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Guinness turns 21!

Posted on 19. Jul, 2009 by Derrick.

21 dog years today(3 years human). Our little pup was born. Guinness has been nothing but a pain in the ass for those 3 years, but we love him anyways.

I love when he waits for me to open my eyes in the morning, then pounces when he sees just the slightest bit of white in my eyes. The little shit lands on my boys every time. I love when I ask him if he wants to go on a hike he grabs any old sock he can find and prances around the house. I love that he goes to bed at 6pm every night. I love that he is a “princes and the pea” and hoards all the pillows. I especially love when, no mater what, he loves me.

Summer loves our dog so much that we have “birthday” parties for our dog. This year she even baked him a special birthday cake. His 3 favorite things, bacon, carrots, and peanut butter cake. With a peanut butter yogurt frosting.

Yum Yum!

We then headed over to Stanley lake after cake. Guinness’ favorite thing next to snow and Frisbee is water and Frisbee.

Guinness was so happy that he refused to leave. Even threw a temper tantrum when we left.

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Week in review.

Posted on 19. Jul, 2009 by Derrick.

This past week has been action packed. So much so, that I didn’t have time to post any of this weeks events. So I’ll just do a day by day break down.

Saturday July 11th. Summer, Hyon, Theresa, and I had a road ride planned. The girls bailed, so the boys decided to do some mountainbiking. Not that I don’t love riding with Summer, but when its just the boys we have a tendency to go lickety split. Hyon took me to a place called Apex.

The trail in its self was difficult and challenging with multiple bike-n-hike areas. It was about 8 miles total with roughly 2200 feet in elevation gain.

At this point we were about 3/4ths of the way up (Hyon kept saying that at least)

On our way down we hit the Enchanted forest. An amazing decline, lots of roots and little hazards that made the ride just a tad more fun!

Saturday, July 12th. Summer and I rode 26  miles down the Platt river and back. We spent a good portion of that time chilling at a splash pool in littleton watch kids play.

Monday, July 13th. I took my mom out to the Westminster Open space. Guinness’ favorite place of all time. Mom was laughing at Guin and his antics in the water. Later that week we found out that they closed the Open space due to the plague.

Environmental Health Services submitted flea specimens to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment for testing on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 and received results back this morning. The area is being closed to the public and posted with plague warnings signs today.

Dr. Jim Dale, DVM, MPH, Director of Environmental Health Services said, “There have been no reported human cases of plague in the area and if precautions are taken the disease is not considered to be a threat to humans.”

Apparently all the little prairie dogs are extremely susceptible to plague. It was odd because Summer and I were lamenting before the press release that we hadn’t seen any little faces around open space. We thought it was simply due to the grass being to high in areas. Its a good thing that our dog has given up on trying to catch those little guys.

Tuesdays, July 14th. Mom and I swung by my little gym and I swam 2000 meters. It was a good session, and the Total Immersion training is paying off. I can easily swim the 750 meters required for my triathlon. We then headed downtown so we can buy her a new rain jacket at REI. Then sat and shot the shit for a couple of hours while she was amazed at how many people used the bike paths in downtown Denver.

Wednesday, July 15th. Since my mother is visiting form Germany, I loaned her my car. I normally commute on my bike anyways. So I hit the road and had a uneventful commute into work. Most of my co-workers seemed concerned about it being in the mid 80′s, but I have been used to riding in the 110 degree heat of Phoenix.

I got a call from Hyon at about 7:40pm asking if I wanted to go do lookout mountain. I knew that I was going to have to ride again on Thursday and Friday, but I could never turn down an evening ride.

So decked out in my commuter gear (ie T-shirt and running shorts) We hit the bottom of the ride at about 9:30pm. It was a nice cool 70 degrees, and the darkness hid the hill climb. My legs were still a little sore from our ride just a couple of days ago, but I put my head down and we made it up in about 40 minutes. Respectible time but we decided to push it to the tippy top and ride another mile.

Bombing down the mountain with just some bike lights was fun. My heavy ass steel touring bike with 28mm wheels tends to handle the descent better then a normal road bike. So I had to slow down a bit for Hyon.

Thursday, July 16. Commuting only! Just good ol fashioned bike commuting.

