Eight Months in a Nutshell

Wow. I'm behind in my blogging life. Let's do a highlight wrap-up of the last eight months.
1. Tour of Anchorage - The now infamous moosing, resulted in a total restart of the women's race halfway through Spencer, and some really slow overall times. I guess that makes for a good excuse. I was still pleased with my sixth place, and with hanging with the leaders (despite having my pole yanked off by a master blaster at 12k) until almost Westchester.
  Coming off of Spencer Loop early in the race. 2. Oosik - Love this race! The weather was glorious, the trails were amazing, and it's hard to argue about a one lap 50km classic race. I have never been so trashed after a race in my life, but it was a satisfying kind of destroyed. Talkeetna is a great little town as well. I will be doing this race again next year.
  I really am having fun !   49.7km down, almost home, and not a second too soon. 3. School - I have cranked through two terms since I last posted. They were a mixed bag to put it mildly. I had a professor in the spring that I just loved. He was the kind of educator that made me want to get my PhD in education research and work towards improving systems. But before I do that, I think I'll have to figure out the systems in the ASD with my feet on the ground.
4. Bike Racing - I have been doing a smattering of races, when my school and work schedule allows. I got a Niner Air9 this year, and I love mountain biking! I have a ways to go in terms of my technical riding, but it's a blast. In addition to quite a bit of mountain racing, I raced one triathlon (more on the schedule for next summer), several road races, and soon it will be cross season.
  Finishing the Gold Nugget Triathlon, 21st place this year   Cranking away in the Fireweed.    This mountain biking business is dirty. 5. Dimond - I started my practicum and internship at Dimond High School two weeks ago. Right now I'm in the stage where I don't know what the heck I'm doing, but I'm so happy to finally be working and seeing what it is all about.
6. Sailing - I got the opportunity to do a couple of trips in the last few weeks, and they have helped to just rejuvenate my spirit. I know that smacks of hippy mumbo-jumbo, but sometimes you just need the wide open space of the water and the fresh air. We spent a long weekend with Aunt Patti and Leslie, getting in a little fishing, beach walking, sun, torrential rain, and some farkeling. Then I got to help Randy and Judy break in their new Catalina 36, Xena, which had to have been one of the most glorious weekends of the year. We tandemed a bit with my parents on Raven, who had jettisoned me from their boat, as it was full of Biczyskos & Johnsons (seven people and princess Nellie = a full boat). Last week Dad and I took a mid-week jaunt to Seward. The two days were perfectly sunny, and the wind was always at our back everywhere we went.
  Whale blubber, Xena, and Raven at Sunny Cove.   Randy grilling at Bulldog-- it doesn't get much better than this!   Hiking to the overlook to Eldorado Narrows at Halibut Cove on Fox Island.   A perfect day.    I'm the captain now!!! 7. Zachary - Last, but certainly not least, I became an Aunt on June 21st. Zachary Chen Gardner was born to Maggie and Andrew in Taipei, weighing in at a whopping 9.0 lbs. He's wonderfully healthy and has a full head of black hair that tends to stand straight up. I can't wait to meet him.
  Look at all that hair ! Cutest nephew ever.

The Apartment

At the point when I realized it was going to be the next Tour of Anchorage (of the skiing variety) before I got around to posting again, I figured I had better get my act together. This is a pictorial post that I have been meaning to do for quite some time. This highlights the work I did this summer, with the help of my entire family (especially Pops), to get the apartment ready to be livable again.

Living Room Before

Living Room After

More Living Room

Living Room Continued

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

Kitchen Continued

My Room Before

My Room After

A Different View of My Room

Spare Bedroom Before

Spare Bedroom After

Spare Bedroom including Washer & Dryer

Tropical Themed Bathroom (you don't even want to see the before...)

Tour of Anchorage

Somehow summer zipped by and school starts again next week. I can't say that I have been up to too terribly much. Andrew came and visited for two weeks. This time was highlighted by hiking Lost Lakes and going on a three day sailing trip. I also forced Dad and Andrew into slave labor in order to help complete the renovation of the AMH apartment. A blog post describing that project with pictures is to follow.

