Crash and Burn

Ok, well yesterday I had the whole day off. I usually get one afternoon off a week since i work 9 hours a day with no lunch break, but since my boss is going on a caribean cruise (lucky guy) I would not be getting my half day off next week so I got the whole day off this week. I had some errands to get done in the morning, doc's appointment, eye doc appointment (for the first time in 9 years), sending off my passport renewal, ect. By the time I got home it was 11:30, so I grabbed some lunch and thought I'd start doing homework at 12:30.. then 1.. then 2.. I kept pushing it as I found better stuff to do such as cleaning the house, watching the sex and the city movie, and reading my book. When I finally sat down it was 3 pm and I sat there staring at the pages trying to read, but instead I kept thinking "what the hell am I doing," and "why am I doing this" which eventually turned in to tears. I have been crying alot lately, and I think it is just because I am so burnt out that it makes me emotional. I really do not have much time to myself, and when I am relaxing I feel guilty because I should be studying. During the week I am up at 5 am, at the gym by 5:30 then working 8-5 straight, then back at the gym for 6, dinner by 7:30-8, and bed by 8:30-9.. then repeat. It's pretty busy. By the time the weekends come, Ben and I are so exhausted and our friday nights are typically spent on the couch watching TV and then in passed out in bed by 8. When saturday comes around we still have training, skiing, and often company visiting. Cramming in time to study ensured that whenever I was home I was studying. Even if I was exhausted from my long run, or my eyes were tired from reading so much. So after talking to Ben and my mom yesterday I have decided that now is not the best time to be taking the CFA and here are the list of reasons that I have come up with:
1) Time or lack of it. As explained previously training for the ironman and working eat up alot of my time. But there is another aspect of time which is that I am cramming it into 4 months. I applied for the CFA scholarship in November, and didn't find out I got it until January, and it took another 2 weeks to get the books. That is almost 3 months of studying that I could have had. At the rate I'm going at now I would only have a week of review, when they say you should have at least a month.

2) It's a 3 year comitment. It would be one thing if I could just hang in there until June and get the test done, but it's not like that. That is only the first of three exams, which take place every June. Essentially I would be dedicating myself to another 3 years of schooling, which has felt like an endless dark tunnel with no light at the end of it.

3) Money, aparently there are alot of really good programs out there that help cut the studying time, but they are 500-1500 dollars. Considering I couldn't justify spending that to take the course I defnitely can't justify that to help me complete the course.

4) Employability, I thought that taking this course would make it easier to find a job. But with much research and job searching I have found that most analyst jobs expect you to have 3-5 years of experience, which I do not have. So I think I need to first find a job to get my foot in the door, which would also help me figure out if this is actually what I want to do. I mean I have an economics degree with distinction, I should be able to find some sort of job.

5) Isolation, just with where we are living right now it is tough. I don't know anybody who is taking the course, I dont work with anyone who has or is taking the course, I don't work in a related field. It's just me battling through the large books and formulas.

6)Then there is Ben. The poor guy has put up with 4 years of stressed out Jen trying to finish her degree and doing homework on the weekends. He deserves some attention. Not to say that he complaines, he has been so supportive through all my endeavors and I have been so lucky to have him in my life. But I want to spend my weekends with him, just enjoying our life for a while, and enjoying what maybe the last few months in revelstoke.

7) And finally, I am only 23. I don't have to do EVERYTHING right now. I have my whole life ahead of me and I will have lots of time to go back when I am ready to really commit myself to to this course.

Basically, I think the bottom line is that I am capable of doing this course right now. I mean I am not having a particularily hard time with the material, but I don't want to put the required time and effort into it. I am not willing to sacrafice my weekends, training, and happines. When I made the decision last night it felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders, and with that I knew that it was the right decision. I just have to accept that perhaps I'm not superwomen, and maybe I can't do it all right now. So here's to focusing on training, and time with my champ and our adventures.

