I have hit a wall.  It has been a full week since I have been able to make it to either CrossFit or yoga.  I have made a few feeble attempts at some hike/runs around the valley, but it is piddling in comparison to my grandiose goals with my fitness recovery.

In the meantime, I have found myself fully embracing my perceived status as a commercial rafting bus shuttle driver.  I have sold out.  I feel empty and hollow inside, even as I finally gather more hours of employed time than any other week so far this summer.  Somehow I feel as though there is more that I could do, but the the persons in charge don’t offer any respectable way to discuss the issue.

That being the case, my brain runs wild with ideas of how to escape this repression, and all the while, my physical fitness motivation has been shot dead.  I’m not sure what to do, or even what the next step is, but I worry that I have already compromised too much.

We Japanese Americans have spent much of our history holding our tongues and fearing for the consequences of standing out from the crowd and not playing by ‘their’ rules.  What I’d never have expected, is that I’d finally come to this realization through my position as a raft guide.

Oh, excuse me…commercial rafting bus shuttle driver.  Check ya later…oh, and stay beautiful.

It’s been a few days since I’ve been able to get into the gym, or yoga hot room for that matter.  In the mean time, I’ve found myself spending quality time with good friends, and of course, my girlfriend.  I’ve even been fairly good at motivating myself to run up some short trails near Snowmass and Carbondale, though nothing is really quite like a muscle-busting workout with Spencer Keep or a ligament stretching yoga sesh with Kate Giampapa .

Anyway, even with a nice Sunday afternoon off, I find it difficult to stay motivated for these daily workouts.  Luckily, some stoke comes from the people that count the most: my friends.

I had a chance to meet Arly Velasquez during my trip to Mt. Hood earlier this summer as an assistant coach for the Challenge Aspen Competition Team .  Arly was attending the summer camp spectrum in a racing capacity for the NSCD out of Winter Park, CO.  When his team left Oregon, he stayed on to continue working on his skiing and racing.  He hopped in our truck and trained with us for a couple of days before we had to make our exit as well.

Check out this YouTube video Arly produced about his trip to Mt. Hood and see what I mean about his stoke.  It’s people like this that keep me motivated to get strong, stay healthy, and shred pow all over the world.

Click here to check out Arly’s Facebook page !!

From Yesterday:

I decided to take a day off of CrossFit today and went for a run instead.  It was during my job as a raft bus shuttle driver, and we were loading boats on the Lower Roaring Fork.  Once the trip, replete with guides, parents and little kids, was off and floatin’, I slapped on my running shoes and took off to the top of Mushroom Rock adjacent to Carbondale and just across thehightway from the river put-in.

Mushroom Rock is a great trail, winding its way up the red rock hills that make up part of Carbondale’s spectacular mountain scenery.  The best part is the reward once you arrive up top and can climb out onto the rock formations that are Mushroom’s namesake.  From there, a view of the entire Carbondale area and the larger part of the Roaring Fork Valley unfolds.  It is a great place to see Mt. Sopris (12,963 ft) and check out lines for next Spring’s ski touring.

A quick run down the hill and I was back at the rafting bus, ready to make the drive to Glenwood Springs where I would gas up and meet the rafters at the end of their half-day journey.

Feeling good, I decided after work to make good on a promise to my friend Kate that I would finally come in and check out her Bikram yoga studio.  This is what they call hot yoga, and whoever ‘they’ are, they definitely weren’t kidding.  I had practiced yoga stretching with Kate and a few friends before, but it was always on our raft trips down the Colorado River in Cataract Canyon.  In that natural environment, with sparkly white desert sand between our toes, it always seemed a great way to connect with our bodies and the earth.

But, here I was, in a hot room with twenty other sweaty people in tight clothes.  And it was fine.  No, better than fine, I felt like I had taken a hit of some crazy drug that lifted my mind to the ceiling!  I’m not sure if everyone feels this, or if it’ll happen again after the first few times, but wow, I think I need to go back…

Big thanks to Kate for hookin’ it up and getting this ski bum to stretch out!  Click here if you’re on Facebook, and you can see Kate and I racing home from Yoga!

Today G.R. came out to the Roaring Fork CrossFit gym to check it out, and Spencer gave us both some run throughs of the Elements moves.  We hopped in by doing a quick warm-up and then he showed us how to do some cleans, some squat presses, and some pull-ups.  Since we were early, having arrived before the normal class time, we were able to start our fitness routine without getting in the way of the rest of the folk.

Spencer worked me through the 3rd day routine.  10 minutes of as many rounds as you can with 7 reps of both burpees and cleans.  Since I’m still recovering, I had to scale down my burpees to sets of 7 pushups off a bar and 7 box jumps to go along with a 14lb medicine ball for the cleans.  I think I completed 6 1/2 rounds in the 10 minutes allotted, and had to run outside to spit the rest of my lungs out.

Needless to say, especially if you’ve read some of my recent posts, but this workout floored me once again.  I hope after a few weeks of this, that I’ll be able to say something different, but then, it probably won’t be the case if I’m really pushing myself.  Just gotta keep on it…

Last Wednesday I wrote about my first experience with CrossFit here in the Roaring Fork Valley.  It was a welcome jump back into the fitness scene after a lengthy hiatus due to bilateral shoulder injuries from this past winter.  In the days since I first met ‘Cindy’, I have found myself dealing with the fatigued muscles and soreness associated with physical activity after a long time off from any real workouts.  And boy did I pay for it.

It had been a solid two weeks of abstaining from any adult beverages or party favors, and my body was just beginning to feel like an athlete’s again.  Or so I thought.  Thursday night in Snowmass brings a free concert, thanks to the Town of Snowmass Village , and with that all the festivities we locals enjoy.  I consumed some brews and danced it out a bit at one of the local bars afterwards, but by early the next morning I was in agony.

It seems that the time I took off from using my upper extremities was maybe a bit too long, and the comeback was almost too much.  I didn’t even feel a hangover from my night of celebration, but my arms would barely bend past 30 degrees at the elbows.  The pain was intense, but I found myself on the river a couple of hours later rowing some Challenge Aspen rafters down the Lower Roaring Fork.

Anyway, it’s been a few days of nursing these sore muscle joints, and I decided to check in with the RFCrossFit guys once again.  I stopped in about halfway through the regular group’s session to watch how it all goes down and to meet the other trainers.  Spencer put me through my second day of the Elements class, and I was able to work through some of the new moves, including the dead lift, some more pushups, and some rowing.

As with all the CrossFit sessions, there was a woman’s name for the one today, but like any guy with a girlfriend, it must have slipped my mind.  Oh well, there’s always a next time…heh.