A highlight of August was the biking Tour of Anchorage. Again, bike racing continues to be an experience for me. Racing five times in four days, including three races in 20 hours was challenging as well. However, bike racing, unlike ski racing, is not an all-out all the time kind of event. The group races are cagey and you spend large parts of the race spinning and biding your time.

A short 5 mile time trial prologue on the first night.

Friday night was a 32 mile road race, where I broke away after around 21 miles and then crashed on the final corner, but got up to limp in for the sport win.

Saturday morning we rode up Rabbit Creek from Potter and finished at the Upper Huffman trailhead-- a real lung buster.

Looking fast, but going slowly on Saturday afternoon at the Portage TT.

The final day was an 80 minute (plus a lap) crit on the new MLK boulevard. I won both bonus sprints and the final. I guess it's time to move up to expert!

Back to the Grind

I just finished spending the entire week in intensive classes. Whew, what a week! It was both physically and emotionally draining. We did three solid days of counseling, where we were either the counselors or the clients, and I can say I feel very connected to my classmates. The last two days were spent with a specialist in suicide and eating disorders-- very important, but very tough stuff.

Other than that, I've been bike racing. It really is a huge learning curve. Everything is new and exciting: first time trial, first road race, first hill climb, and so on. I'm realizing how much I don't know, and how much experience I just don't have. It really is refreshing to show up at a race and go as hard as I can and have no real expectations for myself, except to leave it all out there.

The next few weeks should be extraordinarily hectic, as I have to now wrap up a semesters worth of work to close out the summer term. At least there's lots of daylight, as I won't be getting much sleep!

A nice day for a Moose Run time trial.

I also did my first triathlon!

Almost finished, 43rd place.

Freedom to Play

School is over for a few weeks, and I have been able to enjoy a little of my free time (apart from the fact that I haven't moved from the couch today, as I am currently sick). Last weekend I headed up to Puritan Creek with some friends to see if any of us could remember how to climb after a long winter of skiing. Some of us seemed a little less rusty than others, I was definitely one of the "others". The weather started out promising, but deteriorated to hale, rain, and snow with temperatures in the 30s!

Paul photographs Jason as he starts up a 5.9 trad route.

Britta gives a friendly belay.

A view from the base of the crag.

Paul heads towards the 5.10c rope eater roof.

Norwegian Invasion

We have had house guests the last week and a half. I promised Kikkan I would not act like too much of a groupie, as one of the guests is a former Norwegian national ski team member. I promise I didn't ask her if she knew Marit. Ella Gjømle and Øyvind Berg came to visit with dreams of epic Alaskan backcountry skiing and, epic American burgers (well, Øyvind anyway).

I was lucky enough to get to tag along for a couple of backcountry, and food outings. I even practiced a few words på norsk (men, eg har glemt nesten alle de ordene...). Below are a few pictures from a day of skiing up Hiland Valley in Eagle River. Overall the weather was sunny and the skiing was quite good. Kikkan and Jeff jetted off to Hawaii and the Norwegians back to Oslo-- so now the house is empty and there's nothing left for me but dishes, laundry and my last two written exams.

Øyvind, Ella and Lars headed up the valley.

It was a beautiful day to be in the mountains.

Spring Crust

Even though I am usually exhausted by the time April rolls around, and this year is no exception, it is the best time to ski. On Wednesday, Judy, Trooper (misbehaving brown dog) and I drove out to Portage Lake to get in on what we had heard was perfect crust. We met up at 8am, meaning that we were headed across the lake by 9am. The crust was rock solid and fast as could be. In less than an hour, including dinking around taking pictures, we were overlooking Whittier. We zipped back down and checked out the glacier, before skiing back to the car, and back to town in plenty of time to get some homework in and head to my afternoon class. A glorious Alaska morning!


Portage Lake.


A perfect day for crust skiing.


At the top of the pass with Trooper.


Delightfully fast crust.


Future AMH calendar shot.