood for an hour. This is my first time climbing it in about 2 years and i'm super sore from dryland and weights yesterday. Can't find the team. Decide to climb it by myself. Feeling intimidated but also like a badass, I start the climb. 
2 min in- I wonder why I woke up, why I decided to do this myself and why I didn't turn around already. 
30 min- cant breath, stop to ponder life, after 5 min of dealing with inner turmoil I continue. 
1 hour- I stop again at about halfway up. try to convince myself I done good for my first solo canyon climb and feeling defeated, I turn back only to pass my teammates on the way down. *sigh*. 
Im gonna make cinnamon buns now...
This is a typical practice for me.


What would this post be without a picture of one of my cakes? This was for Mikeys 21'st birthday on wednesday :) Its chocolate cake with raspberry filling. 

 

Friends

On my last camping trip I met a bunch of really cool people. Most of them were international students so they were only here for a short time but they are good friends of mine now. Ami went back to Japan last week, my German buddies have left, and on saturday Audrey who the coolest (and only) actual French person i've even known is leaving too :( I'll miss all the wednesdays we all spent at O'shucks. Hopefully our plan to eventually all met up again in Japan will work out. My pen pal Niamh in Ireland is moving to Japan to teach english so I now have a nice group of people to visit with there! Luckily not everyone left, a few of them are staying at least until graduation. :)

Good Times!

 

I don't think i've posted about Boston yet. I went to help Karen with her Culture X performance at Brandeis. It was the most amazing show ever!!

















On stage after the show.

















Here is my 2nd birthday cake, red velvet cheesecake from cheesecake factory! Thanks TK for both of the cakes! And I thought I wouldn't get cake on my birthday. haha.










Its Mikeys birthday again next week and that means another cake! Yaaaay! I cannot yet reveal the details of this cake however. Top secret.
I also want to add that I made the coolest cake for Mrs Thornocks Birthday! It was a white cake with whipped cream frosting and fresh fruit.



Summery of the rest of my life: Im moved into my new place with Jun and Taylor and training is hard. Im back up to my 3000 cal/day diet and it involves a lot of brownies.

PS sorry for the awkward gaps in between paragraphs...blogger changed and I can't figure out how to make it look normal...

San Rafael Reef

I went backpacking in (see title) last weekend for a "class". It was a class because I got 2 credits for going haha. It was super fun, I love camping in southern Utah, every time I go I get a better appreciation for the desert environment. There's nothing quite like sipping on sandy coffee while watching the sun rise over the canyons :) Thank my grandma for emailing me twice to remind me to make this post since I keep forgetting lol! Here are the pics. Also, the person who took these had a really nice camera and the glowing speedskater is a light exposure trick where we set the camera to take a picture for 30 seconds and someone traced me with their headlamp, turned out really cool!

Kizoa slideshow: San Rafael Reef - Slideshow

I went out with some friends to this bar downtown that has an awesome sushi and beer special every wednesday. We will probably be going every wednesday. lol! We took a lot of pictures, but here are some of them.

Kizoa slideshow: Beer + Sushi Night - Slideshow

American Cup Final

Just finished racing at American Cup Final here in Salt Lake, I raced 2 500's and 2 1000's. This was my first official meet as a long tracker and first official meet since my fall about a year and a half ago. Won't be able to walk without a limp they said. Won't be able to skate again they said. Well I came pretty friggin close to my personal bests in all my races this weekend. Im glad I was able to prove to myself Im still getting better and faster because for a while I didn't think it would happen. I still can't feel my foot or move my toes but it doesn't matter, I can still go as fast as I used to!
Thank you to everyone for all the kind words and for supporting me through my recovery, i'm very happy about this and I will do work this summer and come back next season as a force!

Heres how close I was to my old PB's:

PB's.........................................................Am Cup Final races:

PB 500m = 43.77(in 2008) ...................... 1st 500m =44.72 2nd 500m = 44.07

PB 1000m = 1:26.35 (in 2009) ............... 1st 1000=1:29.94 2nd 1000m = 1:28.27


Some pics Jerry Search took from this weekend:

New Years

Spent New Years in Rochester with my best friends at Tilt, super fun!