-Jen

Reminiscing

So training last week started slow, but in the end we got through it; we even got our weekend workouts in! We attempted to ski on saterday morning but the snow at the hill was nothing compared to our epic day last saterday, and the top had 50+ km winds, so we took one run down from the top back to the parking lot, headed home, and hit the gym for our long bike. We got the darn thing in, but it was tough. The gym is so hot, even with our heart rates only at 75% we were dripping with sweat, and we didn't have music. So we decided that it was about time we purchase 2 new ipod shuffles (hopefully these ones last a while :s). SO we left revelstoke and headed to vernon, where we spent the afternoon doing errands and getting out of snowed in revelstoke. On Sunday, we got up and did our long run outside with music. It was awesome. Then I hunkered down and did some work on my CFA course while ben lounged, and that was the extent of our weekend!

The CFA course is coming along. I have already read over 1800 pages and writen over 60 pages of notes. I have no idea how I am going to remember everything, but I think practice problems will be the key. I have been making sure I do all the questions at the back of the book, and I have found an online question bank that I have also been using. I am a little bit freaked out though because only 30% of people passed this test in December. But I am going to do my best and that's all I can do.

Last night, while laying in bed trying to fall asleep despite the time change, I started to go through all of our old photos, and I couldn't stop smiling.It's pretty crazy, in nearly 4 years we have gone on some pretty amazing adventures and racked up some pretty cool pictures. So I thought I'd do a top ten of my favorites. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, until it got down to only choosing 10 because they are all so awesome! Anways, here are a few that I picked out:

Number 10:

This picture was taken this past summer (2010) when we climbed up Mt. Begbie and camped just under the glacier.

Number 9:

This picture was taken the first summer we were together (2007) and it was our first time in Fernie. This was on the top of Mt. Fernie. The view wasn't great because of the smoke from BC forest fires.

Number 8:

This picture was taken out in kananaskis by Black Diamond in 2008. We eyed a cool hill and decided that we wanted to camp on top of it. It was cool because that night we could see the city lights in the distance

Number 7:

This picture was taken while snowshoeing up Mt. Revelstoke a couple of weeks ago. It was so beautiful and peaceful.

Number 6:

This picture was just taken this past new years day (2011). This was climbing up the sub peak on the ski hill with an inversion in the background.

Number 5:

This picture was taken during a 3 day backpacking trip of North Over ridge in 2009. This is in the morning after our first night.

Number 4:

This was on the same 3 day trip in 2009, this is the view from on top of the ridge!

Number 3:

This was on top of Mount Temple in 2007. I was pretty excited!

Number 2:

Ben on top of Mt. Temple. Pretty amazing.

Number 1:

Sunrise while camping on top of Mt. Proctor in Fernie in 2007. Wow.

The song that came into my head while I was looking through all these pictures was "I still do" by Paul brandt. So this is to my champ, my other half :

It's in the way you move me
The way you look right through me
Still brings me down to my knees
Every time you smile
And after all this time love
It's still hard to get enough
From the very first time I thought you were the one
Who'd make all of my dreams come true

I still do
I'm still amazed every time that we kiss
I still do
I'm never gonna stop feeling like this
Like the first time that I fell for you
I still do

They all might say we're crazy
Sometimes I think we may be
When I think about the way we
Live like life's a dare
I'd lay my life down for you
I'd do anything to prove it's true

--Jen

Powder Saturdays

This has been an incredible snow year for the BC Interior. El Nina has treated the snowlovers well. Up here in Revelstoke, the average snowpack of 40 -60 feet is quite apparent. I can honestly say ive never seen so much snow in my life. It has been a great year, and there might still be some decent snowfalls to come.
Yesterday was no exception. The funniest thing about Revelstoke hill skiing is that the snowreports are always undervalued/under reported. They claimed to have 14 cms overnight, but we were being blasted with cold smoke facials all day. There must have been closer to 34 cms, but who cares about numbers when we skied lap after lap of quality snow, at a very uncrowded hill, on the weekend!

The temps were about -5 at the top and 0 at the bottom, and we skied straight to 1:30, instead of stopping for lunch and then going back because we would have gotten cold and wet and we were having a blast.

Even the last runs were blower and we love the Volkls skis were on. With a 194 length, mine ski like 180's due to the rocker and they carve groomers like i couldnt beleive, and jens game has been on point with her burly kikus 178.

We spent the day skiing the north facing aspects and we keep discovering more and more terrain here! there is what seems like endless tree skiing on some serious pitches. pillows everywhere, and little and big cliff bands all over the hill

Because the visibility was much better in the trees, we spend most of our day on the ripper side/ lower north bowl area, but found some honey pots with a little work hiking

after the day of skiing, we hit the spin bikes and much needed stretch, but hopefully we can get just a few more days like this. its great to spend our saturdays skiing diamond dust, even though were supposed to be getting prepped for the race season in the summer, but i figure there's plenty of time for that later. lol.

