Category: Sports

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Utah Ski Week 2019

Park City Utah Febrruary 2019

This was my second year for this annual ski trip with a large group of friends from college. I flew into Salt Lake City on Monday and came back to Chicago on early evening Saturday night. It was an action packed trip and was sad to have to come home but was very glad to get home back to my shower and my bed.

Trip Break Down:

Monday was a travel day that turned into quite a ride, to say the least. I’ve traveled quite a bit for work in my career so I have my timeline just right of how to get to the airport. An easy estimate would be over 550 flights, with most of those originating out of O’Hare airport. What I’ve never encountered on my way to the airport was a Level 2 Hazmat situation that locked me in the Loop of Chicago for over 20 minutes. I was stuck in my Uber and was not allowed to leave due the traffic situations and the emergency vehicles blocking the intersections. I was for real stuck in my Uber with now way out except to ride it out.

After what seems like for ever I was able to exit the Uber and make my way down to the Blue line all the way to O’Hare. I made it there with 20 minutes before boarding but, it was to late to check my bag 🙁 I conceded and check my bag for the next in 4 hours. I was on standby with 14 open seats I was pretty confident that I would make the next flight to SLC. I slipped through security with no problem(Thanks TSA Pre-check) and began to walk down the gate to go grab some breakfast since i had all this time to kill.

That’s when I saw my original flight start to board. This was a sad sight and I really debated just jumping on this flight and having one of my buddies grab my bag that was on of the later flights.

In a quick bout of depression, I came up with a great idea! The American Airlines Lounge was a clutch idea. For not a small fee ($59) you have an open bar, what I continental plus breakfast and lunch and all the brownies and cookies you can eat. Trust me the brownies are awesome and I probably have put down a whole tray of them on many a layover. #cuethestomachache

Miller Lite in the American Club at O’Hare Airport

After more than a few beers and 3 or 4 handfuls of brownies, it was time for me to move to the gate to board. Flight time was a lot longer than expected, we were in the air for over 3.5 hours and my butt fell asleep hard. With the delay of getting into SLC, I had to find my own ride to my friend’s house who thankfully loved a quick Uber ride from the airport. With a fast pit stop, we packed our gear up in the truck and headed to the mountains for what was sure to be a wild week.

This trip in an annual event with a mixed group of friends from college and some girlfriends. Our housing was two conjoined condos that were mirrored and most importantly had 2 separate hot tubs to help relax those muscles after the slopes along with a bunch of beer.

Our condos were a 6 min bus ride (free) from the base of Park City which is a huge mountain that has something like 370 runs. The two days that we skied here I was only able to hit about 27 of them. I will need to come back and get a few more days here to really have a complete scope the mountain, but I would definitely recommend it.

We split the 2 days a Park City with active rest day of Snowmobiling at Thousand Peaks. This was insane experience, I highly recommend the three hour tour with a private group if you have enough people with you. I took the chance to rent the upgraded to the faster snowmobile. The 300cc sled was blazing fast and well worth the price, it had no problem charging up the hills/mountains.

Snowmobiled to to the top of the world!

The $20 dollars for insurance was an easy purchase, gave the confidence to be able go full throttle and get a little reckless on the sled. Turns out it’s a lot easier to roll one these things than you think especially when your 250 feet up a mountain and your trying to turn back down hill.

Skiing on Thursday got intense, a small group of us got together and skied our asses off for the whole day. At the end of the day, my slopes app totaled just over 18,500 feet over 16 runs. The legs were burning on the way home. I ran into some trouble after trying to slide down a double black diamond run. I was feeling pretty confident after hitting a bunch of black diamonds threw out the day. The giant moguls on almost vertical terrain way above my skill level. I had to bail on the run 1/2 way through, it just got too hard trying to surge the moguls so I took a cat track to get back to one of the bigger “easier” runs. This where one bad decision turned into a very bad situation, turns out that cat track was not really a cat track. It was an access road to my dismay, so I had to cross country ski in 6 inches of snow for about 40 min to get back civilization.