Friday, July 17. I thought that since I had not swam since Tuesday, I would hit the gym after work. So I packed my panniers with my swim gear and headed off to work. After work I rode over to the gym and figured I would get another 2000 meters in. This time I wanted to see how fast I could get my first 750 meters done. 22 minutes! When we started this Tri-training, I was well over 30 minutes. My goal is to be in the 18 minute range before the tri.

So in review, the past week I;

• Swam 4000 meters
• Hiked 5 miles
• 67 miles of road riding.
• 10 miles of mountain biking.
• Rode just under a mile of elevation (5000 feet)

I think somewhere in there I worked. I’ll have to say though. With all that I did, my legs feel great. I’m looking forward to running 4 miles on Monday

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Gregory Canyon Trail

Posted on 27. Jun, 2009 by Derrick.

A while ago, Annika and I tried Gregory Canyon Trail. At the time I had just move to Colorado and was out of shape from the horrendous Arizona summer. In our brilliance we ate lunch right before we started to hike, and we both almost threw up.

Not letting the mountain get me down. I decided to tackle the trail again. Summer and I found a easy way to get over there without paying for their parking. We simply parked at Chautauqua and walked about a mile up baseline trail.

It was a warm day and luckily found a couple spots to get the dog wet at.

Once we got to the top we broke out the hammock and chilled for a couple of hours. Though Summer was making it difficult to read my book. She likes to talk (annoy) to me.

I finally got summer and Guinness to occupy themselves

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Guinness is on the snide

Posted on 13. Jun, 2009 by Derrick.

Yesterday we went to open space for some mountainbiking but before we went, Guinness drank two bowls of water. Somehow that gave him massive diarrhea. We have no idea what happened but last night our dog woke up every 2 hours wanting to go out. We didn’t get much sleep.

In the morning Guinn ended up having a little bit of blood in his liquid poop. So we have decided to take it easy this weekend and do some spring cleaning.

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Last call for alcohol

Posted on 10. Jun, 2009 by Derrick.

Last Sunday was the absolutely last day of Skiing/Snowboarding this year. We were hoping for atleast one good sunny sping ski day and today would have been no different than the previous 3 months. Once again it was gloomy and a chance of thunder showers.

To chear our mood up. We all decided to dress up for the last day of the year. Annika was a super hero. Kit, ze german raver. Soren, the camera guy. Summer, little Bo Peep and I just wore yeti pants.

All in total, Summer was able to get 12 days in this year. Even after taking December, January, and February off. I was able to get 15 days more and for the first time in 10 years made it more than 5 times in one season. Living in the AZ doesn’t leave you with to many ski days.

Just to prove that we didn’t waste a day on just Snowboarding. We took Guinness Mountainbiking, and  tried a trail from Bakerville to Loveland pass. It was moderate but at about mile 3 it started to snow??

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Biking the open space….

Posted on 23. May, 2009 by Derrick.

Our dog Guinness cant spell, and for a good reason. Words like Dog park, Open Space, Swimming, Hiking and Walk immediately turns our dog into a world wind of combustible energy.

When he sees us get our hiking gear on, we don’t even need to say a word. He immediately grabs a toy and starts parading around the house like a spoiled single child on a caffeine high.

Because Summer’s leg was a little dinged up we decided to bring the mountain bikes and ride our usual path at open space. Guinness did not find this amusing. As a mater of fact, or dog flat our sulked when we brought out the bikes. He has never in his short life gone with use riding, and for reasons unknown to me or Summer our dog is scared to hell of all of our bikes.

Our dog refuses to ride anywhere but right in the middle.

A little rest after some incline never hurts

Guinness originaly had some issues with riding with us. But then he found the downhills. Our dog was like the bionic man bounding down the declines. I wasn’t taking it easy either. I geared down and was rippin it down hill. Guinness turned on the boosters and flat out wheeled. He dug deep and channeled his inner greyhound. To reward him, we let him swim for a bit.

I had to take a break from all that stick huckin.

Hopefully we can come back, but Jefferson County requires a dog license. We have already spent $60 on dog tags with our new numbers, and open space dog tags for boulder county. We may not go back to open space for a couple more weeks till I pay the $15 to “license” my dog.

- D

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