6 months out

So last sunday officially marked the 6 month mark until Ironman Canada. It's hard to believe that 3 months have already past. It has definitely been tough, but we are doing the best that we can. We are now just focusing on getting the next workout down. Last weekend was the first weekend in a while that we either weren't headed to calgary for doctors appointments or people weren't coming to visit. So we were kind of excited to have an old fashioned "champ weekend." Since we haven't had any snow in the last 2 weeks, on Saturday Ben and I decided to go snowshoeing up the Summit Trail, which is a 10 km trail up Mt. Revelstoke, instead of skiing. I figured it was a nice alternative to running on the treadmill for 2 hours (which it painfully boring at the best of times but even more so now that we have both lost our ipod shuffles.. again.) We went about 6 kms up.. and I mean up.. there is no flat parts on this trail. Then we had a quick break and came back down. It was gorgeous! there was so much snow! We were on top of well over 5 feet of snow, if not more. We didn't see a soul. SO peaceful. When we got home we were pretty tired, had a nap, relaxed, grocery shopped, amde dinner (and froze the left overs), rented a movie and just hung out the two of us. It was awesome. Sunday we were disappointed to not wake up to any new snow, since there was some in the forcast. So instead of skiing we decided to try and get an olympic distance triathlon in to celebrate the 6 month mark. Well, it was alot more then we were supposed to do that day. We got through the biking, and most of the running, but never made it to the pool. We were pretty tired and hungry. The gym doesn't open until 10am here on the weekends, so after running and biking it was after tweleve and our bodies were wanting to eat. So we headed home, I worked on the CFA course, and ben lounged. We finished it all off with a yummy dinner, froze the left overs for dinner that week, and then I made pate chinois (french sheperds pie) for another dinner. So by Sunday night we were organized for the week with our dinners made and frozen and were all set to train and hit all the workouts.

Then monday come, and we hit the pool like we were supposed to. Then we had a solid ran tuesday morning, but then things took a turn. When we showed up at the gym tuesday night all the spin bikes were taken. So we left and decided to post pone the workout until friday, no big deal. You have to be a little bit flexible. We ate dinner and relaxed. It was funny because last night when 7:30 came around and I "thought OMG we would JUST be getting home from the gym.. that's crazy!" This morning we dragged our butts to the gym, and it wasn't open. This happens about once a week, and is SO SO frustrating. You drag your butt to the gym for 5:30 am, and the girl who was supposed to open decides that she wants to sleep in. Don't they think that maybe I'd want to sleep in? Anyways, we waited until 5:45, watching the precious minutes that we have tick away, and decided to drive home. So, we had to miss ANOTHER workout. But we are focused on getting every workout in so we have just adjusted our schedule so that now we're doing the bike we were supposed to do yesterday today, then moving the workouts from today to friday. Friday is supposed to be our day off, but it has turned into more of a flex day, where if we miss something during the week we can make it up then. Here's to only another 6 months of this!

Fightin the Flu

After Ben's epic day cat skiing, he came down with the flu. The flu has been going around town and I dont think I have ever seen Ben that sick. Ben is not the type of person to lay around and not feel like doing anything all day. Infact, come 9am on a saterday morning he is bored and needing something to do. But from Sunday through Friday he laid in bed and slept pretty much the entire time. He was one sick guy. Somehow, I have not managed to catch the flu yet (knock on wood), so I continued training and working last week. I skipped a couple workouts when I started feeling run down and I was worried I'd come down with the flu, and in the end I only hit 7 out of the 9 workouts, but that would have to do. Infact, last Wednesday I just couldn't get my butt out of bed, and I knew I had an early day at work (it was my afternoon off) so I decided to do both workouts back to back. Well it was rough, going straight from biking for an hour to swimming for an hour from 5-7 in the evening was tough. But it was my punishment for sleeping in, and it definitely motivated me to get up early so i don't have to do that again.