When I finally popped out of the woods it was magically next a small chair lift. I was greeted by an awestruck lift operator that said: “Where did you just come from?” I responded with “don’t ask” as I plopped on the 2 seaters and caught my breath on the slow ride back to the top of the mountain.

Thursday night was a blast and it snowed quite a bit which got us even more pumped for Powder Mountain the next day. Powder Mountain is a 90 min drive from Park City so we ha dot gets up a little early to try and make the first chair. The ride to the mountain took what felt like forever as all we could see was the deep freshly fallen snow.

As a local Mountain, they only offer 1500 lift tickets a day and at the time of when we got there was still 1100 tickets left.  Except for the first lift the runs were empty.  IT really felt like our group was the only ones on the mountain.  The legs were sore to start the last day of our ski trip, it was only a Green run but my legs felt zapped.  It took the next two runs to get my legs firing on all cylinders.  

The highlight of the day was the recent deposit of 8 inches of fresh powder the night before our day at Powder Mountain.  That much pow pow with on a local mountain with only 500 people in attendance gave us fresh runs all day.

For something like $25 dollars, you can purchase a one way Cat Trek ride to some backcountry lines.  Half of our group participated in the Cat lift,  it was a packed ride up to the top of the mountain with all the other skiers and snowboarders not in our group.

It was a funny sight having the group stumble out of the back of the Cat with our ski boots on.  After we all got kitted up the guide gave the three different subgroups of abilities instructions of what routes to take and what to avoid.  I paid extra special attention of what to avoid because there were some real threats in the Back Country.  Hidden drop-offs and cliffs trees and rock formations that were really hidden by all the recent snowfall. 

I placed myself in the intermediate subgroup and followed them down the little trail to our suggested run.  We stopped at the top of the run to plan our attack with began to get daunting.  Trees, bushes, rocks/boulders, and a “don’t go left there is a cliff” I was as ready as I was ever gonna be.  The snow was so deep it was really hard to turn, took a few slow turns to get the jump turn that everybody talks about.  In about 25 seconds it was time to negotiate some trees mixed in with rock formation. As I made it past those obstacles with way to much speed I tired another jump turn which turned into a few head over heels tumbles.  Falling in that deep of snow was surrea.l.  You fall down but you just sink into the powder.  Everything was cushioned so there’s was zero impact with any hard surface.  The closest thing I could compare it do if you fell into a ball pit with nerf bullets that were coasted in baby hair lol.

that nice powder did make it hard to get back up on my skis though which I would say is the only downside of being a crap skier on a whole mountain full of powder.  That is a great motivation to learn and develop my technique before my next trip.  

All in all, this is one of my favorite weeks of the year.  The group of people combined with the house the activities and the mountain make for a very exciting action packed week that takes me more than a week to recover from.  So worth it though, Hoping to get in at least one smaller ski trips next year to take some lessons and see how wrong I’ve been skiing this whole time lol. Can’t wait till next season!

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Weekly Summary 2/17/2019

High Lights:

  • Valentines Day Dinner
  • 5 Days with no Alcohol

Low Lights:

  • Not Enough Lifting
  • Eat like a pig

This Chicago Winter is really starting to drag on.  Maybe I need to take a serious dose of Vitamin D to bring up my spirits and get a little pep back in my step.

I attempted to get my golf fix after watching what seemed to be 30 straight hours straight of golf this Saturday and Sunday with all the weather delays at the Gennnisss Open in California pushing rounds 2,3,4 into two days.   This task proved to be harder than I thought it would for living in downtown Chicago. There is only 1 place in the loop to my knowledge and when I called at  2:20 pm they were booked full for the rest of the day. 🙁  This might be a special case since it is a 3-day weekend for President Day.

I will try and go to this location during this next week to see if this is something I would get into,  it is kind of expensive at $50 an hour, but hey they do valet your car for 4 hours for only 10 dollars.  I will break that experience down in a dedicated blog later this week.

On the fitness side of this week, I went out way to hard in a workout on Tuesday that had a wild amount of pull-ups that basically blew my lats out.  This was a scary feeling as I can’t remember a time when my lats were ever sore.  That put me out of commission for a few days, but I did go to a Yoga class to help stretch things out.  Having not been sure if I had really hurt myself or just needed a few days to let them recuperate and took advantage of my buildings Gym and did some light lifting and some short cardio.

I should be finishing up my Current audiobook titled Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss and Thal Raz.  This has been a fun listen so far, I wish I could dedicate more time to actively listen to this book.  It really is worth a read/listen.

Any recommendations on what I should read next??

 

Cheers

 

 

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Better golf in 6 Weeks?

I have a tee time scheduled in the middle of June 2018. The course is a pretty prestigious club just outside of Chicago. I will be playing with some serious golfers that can legit hit it in the low single digits. I being in the very high handicap in the high 20s…ok low 30s am pretty nervous about making a fool of myself at my friend’s club. The goal here is to keep getting invited back! So here is my quest; how much better at golf can I get in a Six-week time frame. I plan on jumping into the deep-end of golf to get my game at its best for this round.

For the past 2 summers, I only was able to play 6-9 rounds in a Chicago season, travel for work severely limited my schedule. With a new job that doesn’t require me to travel almost at all, I have cleared my Saturdays and assembled a ragtag four-some to play.

To get my game mint here is my plan:

  1. Lessons with my golf pro- which his schedule there will only be 2 available sessions-I think this should be enough. It’s the executioner the swing, not the motion of the swing that is causing my misses.
  2. Hit the driving range at least once a week. I’m hoping for a few weeks of double practice. The new range is about 20 min from me, but it has full grass range with separate pitching and putting areas. I for-see this making the biggest impact on my game.
  3. I will play every weekend a full round of golf (weather permitting) I have a huge problem with transferring what I learned with the pro to the actual game. A recent practice session with my pro enlightened me that my game on course cannot be approached the same as practice session (with a pro or on the range).

The not approaching my golf swing on the course like an every a swing on a practice range is not something that factored into being a negative behavior. In my recent golf trip to Phoenix and a very cold round in Indiana, I did this very thing every single swing. I head of trying to be an athlete I was trying to be a robot. According to measly attempts at last call on the dance floor and recent rounds of golf, I am far from C3-PO. I will be now visualizing and siting my shot before my swing and be playing in the moment rather from swing to swing.

I will keep updating this blog post below with my practice and playing sessions during this 6-week sprint and a complete new post with my round with a reaction/summary of what worked and what (Touch-wood) didn’t.

Range Session- 90 Balls -7-2018

  • Way to bent over on the setup
  • Need to focus on standing taller
  • swing felt as good as it could with how I was standing

Range Session- 90 Balls 5-24-2018

  • Best series of swings so far this year
  • Still hitting it pretty fat on my misses, keeping shoulders flat helps
  • Was able to get my swing back after losing it.  This was gratifying

Range Session- 90 Balls 5-17-2018

  • Came Out Hot on the first 7-9 swing #ablosutedingers
  • Developed a bad habit that I could shake off of hitting way behind the ball #gravedigger
  • I need some work for sure

Range Session- 90 Balls 5-10-2018

  • Not 1 solid swing all day
  • I was not dressed for the cooler air temp
  • Ball flight was everywhere #Yardsprinkler

 

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My Top 3 Moments of the Winter Olympics

  1.  Elizabeth Swany- Women’s Half-Pipe skiing

The best part of this clip is the color commentators.  They never break character and actually break down her “Olympic effort” run.  Plus you gotta love the planning that got Liz into this Olympics, only competing in event that had less than 30 participants so she was guaranteed to qualify.  She also didn’t even come in last also, other ladies that went for it and crashed somehow scored lower than riding down the shoot.  That the real travesty that a run with ZERO tricks can beat someone that tried to send with a real Olympic effort.