The CFA course is coming along. There are 6 books to get through, and I am already near the end of the second one. Which is good, because the first two books were on statistics and economics which should be more of a review for me anyways. So i'll have 3 months to get through the other 4 books and get a solid review in. My employer has been awesome, and I am able to work on the course during downtime at work, as well as having one afternoon off a week and on the weekends. So I am finding I definitely have 15 hours to squeeze in a week, even though I dont really have much time for anything else.

Other than work, training, and the CFA course, we had some visitors over the last couple weeks. Ben's mom and bill came out 3 weeks ago, which was awesome. They loved skiing revelstoke, and we had a great visit. Then my little brother and his girlfriend came out last weekend which was fun. Although a little bit of an adventure since my brother's girlfriend got stuck TWICE on her way out here and spent the night in a grey hound bus depot. It took her a total of 24 hours to take the bus here from Vancouver and until she got here on Saterday Evening we weren't sure she was going to make it. We had had a TON of snow, and it warmed up which was the perfect storm for avalanches and the highway was open and closed all wekeend. Then last weekend my dad came out. It was fun skiing with him. It was a blue bird sunny day (which is unusual here) and the snow was soft, the three of us had a great time. Then we went to the "revy stomp" which was a country and western dance and silent auction. . Ben went home early because he wasn't feeling good, so Dad and I had a little date nigh. It was alot of fun. We two stepped the night away, and I tried to teach dad the cadillac ranch line dance. Needless to say the last month has been busy. We're looking forward to this coming weekend since we do not have any one coming and we're not going anywhere so we'll have some quality champ time.. It is my newphews 1st birthday in calgary, but we have decided not to go so that we can really focus on our training, and I can get a bunch of school work done.
anyways thats all for now!

Cat Skiing in the Monashees (Revelstoke Mountain Resort)

For my birthday, i got the sick gift of a day of cat skiing in the backcountry of Revelstoke. I had been twice before, but both times had been early season in another mountain range and because this was already a riddiculously deep winter, this was sure to promise some sweet turns. I found out on friday that I would be skiing on Saturday (a gift from champ, kim and murray), and as the snow fell and the snowfall advisory increased, it was looking like it was going to be a sick day of pow! i knew that it could possibly be the best snow I have ever skied and as surfers in hawaii are always searching for the 'ultimate ride', I have been searching for the 'ultimate run'. For those not familiar with cat skiing, it is like going heli skiing for half of the price, and you can ski in virtually any condition (you are not shut down due to heavy snowfall, wind, or anything else, and will probably end up skiing some steep trees). instead of flying to your destination in a helicopter, you ride up a road in groomer that has a 12 person cab in the back. On average, you get between 7-9 runs during the day, and although you might not be skiing waist deep powder, most operations will guarantee that you are skiing fresh, untracked lines. I had a very hard time falling asleep on friday night, knowing that the snow was coming down hard and that tommorow could be epic.............I met at guest services at the resort for 8:00 AM, and already the lift for the gondola was past the parking lot. no worries for us though, as we proceeded to cut into the front of the line up at the resort which was hillariuos, because we got pelted with snowballs from some of the suckers who had to ski in bounds hahaha. we got off the normal chair i ski and the guide told us to ski to the boundary line, duck under it and ski to to the road where the cat would be waiting to take us to 'disneyland'. it was a good group of pretty fast skiers which included 3 freeheelers, including me and after a brief safety schpeil we were ready to shred some turns. We ended up getting 8 runs overall, and after 2 people dropped out after the first run, we were on top of some nice steep ridges, and skied some deep powder for the next few. On the 3rd run, I was getting out of the cat, and could only find one of my skis. The driver said that our guide had placed it on the snow, and it had taken off. lol. Fortunately, it only slid about 100 feet and landed in a tree well, so i skied down to meet it and the guide, and was relieved that I didnt have to ski the day on 1 ski (especially telemarking lol). We ate snacks, and lunch in the cat during the rides up, and didnt stop so that we could maximize our skiing time. The morning was fantastic, and by the end of the 5th run, we looked up at this ridge laden with pillows, cliffs (small ones), and deeeep snow. the guide said, "benny boy, were going to take you up there so you can play in that".......besides permanantely smiling all day, i couldnt help but chuckle about the videogame-like fun I was about to have. we sacked up, drove up the steep ridge, and were instructed where/how to ski this ridge by the guide who quickly descended to the bottom so he could watch us all. I was the first one to drop in and the first turn was blowing up all over. I launched a nice pillow, landed in pure powder, and proceeded to hit 2 consecutive drops further down the run. Its official name was "short but sweet", but it did not dissapoint whatsoever. i was elated. i was "in the zone" as the guide said, because I was cheering, and hollering the whole way down. The next 2 runs were just the same. pure pleasure. North facing slopes that had loaded up from the wind over the ridges provided us with some epic conditions. The last run was taken all the way back to the resort, and 'back to reality', meaning the conditions were a little bit different after hundreds of people had thrashed it. lol. i chose to ski some secret stash trees that i know, while the rest of the crew took the groomer back. We finished the day with appys, and beers at the rockford bar, and talked about how fun our day was and how lucky I was to have skied it. I have been waiting for 3 years for a day like that. Jen and I have had a fantastic year of skiing so far, and the inbounds terrain at the resort is unreal. Im so lucky to have been able to get out and ski the kind of terrain that you see in the ski movies. I cant thank these wonderful people enough.