2)  USA women’s first Gold medal in Cross County skiing

NBC stream of the last Lap

Extremely thrilling with a massively entertaining final lap that was a fight to the finish.  Again the announcers are the ones that really make this event move to the top of my list.  So much energy and excitement in their voices, you can’t help but get amped up.  Not to undersell the efforts by the ladies, you could see the pain on their face as they were giving it all going neck and neck with the other two teams.  So much back and forth, watching this live I had to stand up and started cheering for us to win.

3) Ester Ledecka Winning the Alpine Super-G gold medal on borrowed skis

Whats even wilder is that she is predominately a snowboarder which she just casually also won a gold medal in too.  Her face says it all at the end of the run when she is able to see that she won 1st place by .01 seconds #awestruck

Honorable Mentions:

I realize that all three of my favorite moments are all Women’s events. I guess that’s just how the cookie crumbled these games. I did enjoy much more of the games then what I’ve already listed above. Below are two you probably already know about but are worth look if you haven’t watched them yet.

  1. Shaun Whites gold medal half pipe run
  2. USA women’s ice hockey beating Canada for the gold medal
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2018 Ski Trip to Lake Tahoe Part 1

Decided to have a last minute NFL AFC/ NFC championship party at my condo. As standard, I invited some fraternity brothers over that I had not seen in a while. Figured it would be a fun time to get back together and catch up and meet all the new girlfriends they had.  As the first game ended and all the food was just coming off the grill, my phone(that was playing all the music for the party) suddenly rang eight times in a row.

3 more text message tones ring out as I carried the 2 slabs of ribs from the grill to the kitchen counter.  I finally got my phone to see that 3 of my college Rugby buddies had called and texted me that they were at the neighborhood tap and wanted me to make an appearance for some beers.

I quickly texted them back a picture of the food spread we already had for the party.  In twenty minutes they stormed in with a case of beer and a healthy appetite from a long day at the Boat show at McCormick Place.  Some quick hellos and introductions that party was now in full swing.  Not long into the general conversations of what was new in everybody’s life, their annual ski trip quickly dominated my attention.  “Dude, you need to come,” blurted out and I instantly said yes.  As fast as I said yes, I remembered that I had not skied in 6 years and that was only for 1 day and last time before that was 12 years prior!  Mind you all those times I had only skied on what amounted to as a ski hill that was built on top of an old garbage dump with 100% fake snow.  I thought to myself what the heck did I get myself into?  As usual, that thought left my mind as I filed that as a future me problem.  When has that guy ever let me down? lol.

Emails got sent over and my share of the house got paid and plane tickets purchased asap, as the Ski week date was only 4 weeks away.  As a last minute addition, I was regulated to only at couch share of the ski lodge. No problem by me as it brought down my overall cost of the trip, plus we were going skiing by day and partying by night.  So sleep was less of a priority for me.

I got on the early flight with an hour layover in Denver, CO.  Met another member of the group and had a beer for breakfast (7:45 AM) as we hopped on the second leg of the flight. The three of us got to sit in a row to keep the party going.  The stewardess walked by and took our drink orders for the first round:

  1. Budlight
  2. Bloody Mary (that seemed to be missing the bloody part)
  3. MillerLite

She was pretty busy at this point in the flight so she didn’t ask for payment yet, and we had another 80 min left before we touched down in Reno, NV.  We all finished our drinks and decide that it was time for another round, but this time it was “double trouble”:

  1. (2) Budlights
  2. (2) Bloody Mary’s
  3. (2) Millerites

As the plane started on its decent, the announcement came that it was time for the tray tables to be locked into their upright position. The constant jokes about free beer started to feel like it could really happen, but to much dismay, the stewardess stopped by with her little blue credit card machine. I offered to pay cash to settle the bill, but only credit cards were accepted at 40,000 feet in the air. One swipe, two swipes, three swipes she tried as the free beer jokes really started to get funny to everybody but her. After a couple more attempts charge the card she gave up and smiled and said, “they really are free today.” As we cheered for the free beers prize, we gathered our things and packed everything away as the flight had just a few minutes till touch down. After we landed and reached our gates suddenly all that free beer was not feeling so great burning a hole in my bladder.

There is nothing more infuriating than watching people deplane in what seems to be the most inefficient way possible, as you have to go pee. By mere seconds I made it to the bathroom with my row mates as I’m sure they were all in the same boat I was. After the most reliving bathroom break of all time, we met up with another member of the group and got in line at the Squaw Valley mountain resort desk underneath a big sign stating free lift ticket with a same-day boarding pass #freestuff.com

We all got our free lift tickets and walked over to the baggage carousel to pick up our bags and Skis/Snowboards and headed out to load up the rental truck.  It was a short drive to Sqaw with fast food pit stop at Subway along the way.  It was super impressive to see the sheer physical size of the mountain I was about to ski down.  I suddenly felt unprepared as I saw how steep all the runs looked from the parking lot.  I made my way over to the ski rental house and filed out the death wavier and lied out my ass at how experienced I am as a skier and signed up for the Demo Ski Package.  If was gonna tumble down this hill I was going to do it in style.

I somehow made it on to the chairlift with zero problems,  then halfway through the seemingly endless chairlift, I realize that I cannot remember how to get off a chairlift.  As the top of the mountain inches closer and closer my anxiety rises higher and higher. When the moment comes to exit the chair I just ride the mini hill down to the snowboarder’s benches.  “how anticlimactic” I said to myself, then the boarders got all strapped in and we shuffled over to the edge of the world.

I starred down the mountain and glanced over to see the sign that had a single black diamond. Fuck, my first time skiing in 12 years and first time ever on a real mountain and it’s a Black freaking diamond.  There’s only one thing to do #sendit  Sending it only last about 5 seconds, and half of that was the time it took for me hit the ground.  Wasn’t a bad fall, just a washout.  The snow was very icy, not like all the Instagram clips I had seen in the past of the everybody skiing in 2-5 feet of powder having the time of their life.  I was 95% up against a full ice sheet under complete shade.  Took me a few minutes to pop back up on my skis, but I kept slipping before I could get my center of gravity above my feet. I finally was able to stand up, turned my tips and started to slide down the hill faster and faster. I realized I now had to turn before I was going to start flailing out of control down the icy mountain face.  One small turn right, another quick turn left with an immediate longer right turn, speed was still increasing. Time to get the skis perpendicular and get the speed in control. Nope, catch an edge make a complete tumble and start sliding down the hill on my back with my skis swings in the air.  As I’m now effectively sledding down the hill on my back I’m actually making some pretty good progress down the hill lol. After what feels like 200 feet, I swing my feet downhill and effortlessly pop up with my skis pointing downhill with only a quarter left of the run.  I speed my way down, no way I’m attempting to turn again.  Somehow make it all the way to the chairlift line where my three buddies have been watching my exhibition of how NOT to ski.

The rest of the day (3.5 hours, 11 runs)  my skiing improves and I’m able to keep a good pace with the group.  No worries, I still fell multiple times, but after I shot through all my nerves in the first run there was nothing for me to freak out about.  It took me 2 more runs before I started to feel athletic with my skis on.  I use the word athletic loosely here because nothing I did proactively looked good, but only how I reacted and saved myself from falling the 100 times in the later runs is where the “athleticism”  comes in to play.

Battle wounds from that day were my lower back getting cheese grated by the ice when I was sliding down the hill on my back.

Hat tip to my winter jacket.  I’ve had it for 12 years and took all the abuse I could give it and never ripped, tore or disappointed.  #Northface

 

Part 2: The “Jet 2 life” is upcoming and will summarize the next part of the trip.