--Ben

I want to do it all... hopefully that's not my downfall

So, last friday we did not end up going swimming after all. But Saterday, despite 20cms overnight, I got my butt to the gym. We weren't expecting any snow, so I hadn't planned on skiing and ben and I were both going to get both these weekend workouts in. Well, when ben woke up to 20cms fresh on the ski hill it was a no brainer, he was heading to the hill. I, on the other hand, was not feeling great and had it in my head that I was training. So i dropped ben off at the hill and headed to the gym for 2 1/2 hours of biking and running. It was a great workout! I got the entire thing in and was feeling strong. After, I picked ben up, we were pretty burnt out and so we had a relaxing evening at home. Then in the middle of the night I woke up to a screaming headache radiating from my ear. I had had an ear ache all week, but I didn't really think much of it. Well, I think my ear was finally telling me to get it checked out. Turns out I had an ear infection that spread to my sinus'.. ouch. So they loaded me up on pain medication and antibiotics and I proceeded to sleep for the most part of sunday. That is until I decided that I should get my run in at around 3pm. I was feeling guilty cause I had missed the majority of my workouts last week and I was determined not to miss anymore.. So mom if you're reading this, I am sorry. I did go to the gym for a run on the treadmill, against your strict instructions to use all my energy to get better. And guess what.. you were right I felt worse after. Monday I was not feeling well at all and so i listened to my mom's advice.. maybe just a day too late.. I missed work, skipped training, planted myself in my -12 down sleeping bag on the couch and watched the entire first season of greys anatomy inbetween being passed out... mm.

Other than training, I got some really great news. Since graduating I have been trying to figure out what career path I want to take. Although my job is fine, it's definitely not a career path. So, after doing some research I decided that I want to get my my Chartered Financial Analyst. Which involves 3 exams, and self study at home. I was keen start the course except it costs a fair chunk of change. That's when I discovered a scholarship that pays for all of it except for the books! Well I thought I'd throw my name in, and if I didn't get the scholarship then I would just wait another year. That was back in December, and last friday I found out that I was selected to recieve the scholarship and that the exam is in June! Well I was ectastic! I enrolled, paid for my books and was keen to start as soon as possible!Then realization set in and I thought.. hmm.. I already dont have very much time with training, working full time, and trying to get some skiing in. How am I going to find the 250 hours that they estimate are needed to study for this exam in the next 4 months. That's 15-20 hours a week! Luckily I have an awesome employer who is willing to give me one afternoon off a week to study, and I'll set at least one full day on the weekend to planting myself at my desk and studying. If that's not enough time, I'll dedicate both weekend days to studying. I mean come march skiing will be over and with all the snow on the ground there won't be much to distract me.

The other thing I realized after I signed up for the course, is that the exam in June is on June 4th in Kelowna. Well, I have the Oliver Half Ironman on June 5th! Luckily this is not my big target race. It is a race I was supposed to do last year, but wound up breaking my foot 2 weeks before and was able to transfer my regisration to the following year. I guess it'll just be a good way to blow off some steam after the big exam.

So the CFA scholarship was a blessing and I am so thankful to have been selected as a recipient. However, it may also have been a curse since my hectic life may have just gotten even more so. So like the title of this post, I want to do it all.. but hopefully that's not my downfall and I don't end up burnt out or crazy come June.